Habakkuk - Introduction

Over the last couple of years I have been going through various New Testament books in some depth, currently part way through Luke. Now we will have a slight diversion from this and will look at one of my favourite minor prophets, Habakkuk. My main source of information and help will be:

Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah - Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries - David W Baker (1988)

So the astute among you can probably guess which other Old Testament books might be coming up in the future!

Let me give some general guidelines for interpreting Old Testament prophets:

• What did it mean in the historical, social and religious context?
• How does it relate to the first or second coming of Christ?
• What use is made of it in the New Testament?
• What is its relevance for us today?

We should also bear in mind that the common purpose of prophecy is to call people to God, often to call them back to God. God speaks to reveal things about Himself, and to reveal things about us. The latter usually means highlighting our sinfulness and/or ways in which we fall short of the glory of God. It also reveals God’s plan of salvation. We do well to remember this. I get Charisma News email each day and there is usually one or more posts about what some “prophet” or other has said. Now I am in a charismatic church and firmly believe in the relevance of the gift of prophecy for today, but my reaction to most of the headlines relating to some so-called prophecy or other is simply to groan. We sometimes have a very impoverished view of what prophecy is.

An oddity of the book of Habakkuk is that there is no information whatsoever about him, nothing on his ancestry, where he lived, nor his function. We do know that he prophesied around the time prior to the Babylonian invasion and destruction of Jerusalem. It is perhaps useful to have a quick summary of key historical dates and events:

625 BC	Neo-Babylonian empire gained power under Nabopolassar
612 BC	Destruction by Babylon of the Assyrian capital, Nineveh
605 BC	Defeat of Egypt at Carchemish, this was the height of Babylonian power. Nebuchadnezzar was now in power.
598 BC	Babylon marches against Jerusalem
587 BC	Destruction of Jerusalem.
539 BC	Fall of Babylon to the Indo-Aryan Medes and Persians under Cyrus.

So Habakkuk prophesied some time before 587 BC. During the reign of Jehoiakim (609-598 BC) is a likely date, making Habakkuk contemporary with Jeremiah.

The key feature of the book is perhaps that Habakkuk questions God and God replies. There are several key figures in the Bible who question God. Job is perhaps the prime example, but David in the Psalms, Moses and Jeremiah all questioned God. However, they did this was from a position of faith. Ie they believed that God was just and good but this just didn’t fit with the circumstances they were encountering. They knew there must be an answer, but they couldn’t see it, so they questioned God directly. This is questioning in faith, and God commends this sort of questioning.

In Habakkuk’s case the primary problem was the degree of unfaithfulness and injustice in the land of Judah. Then God’s answer, that He was going to send the even more ungodly Babylonians to execute judgement upon them sounded even worse. God’s ways of working rarely fit into our neat picture of how things should be. At the end of it Habakkuk’s faith was renewed and deepened. That is our God!

In fact, Habakkuk is unusual in that it is largely a conversation between him and God, and his response to this. There is little in the way of Habakkuk prophesying directly to the nation, unlike with most of the other prophets. Our relationship with God matters. We are to serve as sons of God.