So you have everyone in the world reduced to two people. Much like Paul in Romans 5:1–21, when he reduced the whole of humanity to two men, Adam and Jesus Christ. Well, here it is made simple. The Lord is saying, here is the righteous (Habakkuk 2:4)and then if we pick up the note in Habakkuk 2:5, here is the restless, here is the arrogant man who never rests. Now what sort of folks are these? Who are the righteous, by the way? Well, the righteous is not someone who has a certain standard of goodness. Someone who think they can goody up to and achieve it. The righteous, if you look at Psalm 32:1–11, are those who are forgiven. The righteous are those who are acquitted of their guilt. The righteous are those who in last of Psalm 32:1–11, trust in Yahweh. Or in Psalm 34:1–22, the righteous are those who take refuge in Yahweh. That is the righteous.
Now what about restless? Well, that represents in this case the Chaldeans or the Babylonian. But you can be a Christian and be a Chaldean. He is an arrogant man, he never rests. You see, he never rests in the sense that he is never satisfied; he is never content. He gathers all nations as his own. He has to dominate the world, but he is never at rest. He has no abiding; he has no real security...You might say there are two people in the universe, namely the righteous and the restless! And to which group do you belong? You have the opportunity to belong to the righteous, if you want to go through what they may have to go through.1
Ralph Davis
4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.