HABAKKUK
The name Habakkuk literally means “He who embraces a wrestler”, the meaning referring to a wrestler grappling an opponent. In this book Habakkuk figuratively wrestles with God with questions concerning what the prophet saw in Judah and God’s seeming lack of action against the wicked.
HABAKKUK 1:1-4
1 The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” and You will not save.
3 Why do You show me iniquity, and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; there is strife, and contention arises.
4 Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore perverse judgment proceeds.
Habakkuk has been called “The Questioning Prophet” due to his questions to God. Little is known about him or when he lived, but scholars feel he may have lived around 600 B.C., just before the first attack by king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon against Judah in 598 B.C.
He questions God’s seeming silence in the face of violence and lawlessness in Judah, with crooked judges ruling in favor of the wicked and the righteous being violently persecuted.
HABAKKUK 1:5-11
5 “Look among the nations and watch— be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you.
6 For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.
7 They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.
8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; their cavalry comes from afar; they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.
9 “They all come for violence; their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand.
10 They scoff at kings, and princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, for they heap up earthen mounds and seize it.
11 Then his mind changes, and he transgresses; he commits offense, ascribing this power to his god.”
If Habakkuk had lived in the early 600's B.C. he should have known the prophecies given to Jeremiah that God would bring the Babylonians (Chaldeans) against Jerusalem. They were known for their swift, brutal ways and were feared conquerors, having recently destroyed ancient, powerful Nineveh, the capital of the dreaded Assyrian empire. This was definitely a confirmation of Jeremiah’s prophesied destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon.
They were successful in having developed heavy cavalry, with horses bred for war, carrying armored soldiers, and for heavy chariots, the “tanks” of their day. Infantry would become frightened when seeing massive horses thundering toward them, carrying heavily-armed and armored men, or seeing heavy chariots rumbling toward them carrying spear-men and archers.
Fortified cities had high, thick walls surrounding them and besieging armies would raise earthen embankments so that they could shoot arrows over the walls into the city. These embankments also prevented the inhabitants from escaping the city.
Nebuchadnezzar at first believed that his conquests were his own doing, then later attributed his successes to his god (Marduk). His biggest fault was his pride which even Scripture records;
DANIEL 4:29-30
29 At the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon.
30 The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”
The nations of the Middle East and Egypt had rejoiced when Babylon had conquered brutal, cruel Assyria, not realizing that Babylon would be as bad, if not worse than the Assyrians.
HABAKKUK 1:12-17
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction.
13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?
14 Why do You make men like fish of the sea like creeping things that have no ruler over them?
15 They take up all of them with a hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet. Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, and burn incense to their dragnet, because by them their share is sumptuous and their food plentiful.
17 Shall they therefore empty their net, and continue to slay nations without pity?
Habakkuk shows his frustration with God for seemingly remaining silent and watching while the wicked prosper at the expense of the righteous. He equates the wicked with fishermen who indiscriminately cast nets into the sea, catching men in their nets of deceit and wickedness, rejoicing in their cleverness.
Habakkuk understands that God will judge the wicked, but wonders why God is delaying His vengeance on the wicked who destroy the righteous with seeming impunity.
HABAKKUK 2:1-3
1 I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
Habakkuk, while frustrated, realizes the sovereignty of the Lord and determines to wait for an answer. God sometimes doesn’t answer or seem to act when we want as He is waiting for other events to happen before responding or doing anything. Remember, He is God and sees things not as we do.
God also says that the coming vision is to be made plainly understandable so that anyone reading the account of it can flee for his life. And the fulfillment of the vision will happen on schedule even though it may take a while to happen. God’s message: “Judgment is coming, wait for it.”
HABAKKUK 2:4-9
4 “Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.
5 “Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man, and he does not stay at home. Because he enlarges his desire as hell, and he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, he gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples.
6 “Will not all these take up a proverb against him, and a taunting riddle against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—how long? And to him who loads himself with many pledges’?
7 Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty?
8 Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you, because of men’s blood and the violence of the land and the city, and of all who dwell in it.
9 “Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of disaster!
Verse 4 is the core message of the entire book, namely that we are to live by faith, even when things don’t seem to make sense.
Pride is one of the hallmarks of the greedy. They love fine things, love to party, their consciences are calloused and no matter how much money or fine things they accumulate, it is never enough and they are never satisfied, they always seek more. Riches are like a fire, a good servant, but a bad master. And money isn’t called “cold cash” for nothing: you can love it, but it won’t love you.
God had used Babylon to destroy Assyria because of their pride, greed, cruelty and arrogance but Babylon had become like the Assyrians themselves, not learning that if they plunder and oppress others, eventually the oppressed will rise against them in turn and will plunder and destroy their oppressors.
The message was also for the unrighteous rich of Judah, that if one gains riches by perverting justice, deceit and oppression, God will raise up adversaries who will destroy them as well. Their riches will not protect them in the day of disaster. As God would later say of the Babylonians when the Medes and Persians attacked them;
ISAIAH 13:17-20
17 “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not regard silver; and as for gold, they will not delight in it.
18 Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces, and they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye will not spare children.
19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
20 It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation;
HABAKKUK 2:10-14
10 You give shameful counsel to your house, cutting off many peoples, and sin against your soul.
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the timbers will answer it.
12 “Woe to him who builds a town with bloodshed, who establishes a city by iniquity!
13 Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the peoples labor to feed the fire, and nations weary themselves in vain?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
It was customary that conquerors after destroying a city would carry its inhabitants into captivity to enrich their own culture, then would rebuild the conquered city and populate it with the conquerors’s own people. After king Sargon II of Assyria had destroyed the Northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and deported its people;
2 KINGS 17:24
24 Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in its cities.
These became the despised Samaritans who troubled the Jews of Judah until the Roman destruction of Samaria and Judea in 70 A.D.
People and nations strive to gain riches for themselves, only to have themselves destroyed by the Lord and their riches taken by others when pride lifts them up and they sin. As Solomon sadly noted;
ECCLESIASTES 2:18-19
18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me.
19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
HABAKKUK 2:15-20
15 “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness!
16 You are filled with shame instead of glory. You also—drink! And be exposed as uncircumcised! The cup of the Lord’s right hand will be turned against you, and utter shame will be on your glory.
17 For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you, and the plunder of beasts which made them afraid, because of men’s blood and the violence of the land and the city, and of all who dwell in it.
18 “What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it, to make mute idols?
19 Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ to silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’ Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet in it there is no breath at all.
20 “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
God condemns the wicked of Judah who use deceit to plunder their neighbors and take their goods, much like getting a man drunk with wine so as to be able to rob him.
God warns that Babylon will eventually drink the cup of the wine of His wrath, just as He would cause the nations of the Middle East to drink it when He sent Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar rampaging as far south as Egypt in punishment for their sins. As He told the prophet Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 25:15-16
15 For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me: “Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it.
16 And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.”
God had warned through the prophet Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 25:8-11
8 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words,
9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations.
10 Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.
11 And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
History shows that Nebuchadnezzar swept through the Middle East, a virtual juggernaut of destruction subduing the nations for 70 years.
God then mocks the idols of the nations as being helpless to save for they do not live. As He said through the prophet Isaiah concerning a man who creates idols;
ISAIAH 44:14-19
14 He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak; he secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it.
15 Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it and warm himself; yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; indeed he makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image, and falls down to it.
16 He burns half of it in the fire; with this half he eats meat; he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.”
17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
18 They do not know nor understand; for He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.
19 And no one considers in his heart, nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire, yes, I have also baked bread on its coals; I have roasted meat and eaten it; and shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
HABAKKUK 3:1-16
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, on Shigionoth.
2 O Lord, I have heard Your speech and was afraid; O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise.
4 His brightness was like the light; he had rays flashing from His hand, and there His power was hidden.
5 Before Him went pestilence, and fever followed at His feet.
6 He stood and measured the earth; He looked and startled the nations. And the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills bowed. His ways are everlasting.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian trembled.
8 O Lord, were You displeased with the rivers, was Your anger against the rivers, was Your wrath against the sea, that You rode on Your horses, Your chariots of salvation?
9 Your bow was made quite ready; oaths were sworn over Your arrows. Selah. You divided the earth with rivers.
10 The mountains saw You and trembled; the overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered its voice, and lifted its hands on high.
11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation; at the light of Your arrows they went, at the shining of Your glittering spear.
12 You marched through the land in indignation; You trampled the nations in anger.
13 You went forth for the salvation of Your people, for salvation with Your Anointed. You struck the head from the house of the wicked, by laying bare from foundation to neck. Selah
14 You thrust through with his own arrows the head of his villages. They came out like a whirlwind to scatter me; their rejoicing was like feasting on the poor in secret.
15 You walked through the sea with Your horses, through the heap of great waters.
16 When I heard, my body trembled; my lips quivered at the voice; rottenness entered my bones; and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble. When he comes up to the people, He will invade them with his troops.
The above verses are very similar to the Psalms of king David, a whimsical song and tribute to God’s mighty power and wrath.
HABAKKUK 3:17-19
17 Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls—
18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.
The prophet ends with a prayer of praise and hope, for while the Lord may lay waste to the land in His wrath, He will also heal, the prophet possibly in remembering God’s words to the prophet Joel;
JOEL 2:12-14
12 “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
14 Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him—a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?
In ancient times, tearing clothing was a sign of deep sorrow or grief. Clothing back then was quite expensive as everything was hand-made and most people had maybe two changes of clothes at any time.
Tearing clothing was an outward show of sorrow and repentance, but did not indicate a change of heart. Remember, God sees the heart and knows our deepest thoughts and feelings, and wanted true repentance, not an outward show.
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