Habakkuk 3:15

"Thou didst tread the sea with thy horses, The heap of mighty waters."

"The imagery here is taken from Exodus 1-19."[33] In this whole passage (Habakkuk 3:3-15), the backdrop against which all of it is written is God's dealings with Israel in the Exodus, as has been repeatedly emphasized above. Habakkuk's reason for calling all of these things to remembrance is to inspire hope on the part of the people that God will again appear for the delivery of his people as in the days of the Exodus. In fact, this whole prayer is precisely for the purpose of pleading with Almighty God to do that very thing. What a pity it was that the sins and rebellion of Israel had at that point in time made it impossible for God, in consistency with his holiness, to do it. Nothing could preserve the hope of all men, finally to be achieved in the Seed (singular) of Abraham, except the destruction and enslavement of the apostate Israelites. When the terrible news of just how bad it was with Israel was revealed to Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3:16), he was reduced to a near-state of collapse.

The figure in this verse of God's treading upon the sea and the mighty waters are merely appropriate, poetic devices for praising God's mighty deliverance of the Israel of old.