Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
Notes
Transcript
Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
Habakkuk 1:12-2:1
In my preparation for this week I kept looking ahead
I found it difficult to stay in 1:12-17
We’re 11 verses into our study of Habakkuk and I’m wanting to skip ahead
I want to get to the good part
I want the resolution, I want to see how it all turns out
How could this part hold any value to me?
Resist the temptation to jump, because ALL Scripture is profitable for teaching.
My perspective on the man Habakkuk and prophet has changed
I have a lot to learn from Habakkuk
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Hab 1:1-4 Review
2 Questions
How Long
Why
2 Results
Law is ignored
Justice is perverted
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Key Points from Hab 1:5-11
- The Lord has been working
- The Lord is sending Babylon
- The Lord’s response is terrifying
- The Lord is reminding Judah of the covenants
God has answered Habakkuk’s cry of injustice with a statement that more injustice is coming.
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Habakkuk’s Faith
Knows Scripture
Alluded to in 2-4. He was alive during Josiah’s reforms
Torah, Psalms, Proverbs, Early Prophets, Isaiah
Man of Conviction - Theological Perspective - He thinks of things in accordance with what he believes
Knows of God’s Character
Knows of God’s Promises (Covenants)
This forces us to wrestle with Habakkuk’s response
Habakkuk is not doubting the Lord, nor does he have a weak faith. He is not having a moment of weakness, he is confused. What we see in verses 12-17 is Habakkuk trying to reconcile what God has said with what he already believes.
Remember that the Lord has given Habakkuk a terrifying response
Remember that the Lord has answered Habakkuk very differently from Habakkuk’s expectation
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?
14 Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them?
15 The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad.
16 Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net; Because through these things their catch is large, And their food is plentiful.
17 Will they therefore empty their net And continually slay nations without sparing?
1 I will stand on my guard post And station myself on the rampart; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, And how I may reply when I am reproved.
Let’s Pray
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
A question followed by 3 superlatives
Are you not from everlasting? - Reconciliation of what he believes about God
Abraham made a covenant with the Philistines
33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the Lord, the Everlasting God.
2 Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting.
28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.
2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.”
There is plenty of basis for Habakkuk’s statement
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
Yahweh - Name of Covenant God
God - Superlative of Being (Elohim) - Focus on Power
Holy One - Sinless, Set Apart, Completely Other - Isaiah uses this 30 times
13 “Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?” 14 Thus says the Lord your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “For your sake I have sent to Babylon, And will bring them all down as fugitives, Even the Chaldeans, into the ships in which they rejoice. 15 “I am the Lord, your Holy One, The Creator of Israel, your King.”
Even as recently as 100 years ago, Judah had affirmation of the Lord’s plan
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
We will not die
This is plural, Habakkuk is starting to get it
Double Negative creates extreme negation.
This is not a statement to coerce God’s decisions, but a recognition of God’s covenants
Habakkuk uses the covenants to tie Judah to the everlasting God
7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. 8 “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.
1 “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you,
2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,
3 then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
13 “He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
Yahweh - Covenant Name of God
Appointed them to judge
Here Habakkuk recognizes that God is working throughout history
We see this clearly in Isaiah
5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger And the staff in whose hands is My indignation, 6 I send it against a godless nation And commission it against the people of My fury To capture booty and to seize plunder, And to trample them down like mud in the streets.
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
Rock - Predominantly in Psalms, but there are 2 passages worth looking at
Deuteronomy 32 the song of Moses uses Rock 4 times
4 “The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.
2 Samuel 22 the Song of David in his deliverance from Saul uses Rock 4 times
3 My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; My savior, You save me from violence.
Violence - Hamas
This idea of Rock is the protector
12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Lord, have appointed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.
Established them to correct
In this verse, Habakkuk has framed the rest of his continued response to the Lord.
How does this fit with your character and your promises?
How could you use Babylon?
He first turns to God’s character
13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?
Remember our words from 1:3 and 1:5 - (Ra ah & Nevit)
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We have the same words in here in Habakkuk 1:13
The pattern is broken with the repeating of Nevit
13 Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?
Habakkuk questions the consistency of God’s character
Favor for those who deal treacherously?
No justice against the wicked?
“Those more righteous than they?”
I propose that Habakkuk’s perspective is one limited by time. He can only see the now and has not connected what God told him prior
Remember from last week:
16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
5 “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The iniquity of Judah is complete, and they have fallen into the place of those whom they dispossessed from the land in accordance with the promise given to Abraham.
Habakkuk is still trying to compare who is better who is worse and apply judgment in his present time. God is looking through the boundaries of history future and past.
This element of divine timing is going to become prominent in Chapter 3
Turning to 1:14
14 Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them?
This verse serves two purposes. The first is illustrate the calamity wrought by Babylon by comparing men to fish and creeping things
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
14 Why have You made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them?
The second purpose is to introduce the analogy which Habakkuk will now use to shift the narrative from God’s character to God’s use of Babylon.
15 The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. 16 Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net; Because through these things their catch is large, And their food is plentiful.
The second word for net is different here. In English it would be rendered seine (sen)
A seine is a net that requires multiple people to pull. So we see three references to catching:
Hook - Single Person, Single Fish
Net - Single Person, Multiple Fish
Seine - Multiple People, Multiple Fish
As prior, note the totality of what is occuring, not just in regards to Judah, but in involvement by Babylon.
Moving on, we get a “Therefore”
Habakkuk is following the same form he did in his initial petition to the Lord in verses 2-4, questions and statements followed by conclusions. We note this by the two “Therefores” in verse 4. Here we see the same pattern, a series of questions and statements followed by two “Therefores” in verses 15 and 16.
4 Therefore the law is ignored And justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted.
After the questions of “How Long” and “Why” Habakkuk draws these conclusions.
15 The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. 16 Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net; Because through these things their catch is large, And their food is plentiful.
After the statements of God’s character and the questions of “Why” Habakkuk once again issues conclusions about Babylon.
Therefore:
they rejoice and are glad
Therefore:
Habakkuk notes two aspects of worship:
Offering Sacrifice
Burning Incense
Who is the recipient of their worship?
The basis of this worship is the nets and seins used to ensnare the fish. Or in the figurative interpretation, their tools of destruction, their might, and their power.
Harkens back to Hab 1:11, where their power is their god.
11 “Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, They whose strength is their god.”
16 Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net and burn incense to their fishing net; Because through these things their catch is large, And their food is plentiful.
Habakkuk takes a new turn and asks a question, breaking the form of verses 2-4
17 Will they therefore empty their net And continually slay nations without sparing?
Habakkuk asks God for the conclusion!
In recognition of Babylon’s success and evil, he is yet again asking the Lord, How Long?
How can God permit this evil to go unpunished?
1 I will stand on my guard post And station myself on the rampart; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, And how I may reply when I am reproved.
Guard Post and Ramparts would be Towers
Keep WATCH to SEE what He will SPEAK to me
1 The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.
1 I will stand on my guard post And station myself on the rampart; And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me, And how I may reply when I am reproved.
And how I may reply when I am corrected.
Initially to me, this sounded full of pride. As I’ve rested and wrestled with this over the past few weeks, it seems more humble to me than prideful.
Remember, Habakkuk is trying to reconcile what he knows about God with his current situation and God’s response.
He stations himself at a place to be able to wait and look far off, a tower.
Habakkuk is waiting on the Lord, not in expectation of vindication, but for clarification as to how to put all of these pieces together.
Habakkuk recognizes that as he stands, what he has stated does not fit together. So he closes with so I may respond when I am corrected.
Habakkuk expects correction
Takeaways:
He is struggling to reconcile reality with truth
He is wrestling with what he knows and believes and what he is confronted with in the reality of his circumstances
Can you relate to Habakkuk?
When Habakkuk is in a state of confusion He falls back on what he knows
What do you know? What do you fall back on?
Habakkuk has allowed his perspective to be limited by time
One of the greatest traps for believers
What are you looking forward to?
What are you looking forward for?
Waits on the Lord to help him reconcile what he cannot
Asks God for the conclusion
Habakkuk expects correction
Ultimate reconciliation of our theological difficulties, of how reality correlates with truth, is found in the Word of God as directed by the Holy Spirit through our relationship in Jesus Christ.
Habakkuk has gone to the Lord with a problem
The Lord has given Habakkuk an answer he wasn’t ready for
Habakkuk is waiting on the Lord to reconcile what he cannot
Let’s Pray