Habakkuk 3:1

(Chapter 3, Verse 1) Lord, I have heard your message, and I am afraid: Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. LXX: Lord, I have heard your message, and I am afraid: Lord, I have considered your works, and I am amazed in the midst of two animals you are known. For that which we have translated as 'revive your work,' Symmachus has interpreted as 'revivify your work.' But what the Seventy have said, 'I have considered and I am amazed,' is not found in Hebrew, nor in any other Interpreter, so by removing those things which are not found in Hebrew, it can be read according to the Seventy: Lord, you are known for your works in the midst of two animals: because this seemed incomprehensible, the preceding words are connected. But we read in Hebrew Adonai, that is, Lord, Phalach, your work, Bacereb, in the midst, Sanim, of years, Heieu, make it alive. This is done so that we may clearly recognize the additions that have been made in the Septuagint. The Hebrews explain this passage according to the story: Lord, I have heard your message and I am afraid. I have heard, it says, the punishments that you have prepared for Nebuchadnezzar and the devil, in which you said to him: Woe to him who multiplies not his own (Above, II, 6). And secondly: Woe to him who gathers evil greed to his house (Verse 9). And thirdly: Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed, and establishes a town with iniquity (Verse 12). And fourthly: Woe to him who gives his friend drink, pouring out his gall and making him drunk. And fifthly: Woe to him who says to wood, Awake; to silent stone, Arise. And as I am filled with fear, that the great dragon must be wounded by so many blows, so I pray, Lord, that you fulfill what you have promised, and at the end of time, give us your Christ. For you have said, that it will still be seen from afar and will appear at the end, and it will not lie. […]

He calls it his own prayer, not because he used it himself privately, or composed it for himself, but that the prayer might have some authority among the people; for they knew that a form of prayer dictated for them by the mouth of a Prophet, was the same as though the Spirit itself was to show them how they were to pray to God.

A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth. Of the name, character, and office of the prophet; see Gill on Hab 1:1. This chapter is entitled a "prayer" of his, a supplicatory one, put up in an humble and earnest manner, and in the exercise of faith, and under the influence of a spirit of prophecy.

A prayer of Habakkuk - o. The “prayer” of the prophet, in the strictest sense of the word, is contained in the words of Hab 3:2. The rest is, in its form, praise and thanksgiving, chiefly for God’s past mercies in the deliverance from Egypt and the entering into the promised land. But thanksgiving is an essential part of prayer, and Hannah is said to have “prayed,” whereas the hymn which followed is throughout one thanksgiving .

More simply, from a Hebrew root to "err," "on account of sins of ignorance." Habakkuk thus teaches his countrymen to confess not only their more grievous sins, but also their errors and negligences, into which they were especially likely to fall when in exile away from the Holy Land [CALVIN].