Habakkuk 1
January 14
Reading: Habakkuk 1
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you "Violence!"
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
5 "Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
7 They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
9 They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
10 At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!"
12 Are you not from everlasting,
O LORD my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
15 He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,
and his food is rich.
17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?
The prophet Habakkuk ministered to Judah just after the days of Nahum and the reign of the good king Josiah. The kingdom of Israel had been eradicated by Assyria, and the kings of Judah were failing. Assyria was already beginning to decay and Babylon was beginning to rise.
An oracle (vs. 1) is a statement from God through His prophet to His people. Habakkuk’s oracle is presented in the form of a conversation between the prophet and the Lord. It has an important overall structure.
1:1-4 Question: Lord, why are your people so evil and You do nothing?
1:5-11 Answer: I am doing something. I’m raising up the Chaldeans to destroy them.
1:12-2:1 Question: But, Lord, Why? The Chaldeans are even worse than we are.
2:2-20 Answer: Yes, and I am going to judge them as well. They will get theirs.
3:1-19 Resignation: Alright Lord. I fear You who knows all things. Your plan is best.
It is in chapter 1 that Habakkuk asks his questions of God, questions about the justice and righteousness of God. Essentially the two questions asked are of the same nature. “God, how can you tolerate evil?” It is a struggle that people puzzle over even today. Even people who do not believe in God will raise the question to impugn the possibility of God.
In verse 5, the Lord begins His answer to the first question about the evil committed by God’s own people. It is an astounding response. What the Lord is doing, we would not believe, even if God told us all about it. He is not tolerant of evil. He is patient with evil people. But eventually, He will judge them. Here He is going to use the Babylonians to do it, their ferocity, their military might, their violence, their irreverence.
Do you think of God’s patience as tolerance? Think again.