Habakkuk 1:7-11 - A feared and dreaded people

1:7-9

These verse expand on the power of the Babylonians. Everyone feared and dreaded them. “They were a law unto themselves”. They were so powerful that they paid no regard to anyone else nor anything else. They promoted their own honour.

Verse 8 describes the great military power that they had. The prophets used poetic language to describe their prophecies. God is not just communicating with the mind, but with the emotions and imagination as well. So while academic “theological” communication and interpretation of the Bible is important (and the sort I like best), it is not the only sort. Likewise, straightforward expository preaching is important as part of our message and communication, but it is not the sum total of our communication. It is perfectly valid to use other means as well.

1:10,11

But there was a fundamental weakness in the Babylonians, their strength was their god. They mocked all around them, whether it be rulers or fortifications. Nothing could stand in their way, but they assumed that this was because of some innate strength in themselves when it was only because God had ordained it. This led to two fatal mistakes. One was that they were indescribably cruel, having no regard for the weak. The second was that they trusted in themselves. Pride always leads to us devaluing others and not treating them properly. It is a fundamental tenet of God’s ways that we should be merciful and kind. Trusting in ourselves always leads ultimately to our downfall. One day we will die, no matter how rich, powerful or clever we may be.

As the end of verse 11 says “guilty people, whose own strength is their god”.

Habakkuk 1:5,6 - Not the answer he wanted

1:5

Paul quotes these words in Psidian Antioch in Acts 13:41. There he is speaking to the Jews, warning them of their need to repent and believe in Jesus. Here God is telling Habakkuk that He is going to do something amazing, and that something will turn out to be judgement upon Judah. In Antioch Paul warns his hearers that judgement will come upon them unless they put their faith in Jesus.

Habakkuk’s focus had been on Judah and Jerusalem, God orders him to look at the nations and watch. God was going to do something among the nations. A similar thing happened with Jesus. The nation of Israel failed to recognise Him, so the gospel went out to the nations and great things were done there, and are being done there. As Paul tells us in Romans 11:11-24 part of God’s purpose is to make Israel jealous by what He does among the nations.

1:6

The Hebrew refers to the Babylonians as the Chaldeans. The Babylonians gained independence from Assyria in 626 BC, and destroyed Assyria in 612-605 BC. The Babylonians were the regional superpower and were greatly feared.

“They sweep across the whole earth”. This phrase does give us an important clue to interpreting the Bible. The “whole earth” clearly does not mean literally the whole earth, it does mean they were completely dominant in the region. We do well to remember this when interpreting verses like those about the flood. There are those who take great offence to any suggestion that when the Bible says the whole earth was flooded it could just mean the region was flooded. There is nothing inconsistent with the notion that the flood was regional rather than global, and it is not an affront to Biblical authority to suggest that it was regional.

Habakkuk 1:1-4 - How to complain!

1:1

Habakkuk is referred to as a prophet. This is actually quite unusual among the Old Testament prophets! His name is probably Babylonian and refers to a garden plant. He was possibly employed in the temple as a professional prophet. This would be consistent with his complaining about the amount of unrighteousness in Judah. He “received” the prophecy. As Peter says, no prophecy came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things, it was given by God (2 Pet 1:20).

1:2

“How long ...” This is a common complaint in the Bible! Judah was in a poor state spiritually. About a hundred years ago the northern kingdom of Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians as a judgement upon her sin. Judah had failed to learn from this and had sunk progressively into deeper and deeper apostasy. Habakkuk would have seen the grim reality of this. He was evidently a man or prayer and had called on the Lord for help, but no answer had been received. The sins of Judah were not just “religious”, ie the worship of false gods, but also included violence. When a society abandons God it is not just a “religious” matter, serious consequences also follow, usually including violence. In our increasingly secular society the abortion rate is an example of this.

1:3

Habakkuk had to serve in the nation, and so had to see the evil in the land. Why did he have to look on injustice? We may wonder why God makes us live in this land with its increasing sins. God does this for a reason, and part of that reason is for us to call upon the name of the Lord.

But it wasn’t just himself that Habakkuk was concerned about, why does God tolerate it? Why doesn’t He do something about it as He is a God of justice.

“Destruction and violence are before me, there is strife, and conflict abounds”. This is quite an apt description of western societies. There is increasing strife and conflict at all levels.

1:4

The law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. The law here is probably the civic aspects of the Law. In the west too justice often seems far away, the legal system rarely seems to serve justice, more just lining the pockets of the lawyers. So-called human rights seem more to be robbers and terrorists’ rights. Part of the reason for this was that the wealthy could pervert justice. Again in our society the rich can get access to the law, but the ordinary person often cannot afford it.

So we now get the picture. Habakkuk is surrounded by injustice. He has prayed to God on many occasions, but so far nothing has happened, at least as far as he can see. Sometimes God wants to bring us face to face with the reality of the situation. In Habakkuk’s case this would be partly because the answer would seem so terrible, as we will find out in the next section.

Even the bits we don't like!

We all have bits of the Bible that we really like, and we have bits that we don’t like as much, or find more difficult to get anything out of. If you are reading this blog you probably know, or at least you can very quickly find out, that I have been working through the whole Bible. Initially I went through the Bible in fairly large chunks, and completed the all of it just over 2 years ago. Since then I have been doing mostly New Testament books in considerably more depth. So it should be pretty obvious that I love the Bible! Even so,like anybody else, there are parts I like more than others, and some I really struggle with. However, one of the many things I have learnt in the course of doing these blogs is that we should do the bits we like less.

This was first brought home to me when it was time to do Leviticus and Numbers in my initial scurry through the whole Bible. I was really not looking forward to it and was tempted to put it off, but I kept to the plan, and I found these two books so rewarding, especially Leviticus. I got a much better insight into how Leviticus foreshadows the cross. I even preached a sermon on Leviticus to the church which seemed to work quite well. 

Now I am doing more in-depth stuff. I have to admit that my natural inclination is to prefer the letters to the gospels, where there is more overt theological argument, but yet again I have found doing John and Luke immensely rewarding.

So what is the point of all this? It is that the Bible is God’s word, it is not just a book (or books). When we set our minds to study the Word we have an encounter with the Holy Spirit, we open up our minds to God Himself.  So do not neglect any parts of the Bible, read all of it, it all comes from the same Lord.

Having said that, I still do find it very difficult to get inspired by the lists in Chronicles and elsewhere, but maybe one day the Holy Spirit will open up my dull mind to see the delights in those parts as well!

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.

Luke 9:59-62 - The cost of following

9:59,60

In the next example it is Jesus who issues the call to follow Him. The replies by asking that he first buries his father. Some say this means that his father had not yet died, but was well on in years. They argue that if his father had actually just died, then the man would have been actively involved in the burial arrangements, as these things happened quickly. Alternatively the father had actually died and the funeral was imminent. In either case Jesus’ words are harsh to our ears. The urgency of the words of Jesus actually make the imminent burial scenario the more likely. If the father was still alive, then although we must love Jesus more than family the Bible is full of instructions to take proper care of our parents, including in the ten commandments. However, if the father was dead there were plenty others who could take care of burying him, and there was nothing more the man could do for his father. We should also note that it was Jesus who sought out and called the man. The work of proclaiming the kingdom is of vital importance.

9:61,62

The final incident involves a man who wants to go and say goodbye to his family. The request seems reasonable enough, but it evidently demonstrated an underlying wrong attachment to his family. We must love our families as servants of Jesus. We do not follow Jesus as servants of our families. There is a subtle but important difference. There will be times when the call of Jesus on our lives involves us breaking some tie that we have. The tie will not be wrong in itself, but what is wrong is that it is more important to us than our attachment to Jesus.

Luke 9:51-58 - Opposition

9:51-56

Jesus was going to be “taken up to heaven”. Although He was going to suffer greatly this was not the end. He would ultimately ascend to the Father. Jesus set out resolutely. He knew what His mission was, and what the result would be, so He was determined. His journey took Him through a Samaritan village. Now Samaritans and Jews did not exactly see eye to eye, and because Jesus was going to Jerusalem the people of the village did not welcome Him. Seeing this reaction, James and John suggested calling down fire from heaven to destroy these ungrateful people. No doubt they were remembering incidents in the life of Elisha (2 Kings 1). Jesus rebuked the disciples, and they went to another village. Today people are all too ready to take offence, Jesus adopts a very different approach. In the last chapter we have seen many natural attitudes challenged by Jesus.

9:57,58

Jesus has given some direct statements on the nature of His mission and the cost of following Him, now His responses to two would be followers sheds more light on the cost of following Him. First He encounters a man who says he will follow Jesus wherever He goes. Jesus responds by warning the man that Jesus has no home on earth. Society tries to fit Jesus into its frame of reference. Sadly, the church all too often tries to make Jesus acceptable to the world. Jesus is not at home in the world, the gospel does not fit neatly into society. Jesus and the gospel offer salvation to all, but they do so by calling people to end their rebellion against God. Jesus and the gospel challenge the world.