Habakkuk
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After the long back-and-forth between Habakkuk and God, and after Habakkuk finally receives the guidance he had been pleading for, he breaks into song, a prophetic prayer that gathers up everything he has heard about God, everything he has been taught about God, and everything he himself has come to feel in God’s presence. It opens with a confession that many of us would have prayed or at least thought in our hearts. LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in…
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After God answers Habakkuk’s first complaint by simply stating the terrifying qualities of the Babylonian army He is raising up, Habakkuk brings a second complaint before Him. If God is the Holy One, the ancient of days, too pure to tolerate wrongdoing, why does He remain silent while the treacherous swallow up those more righteous than themselves? Habakkuk compares God’s people to the fish in the sea, creatures with no ruler to protect them, and the Babylonians as fishermen who pull them all up with hooks and nets, gather them, and rejoice. God Does Not Seek Credit Therefore he sacrifices…
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Most prophetic books carry a message from God delivered to a nation, calling it to repent, explaining why judgment has come or is coming. Habakkuk carries no such message. It is not addressed to Judah or any specific group of God’s people. It is a personal conversation between a man and God, where Habakkuk questions and God’s replies. Habakkuk prophesied before the Babylonians invaded Judah, so he was probably a contemporary of Jeremiah and Zephaniah, writing after the northern kingdom of Israel had already fallen but before Judah followed it into exile. Questioning God While the prophets around him were…
