Prophecy – Habakkuk

In the South East Asian context, there is often a jokey pun that can be made on this prophet’s name. The effect is made more obvious by the fact that very little is known about this prophet.

We won’t go into details of his name (and neither the pun on it), but we would look at the details of the book to obtain spiritual insight.

We’ll read Habakkuk.

Bible Passage:  Habakkuk 1-3

Like the book of Nahum, the book of Habakkuk has three chapters. Yet they are considerably different in style of writing. Habakkuk takes on a form of a dialogue that goes on between the prophet Habakkuk himself and God.

This occurs in a straightforward A-B-A-B-A manner of conversation where the prophet starts by asking God certain questions; God replies the prophet with words of wisdom; Habakkuk and God then repeat this process, and finally Habakkuk responds in the form of a prayer (to God).

Chapter 1: The Prophet’s Cry on Behalf of Holiness

He tells God that he has been seeing enough violence and sinful troubles in the land of Judah, and wonders how long more must the Lord make him endure such pain. God then responds to him, telling him that the work of the Lord as already in place as He would raise up the Chaldeans as a punishment rod to be used on Judah.

Now this evidently stuns Habakkuk as he wonders how the Holy One can use such unrighteous brutes to chastise His own people. Probably, he is questioning why God would allow such a wicked nation to bring about such harm to other nations. The picture described is harrowing: The Chaldeans (Babylonians) would possibly catch their enemies in a net, and then throw their (supposedly dead) captives out, so that the net would be free again for them to go on more hunts (Hab 1:15-17).

In our eyes, this appears to be extreme cruelty as human lives are taken to be totally insignificant. And not surprisingly, Habakkuk asks how can a Holy God allow such things to happen. And we likewise do the same many times as we ask God: “Why do You allow such things to happen? Do You know what You are doing, God? Are You fair at all?”

Chapter 2: God’s Wise and Righteous Response

If there is any difference between Habakkuk and us, it is in Hab 2:1. Most of us just assume that we are right when we make an observation and we refuse to budge because of strong-headed pride in ourselves.

The prophet was different.

He knew he had challenged the wisdom of God, but being a man of God, he would take a step back to see what God would say to him. And importantly, he knew that he would be corrected and he prepared his heart to answer God’s correction (Hab 2:1).

This allowed him to receive the Lord’s blessing to see the real end of things with a heart that was willing to learn from his own mistakes and mistaken perspective.

God thus allowed Habakkuk to understand what He had in store for the ones who inflict harm upon others, thereby showing the righteous of God in the end. The key verse here is in Hab 2:20 “The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him”

Chapter 3: A Prayer

With the questions and answers done, Habakkuk now turned to his attention to remembering the works of God. This he does through referencing the awesome deeds that only the Lord could perform – miracles and signs and wonders.

Highly poetic and figurative in form, chapter 3 is a type of homage to the wondrous abilities of an Almighty God who alone controls the universe and all that is in it.

When Habakkuk ends his song of praise, he does it on a hopeful note. Though he knows that the Chaldeans would make their attack and raze Judah in the near future, he still held on to the promise of God. God would deliver and He would do so in a wondrous manner.

Thus, in spite of all the impending gloom, Habakkuk could rise above that and say that he would still rejoice in the Lord, as he awaits the salvation of God. In similar fashion, we are made to ponder too, as we learn to be like the prophet to say for sure that we still have hope in God’s promise of deliverance at the end of our toils and tribulations on earth.

If the fig tree does not blossom, and we are sent into a period of seeming hopelessness, let us return to Habakkuk’s message for Judah, and put it in prayer as we learn to have greater faith in promises of God (cf. Hab 2:4).