The response to God’s
revelation to Habakkuk concerning God’s judgement on Israel, and also on the Babylonians is prayer - and prayer may sometimes begin with a stunned
silence!
As God made known His plans
and purposes to Habakkuk concerning the
nation of Israel – namely that He would send the ruthless Babylonians to punish them, the prophet fell silent. In fact, at
this moment he was overtaken by the awesome holiness of God, and he felt that the whole earth should keep quiet:
“The
LORD is in His holy temple ; let all the earth
keep silence before Him” (2:20) .
Chapter 3 is
written in the form of a prayer and reads like a Psalm. At the end of this chapter we
note that (like in the Psalms) this final
piece of Habakkuk's prophecy is written to
be sung (see 3:19). And so we
see that
something that began as an
individual’s response to God, has now moved into public domain. Habakkuk speaks for
us. These words are an appropriate response
of every believer facing perplexing times.
The prayer of Habakkuk is
introduced in these words: [3:1] A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet,
according to Shigionoth.
My Hebrew translation[1]
says “according to erring ones”; The
commentator Homer Hailey translates, “to reel or stagger like drunken ones”[2].
Habakkuk had been mistaken about God’s ways in the world and now he is staggering and reeling as a result of this revelation
like a drunken man. This emotion
is strongly reflected in his prayer and response which can be divided into three parts:
1.
Habakkuk’s statement of faith (3:2)
2.
Habakkuk remembrance of God’s past dealings (3:3-15 )
3.
Habakkuk’s personal confession (3:16-19)
1.
Habakkuk’s
statement of faith (3:2)
Here we see how Habakkuk moves from
man centered fear to God centered, God fearing faith:
[2] O LORD, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O
LORD, do I fear. In the midst of the
years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember
mercy.
Habakkuk is awestruck by
the word and work of God. He says , “Oh YAHWEH!” This is reverent fear
– in fact , it is the fear that he longs to see known
in the nation. Israel had lost
her awe of God, and as Habakkuk now
hears and sees the plan of God, and
while he now endorses it, he is
pleading with God to be merciful:
“...in wrath remember mercy.” (3:2)
This is similar to Abraham’s pleading with God over Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18). Of course
God does not have to be reminded to be
merciful. He knows how to be merciful. He is merciful, but in this case (as in the case of Sodom)
the nation's wickedness has
reached saturation point.
A great difference is now seen in Habakkuk’s
attitude. He is humbled. He is
submitted to the Word of God. Compare his attitude here with the first two chapters!
How was Habakkuk brought to this position?
The big change in Habakkuk came about as he stopped thinking
primarily about his own nation or of the Babylonians and started thinking about the holiness and the justice of God.
2.
Habakkuk
remembers God’s past dealings with
Israel (3:3-15)
One of the most effective ways of dealing with the fear of
future events is to
remember God’s faithful dealings with us
in the past. This is what Habakkuk is doing here. In 3:3-15 Habakkuk remembers the LORD (Yahweh) coming in two ways:
(i) to save His people
(ii) to destroy His enemies
[3] God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah His splendor covered the heavens,
and the earth was full of his praise.
Remembering God’s past dealings with Israel gives Habakkuk perspective for the future. He
sees the God of history as He delivered His people from Egypt through Sinai to the present
day. Teman[3] is found in Edom and Mt. Paran in the Sinai Peninsula
(Deut. 3:2); Cushan and
Midian are places- all mentioned in the Exodus, where God manifested Himself in mighty ways to
Israel and the surrounding nations.
3:5 speaks of the plagues of Egypt.
3:8 refers to the parting of
the Red sea and later the river Jordan.
3:11 probably refers to the events mentioned
in Joshua 10:12,13 when the sun
stood still and when God gave Israel a great victory.
3: 12 - 15 speak about the conquest of Canaan.
But here all this needs to
be applied to Babylon. The current enemies were not the Egyptians or
the Edomites or the Midianites. They were the Babylonians. They were currently God’s
instrument to punish and humble Israel. And Habakkuk needed to remember
that while these were real enemies,
these enemies too would be dealt with by God.
Soon this ruthless Babylon would
be at the receiving end of the wrath of
God. Look at the language. God is at the center:
[4] His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from his
hand; and there he veiled his power. [5] Before him
went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. 6] He
stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations; then the
eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His
were the everlasting ways. [7] I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian did
tremble.
Notice the repetition of
the singular forms, ‘he’ and ‘him’ and ‘his’. God is at work. He is in charge, and the
nations had better tremble!
We know
that many other prophets reveal God’s use of pestilence and plagues. We see these used by God in Egypt, in the Sinai wilderness and in Canaan.
We have every reason to believe that God works
in the same manner now. Covid- 19 is not
a random event. You may believe that this is a tool in the hand of God
to bring us to our senses in the midst of this present madness.
God’s mighty acts in
history exist to give us perspective and
therefore courage and hope for the
future. God has not promised his people that He will ignore their sin. But He has
promised to save His people, and
therefore He will save them. The God
who makes promises stands by His
promises[4]. The whole world is in the hands of this mighty Creator, and one day "every knee will bow in heaven and on earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
(Phil 2:10,11)
Selah – used three times (only here and in the Psalms) – thought to
indicate a pause in the singing – after which Habakkuk (like John in the
Revelation) is given to see the
awesome splendor of God.
And now notice a grammatical change in 3:8. Instead of
Habakkuk telling us about the Lord’s
power, he now speaks
directly to the LORD himself. See how Habakkuk describes the world
and the universe as it reacts
to the coming wrath of God:
[8] Was your wrath against the rivers, O LORD? Was
your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when
you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation? [9] You stripped
the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah You split the earth with rivers. [10] The mountains
saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its
voice; it lifted its hands on high. [11] The sun and moon stood
still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of
your glittering spear. [12] You marched through the earth in fury;
you threshed the nations in anger. [13] You went out for the salvation of
your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the
house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah [14] You pierced
with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to
scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. [15] You
trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.
Habakkuk rejoices as he
sees the coming justice of God, but don’t get this wrong. Habakkuk did not have a perverse desire
to see his people annihilated. He is
after all the prophet who prayed to God in the first place, “in wrath remember
mercy” (3:2). He is the prophet who has come to terms with God's righteous working in stubborn Israel. Despite the fact that God’s people had become idol-worshippers and despite the fact
that they had rejected Jeremiah’s faithful prophetic ministry and preaching for forty years (Habakkuk was Jermiah's contemporary), and despite the fact that Habakkuk knew that nothing would hold God back now in terms of
the punishment, he prophesied
with a heavy and a broken heart.
- In this he was just like the Lord Jesus, who when He saw the wicked city of Jerusalem, He wept over it. He longed to have gathered her as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings – but the people of Jerusalem would not!
- In this he was like the apostle Paul, so horribly abused by the Jews, and who yet maintained that his heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel was that they should be saved (Rom. 10:1). He wished himself accursed that they might be blessed (Rom. 9:2,3). But of course he could not do that, for God’s will and work, and God’s perfect justice had to be completed among the Jews.
- This is also Habakkuk’s attitude. Notice what he says as he finished describing the mighty judgments of God? [16] I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.”
Oh brothers and sisters –
in the face of eternity, and of the
judgment to come, I beg you to consider
not to look at the plight of this
world with indifference. May our
bodies never cease to tremble; our lips
never cease to quiver as we think of the future of this evil world that has
done us so much damage in the present.
You must think of our Babylonians as real people. Our enemies are people with real
souls. They are facing a real judgment by a real God.
Do your bodies tremble at the
thought of so very many facing the
prospects of eternal hell?
Tell your
world! Preach the gospel to your world. Tell them of the coming
wrath and of the mercy of God. "Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord
let us persuade men". Cry to God, “O Lord, in
your wrath remember mercy.”
Abraham prayed like that over Sodom, and Habakkuk prayed it over Israel, and
Jesus over Jerusalem, and Paul over his fellow-countrymen, and shouldn’t we
pray it over Windhoek and Namibia?
3.
Habakkuk’s Personal
Confession (3:16-19)
The best way to conclude is
simply read Habakkuk’s confession"
[17] Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on
the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be
no herd in the stalls, [18] yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take
joy in the God of my salvation. [19] GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he
makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the
choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
Practical Lessons from
Habakkuk
The Habakkuk so
filled with fear at the beginning now has
a new understanding of the character of God. These are some of the lessons he learned:
1.
God does not despise a sincere questioner.
2.
The
short term view is often the
false view.
3.
The believer can trust God in every crisis.
4.
Evil has within itself the germs of death.
5.
We may see
and understand God and His ways only by
faith alone.
6. We cannot expect to have all doubts solved but we must be sure of
God.
7.
In dealing with doubt God invites us to turn to Him
and wait for the answer.
8.
Trusting God ultimately brings joy.
[1] Pocket
Interlinear Old Testament, Vol 3 . p. 2144
[2] Homer
Hailey : A commentary on the Minor
Prophets , p.289
[3] Teman: the name of Esau’s grandson – represents the
lands of Edom ( Amos 1:12)
[4] see the promises of Matt 6:25-33 ; John 14:1-3 ; 25-27; Matt 28:18-20
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