Habakkuk 1
Notes
Transcript
Time and Setting
Time and Setting
Habakkuk was around during the time Jeremiah, Nahum, and Zephaniah were. There were a lot of prophets in this time leading up to some of the biggest political changes in world history. At this point we’ve seen the Northern Kingdom conquered by the Assyrians. Judah through King Ahaz actually joined forces with and became a vassal of Assyria. Juda was oppressed and had fallen into the Assyrian pagan practices. Eventually Josiah become king and lots of reforms politically and spiritually for the people come. The law is found again in the temple and They seem to be turning back to the Lord. However after Josiah dies we end up back under evil rule and Jehoiakim is in power at the fall of the Assyrian empire. Somewhere early in his reign is when I think Habakkuk was written.
Habakkuk himself we don’t know a tremendous amount about. He is a prophet. His name as we often like to know means “to embrace” in a caring way like a hug or caress. Lots of other speculation has been done and he was referenced in the apocrypha’s Bel and the Dragon. Fun story worth a read on your own time.
For the book we’re going to break it down into 3 parts. It has 3 chapters but we’re not going to follow that, I mean it’s not like Chapter divisions are inspired.
The three sections I’m calling...
Questioning God (Hab 1-2:5)
Woe Oracles (Hab 2:6-2:20)
Psalm (Hab 3)
Our beginning begins at the beginning.
The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
Okay... that’s a beginning.
We go to a question that to us might sound accusatory. It might be, but it wouldn’t be asked if it wasn’t expected that God is good. This is the whole difficult question about the problem of evil. Job wrestles with this in a different way but it’s similar in some of the cries of anguish and questions. How long does prayer go unanswered before you’re fed up with God over that frustration?
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
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.
So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
Have you ever cried out to God and asked why something was going on? I don’t think I’ve been in a situation that felt so far out of my control that I have asked God that. I know people who have. My life crisis’ have all been my fault so I didn’t I needed to ask God why he wasn’t doing something about it. With the chaos in Israel right now these seem like questions on the lips of many. Here in this passage Habakkuk is likely talking about the evil and wrongs of his own people and their corruption and paganism, from the TOP. It could be about other nations around them but at this point it’s likely internal rot we’re looking at.
God’s answer isn’t clean and definitive in the way we want when we ask that question though.
We do get a response from God, you might call it an answer I think it’s more of a response.
“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.
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.
Here God is basically promising that Babylon will wipe out the blight in Jerusalem. That’s who the Chaldeans are. The evil will destroy the evil in most cases here and certainly by God’s hand they’ll do it. Let’s look at the description of this Army.
They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
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.
They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
They are certainly a frightful presence in the world. They bow to no one, they live on their own might.
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”