Habakkuk 1:17-Habakkuk Asks the Lord if the Babylonians Will Continue to Destroy the Nations of His Day

Habakkuk 1:17 Will he then continue to fill and empty his throw net? Will he always destroy nations and spare none? (NET)

Habakkuk 1:17 brings to an end the third section of the book, which began in Habakkuk 1:12 and which section records Habakkuk questioning the Lord’s choice of the Babylonians as His instrument of judgment to discipline the apostate citizenry of the southern kingdom of Judah in 605 B.C.

Now, we come to Habakkuk 1:17 which contains two questions which the prophet Habakkuk poses to the Lord God of Israel in regard to the latter’s choice to discipline the apostate citizenry of the southern kingdom of Judah in 605 B.C.

In the first, the prophet asks the Lord if the Babylonian soldier will continue to cause this throw net to be emptied of its contents?

This is figurative language since it is comparing the Babylonian soldier capturing and killing people from the various nations of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian regions of the world to a fisherman who drags away a catch of fish in his throw net, which he has captured and killed.

The second question explains what is meant by the first and asks the Lord if the Babylonian soldier will continue to kill people from these nations, never showing mercy?

So therefore, as was the case in Habakkuk 1:2-4, Habakkuk 1:12-17 deals with the subject of “theodicy,” which is the attempt to understand the nature and actions of God in the face of evil and suffering.

Theodicy is based on the belief in an orderly universe which is created by a beneficent God and it seeks to answer how a benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God allows suffering and pain in His creation.[1]

In Habakkuk 1:2-4, the prophet Habakkuk complained to God about His failure to judge the unrepentant disobedient citizens of Judah and in Habakkuk 1:12-17, he complains about God’s choice of the Babylonians to judge his countrymen.

In our studies of Habakkuk 1:6-11, we noted that the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25:9, and 27:6 describes Nebuchadnezzar as His servant because this king and his empire were the Lord’s instrument in judging Judah and Jerusalem.

God used Nebuchadnezzar to discipline the nation of Israel for their disobedience.

Jeremiah 25:1-11 also teaches that the Lord delivered Judah into Nebuchadnezzar’s power because of their idolatry.

Also, a comparison of Leviticus 25:1-12, 26:32-35, 43, Jeremiah 25:11, 29:10 and 2 Chronicles 26:21 indicates that the Lord delivered Judah into Nebuchadnezzar’s power because they failed to respect the Sabbath Day and the sabbatic year in which every seventh year they were to let the land rest.

The apostate citizenry of the southern kingdom of Judah would experience the wrath of God through the Babylonian army.

God’s wrath is in fact His righteous indignation towards sin and sinners and refers to His legitimate anger towards evil and sin since both are contrary to His holiness or perfect character and nature.

In fact, God’s righteous indignation expresses His holiness, which pertains to the absolute perfection of God’s character.

The fact that the Lord informs Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:6-11 that He will indeed judge the apostate citizenry of Judah through the Babylonians is an expression of this righteous indignation and thus a manifestation of His holiness.

By using a wicked, evil and treacherous people like the Babylonians to discipline the apostate citizenry of the southern kingdom of Judah, God was not violating His holy standards.

In other words, He was not compromising Himself because the Babylonians were responsible for their evil, wicked and treacherous behavior and not Him since they of their own volition committed evil, wicked and treacherous acts.

In fact, the apostate citizenry of the southern kingdom of Judah were evil, wicked and treacherous as pointed out by Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:2-4.

They were more wicked and evil than the Babylonians because they received greater revelation from God than the Babylonians.

The citizens of Judah were in a covenant relationship with God and not the Babylonians and received great revelation than the Babylonians because the Jews were given the Law personally by God at Mount Sinai and not the Babylonians.

The Jews were given the Old Testament and the beneficiaries of the unconditional promises of the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic and New covenants and not the Babylonians.

The Jews were given the tabernacle and later temple worship and not the Babylonians and were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and not the Babylonians and the Messiah would be a Jew and not a Babylonian.

Therefore, the apostate citizenry of Judah were under a great condemnation than the Babylonians because the former received greater revelation and privileges and responsibilities than the latter.

Thus, the citizens of Judah were not more righteous than the Babylonians but rather worse because of the revelation, privileges and responsibilities bestowed on them by God and it is also unlikely that other unregenerate pagan nations were any better than Babylon.

Habakkuk is more than likely asserting in Habakkuk 1:13 that the citizens of Judah were more righteous than the Babylonians since Habakkuk 1:12-17 is Habakkuk’s response to God’s declaration in Habakkuk 1:6-11 that He will use the Babylonians to discipline apostate Judah.

We also need to keep in mind that when Habakkuk asserts that the citizens of Judah were “more” righteous than the Babylonians, he is thinking in relative terms and not in absolute terms as God does.

Romans 1-3 assert that both Jew and Gentile have fallen short of the glory and there is no one righteous in the human race and they make clear that there is no human being as righteous as God, not one.

The only human being who is a righteous as God is God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, in God’s view and judgement, both the Jews and the Babylonians were guilty before Him.

Habakkuk made the mistake the Jews in Jesus’ day made, namely they compared their righteousness with others less moral than they were and concluded that they were better than the Gentiles, however, God is perfect.

Thus, Habakkuk and the Jews in Jesus’ day needed to compare themselves to God’s perfect, holy character and standards.

If Habakkuk did this, he would never have made this statement that his fellow Jews were more righteous than the Babylonians and he was thus wrong to say this.

So therefore, God was using evil to destroy evil by using the evil, wicked and treacherous Babylonians to judge the apostate citizens of Judah who were also wicked, evil and treacherous nation like the Babylonians.

Thus, God was exercising His wrath or righteous indignation against the apostate citizenry of the southern kingdom of Judah by employing the Babylonians as His instrument to discipline them severely or in other words, God uses evil nations to express His righteous indignation against other evil nations.

Specifically, He permits wicked nations to commit evil acts against other wicked and evil nations like themselves while at the same time, not compromising His holy standards since He does not commit these acts but permits.

Again, God permits angels and human beings to exercise their volition freely without any coercion or interference from Himself.

If He did not permit the function of volition, then, angels and humans would not be moral rational creations but rather robots.

Therefore, God is not guilty of compromising His holy standards by permitting the Babylonians to commit wicked, evil and treacherous acts against other evil, wicked and treacherous nations like Judah.

In fact, if God did not tolerate human beings and angels exercising their volition against them, all would be experiencing His wrath in the lake of fire forever.

God was not tolerating the wicked, evil and treacherous behavior of the Babylonians or the citizens of Judah for that matter since God dealt with this behavior through cross of His Son Jesus Christ.

At the cross, the Father dealt with the sins of the entire human race and evil which originated with Satan by sending His Son into the world to become a human being in order to experience His wrath on the cross as a substitute for all of sinful humanity.

The Son’s substitutionary spiritual and physical deaths on the cross as well as His resurrection and session at the right hand of the Father propitiated the Father’s holiness, reconciled all of sinful humanity to God who is holy, and redeemed all of sinful humanity from the slave marker of sin.

The crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session of Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil who is the author of evil.

Again, these events in the life of Jesus Christ also delivered them from the consequences of their sins, namely spiritual and physical death and they also delivered them from enslavement to the sin nature, Satan and his cosmic system and condemnation from the Law.

The reason why God was delaying judging the Babylonians is that He wanted to use the Babylonians to discipline His covenant people who were in apostasy.

God was delaying judging His covenant people because He wanted them to repent and He was also withholding judging Babylon because He wanted them to repent as well because God desires all people to repent by believing in His Son as Savior (cf. John 3:16-18; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9).

[1] Brooks, P., & Neal, D. A. (2016). Theodicy. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.