Introduction to these Lecture Notes
Dedicated to the students who
attended the Conference in West Bengal,
These notes have
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are used for major themes related to the text of Habakkuk. For those whose
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Notes on Habakkuk 1
© David H. Linden University Presbyterian Church, Las Cruces, New Mexico USA May, 2017
1:1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet
received. ..
The prophet saw (or received)
this oracle. It is a revelation from God. Habakkuk did not receive this message
from himself. It would be very easy for someone to consider it as something he
initiated. Though he expresses his feelings to the Lord, the Lord controlled
the experience of the prophet. His questions and perplexity were sincere; they
did happen. The Lord’s hand was in it all, generating in Habakkuk his painful
pleas, with the Lord then supplying the replies. This “burden” (the odd Hebrew
word for oracle) weighed on him,
because God had put it on his heart.
In the doctrine of inspiration, we may say
that the prophets received, saw, were told, heard, or had a message from the
Lord. In any case the Lord initiates. Prophets did not write their own opinions
and pass them on to others. God gave and they received what He gave in a way
that only God can do. Habakkuk’s brief prophecy did not have its origin in his
will or emotions. He was carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21) to
write as he did. True prophets were officially authorized; they did not call
themselves to this ministry (see Hebrews 5:4). Since their message was from
God, it was relevant, accurate, and authoritative.
Contrary to our wishes, Habakkuk does not
say to whom he wrote, where he lived or when. We are left with one clue in 1:6
as to his time in history. From this we conclude his specific audience.
Undoubtedly, he was a prophet to
The First Complaint (1:2-4)
1:2-4
How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not
listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? Why do
you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and
violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the
law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
1:2-4
The oracle begins with a painful cry to the Lord; it begins and ends
with a lament. Twice in the first complaint he asks why. The prayer in 1:2-4 assumed that God hears and controls the
things that vexed the prophet. He knew it was God Who had made him look at all
he saw. He truly viewed God as God, the One to pray to, as the One Who can save.
That the situation abounded with strife was something God could rectify, yet
one God had ordained. The power of God was not being questioned, nor was God’s
right to demand righteousness. There is also the sense that the judgment of God
against evil is right and expected, and that a failure to judge sin would
contradict God’s holy character.
What was being questioned?
The words “How long” assumed that the distress was not permanent. Surely
God would in some way intervene at some time. Habakkuk’s sense of timing is at
the heart of his complaint. In Habakkuk’s opinion, God was overdue to act. He
had not done so yet, so Habakkuk responded with a terrible appraisal. He
implied that God tolerates wrong, though he knows the opposite is true. The
tentative judgment being made about God was that He was inconsistent. God had
been prayed to, so the issue had been brought before Him, and Habakkuk stumbled
into thinking that God had failed to be wise. Before it is over, Habakkuk will
accept by faith the wisdom of God. God does not buckle to pressure, or live by
the expectations of His creatures, but He does allow frank prayers and
complaints. Habakkuk was confused.
What was the evil? The chief evil Habakkuk mentioned was violence
among his people. “Violence” appears six times in Habakkuk. Of course, in a
fallen world sin will break out, but there is human restraint in the
institutions of governments. Law enforcement and fair courts are a wonderful
blessing. Furthermore, within
A typical prophetic criticism Habakkuk’s description of the sins of his people was
very brief; in the whole oracle it is less than three verses. It was not even a
prophetic denunciation spoken to the
people.[1] (1:5 speaking to a plural audience is a small
exception to this observation.) In vv. 2-4 Habakkuk reviewed their sin as
background to his chief issue, the appearance that God did not act to correct
sin. Therefore there was no need to make a complete listing of the sins which
needed repentance.
The Prophets’ usual criticism of
1. Their idolatry as
defection from the Lord. To worship an idol is to forsake the Lord even while
claiming loyalty or performing rituals (Isaiah 1:13). Idolatry is covenantal
adultery (Hosea 4:12). Any trust in a foreign power was unbelief in Yahweh as
the covenant-keeping God to preserve them as a nation with the Son of David as
their ruler (Isaiah 7:1-17; 31:1).
2. The other prevalent
law-breaking was their abuse of the weak: the widow, the alien, and the
fatherless (Zechariah 7:8-10). The perversion of the justice system (as here in
1:4) was seen in bribing judges (Micah 3:11), withholding wages (Malachi 3:5),
accumulating land not returned in the year of release (Isaiah 5:8), etc. Social
injustice is the aspect of law Habakkuk refers to in vv.2-4.
Lest reading the prophets discourage us,
remember that it was in this setting of national moral decline that the
prophets often held out the prediction and promise of God’s saving
intervention. Thus the Holy Spirit in these later OT books gave more about
Christ and His coming than we find in the previous Scriptures.
1:5 Look at the nations and watch – and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.
1:5
Habakkuk looked on the sin of his people. It was all he saw and so he
fretted whether God would be true to Himself. The Lord replied by saying that
Habakkuk should look at what He the Lord was going to do. God is a God of
patience, but not inaction. His patience is often misunderstood (2 Peter
2:8,9). Never presume that judgment restrained is God’s permanent policy.
Justice delayed is not justice abandoned.
The reaction of the Lord concerning what
was going on in
The
Surprises of God and the Unbelief of Man “Be amazed; I am going to do something…” Creation from nothing, the rebellion among
the angels, the fall of man in Eden, the promise of His Son as Savior (to die
for sin He did not commit), the flood, the exodus, the return from the
Babylonian Captivity, the preservation of Israel, and Gentile nations streaming
to Christ – all of these were amazing and unbelievable in themselves. However,
that God has said what will happen does not mean that His word will be
accepted. Human sin resists both the will of
God and the word of
God. The prediction about the Babylonians (1:6) was something Habakkuk
personally believed (1:12). Though a number of prophets gave the same warning,
the people of
Luke 24 shows resistance to believing the word of the Lord even among the disciples: they did not believe the women (v.11), the Scriptures (v.25), or that they were seeing the risen Christ (v.40,41). Unbelief was mixed with their joy and amazement. They had been told repeatedly of the crucifixion and resurrection (Matthew 16:21; 20:17-19; Mark 9:30-32; 10:45). Faith comes by hearing, but hearing that generates faith is itself the gift of God. (Note the contrast in hearing in Mathew 13:9-17.) Believing God is not a general feature of mankind (John 8:43). The disciples were an example of resistance even in believers. That contradiction is in us (Mark 9:24). Every Christian should say, “I do not naturally believe.”
Paul quoted
this text to his countrymen: “Look, you
scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that
you would never believe, even if someone told you.” (Acts 13:41). The Jews did not believe the OT prophets
about the destruction of
The
verse still applies, because Christ is coming again. Our newspapers never speak
of this, and yet we know that “… the
Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of
the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise
first,” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The majestic appearance of Christ in power,
glory, and judgment is not on the minds of the world. Believers are in constant
need of reminders of this truth. By faith we watch for the coming of the Lord (2
Thessalonians 1:6-10; 2 Peter 3:11-13). It may be in our lifetime that God will
again do this unbelievable “something”. The world is being true to its
unbelief. By faith (2:4) in all God has said we too should be amazed. God still
says, I am going
to do something!
1:6-11
“ … I am raising up
the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole
earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to
themselves and promote their own honor. 8
Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their
cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like a
vulture swooping to devour; 9
they all come bent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and
gather prisoners like sand. 10
They deride kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; they
build earthen ramps and capture them.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on – guilty men,
whose own strength is their god.”
1:6 Since God was raising up the Babylonians, it seems
safe to understand that they had not emerged at this point as the dominant
power of the region. This might place Habakkuk in a time a little earlier than
Jeremiah. Of more importance is the emphatic teaching in this verse that God
was raising up a wicked Gentile power to do His will. The Babylonians did not
act in obedience to God’s revealed commandments, yet as God’s instrument of
punishment (1:12) they would do what He had ordained. See: Appendix B: God
Using the Wicked for His Righteous Purpose.
1:6-11 Retribution The
violence within the covenant community was punished by foreign violence. The
Lord “rewarded” destruction (v.3) with destruction. Undoubtedly some helpless
souls in
Military might
The Lord’s answer predicted the speed of the Babylonian attack. Note: sweep,
swift horses, galloping cavalry, swooping vultures. Then to close this section
with an inclusio it mentions sweep again. (See the notes on chapter 3 re
inclusios.) The Babylonians had such
speed there was no escape from them, and no opportunity for one besieged city
to help another. The enemy would simply overwhelm them. The Jews could not run,
and wherever they remained, their city walls could not save them (v.10). (See
also Jeremiah 1:15; Isaiah 22:5).
Godlessness In Judah God’s law was ignored at the highest levels.
They were godless. No one has any regard for God if his policy is to disregard
whatever God has said. The Babylonians had no respect for the law of the real
God either. The proper role of God over all was being replaced. Whenever God is
rejected a horrible substitute takes His place. The only thing that can replace
justice is injustice. This is what
The Babylonians mocked other human
authorities. The denial of God’s authority led to the denial of authorities He
has erected. Godlessness tends to chaos. No social structure is possible
without law, but the Babylonians were a law to themselves. Such denial of God
meant that the honor that should have been His was directed back to themselves.
The depravity of self-love (2 Timothy 3:1-5) abounded in Babylonian arrogance.
The Lord ended His reply to Habakkuk’s
complaint by a statement of Babylonian guilt and self-worship. The God Who
opposes false gods ended with an assessment of them that demanded His reaction
to them. This was the next issue that would arise in Habakkuk’s perplexity
about the justice of God.
MY
CHALLENGE: In
The Second Complaint (1:12 – 2:1)
1:12
O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not
die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have
ordained them to punish.
Habakkuk received an answer from God. He knew that the Lord had heard him and would
deal with the sin of his people. That would be a relief, yet a new and perhaps
more difficult question rose in his mind. He continued to pray to the only One
Who could answer and act, and he stood on certainties about God that he knew.
Many things may puzzle and unsettle us. In such times we need to have our feet
on the firm foundation of what we know from Scripture about God. Habakkuk had
learned from the Lord that He would use
The
Decline of Interest in Doctrine The truths of the Bible are doctrine, for
doctrine is simply a compilation of teaching about God and whatever He has
spoken in His Word. In our time (especially in so-called Western civilization)
theology is frequently depreciated as unimportant. It is treated as a
distraction. The new emphasis is on the self, stated in a vague and undefined
“relationship with God”. We are being drawn into non-cognitive spirituality.
In this way Christians are copying non-Christian religions. Theology may be
affirmed and even believed, but when it is no longer central, it has less and
less impact on the evangelical church. Not so with Habakkuk! He spoke to God as
the One Who had made Himself known in objective verbal revelation. This is the
way to think of the Lord. Any other approach will lead to inventing “our own
truth”, which is the same as inventing our own error. When we neglect what God
has revealed of Himself, only idolatry is left. Propositional truth was the
core of Habakkuk’s prayer, one that may serve as a model for us. The Bible is
full of doctrinal assertions. Anyone who would depreciate them should realize
that he is contradicting God. What God has revealed cannot be unimportant,
irrelevant, or in need of any revision by us. Seeking to revise God’s truth is
the height of arrogance.[3] On the other hand, forming our view of God
entirely from what He has revealed is reverent Christian submission to the true
and living God. It is the starting point
of all obedience.
God is eternal
and unchanging, holy, almighty, just, sovereign and self-existent. The personal
language My God, My Holy One indicates a covenant bond. In the opening of this
prayer, Habakkuk has packed much truth into a few words. For an elaboration of
1:12, see Appendix C Habakkuk’s Doctrine of God in 1:12
1:13-17 13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot
tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent
while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? 14
You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler. 15
The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he
gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. 16
Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his
net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. 17 Is he to
keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
1:13 The need for God to deal in
judgment with his own people was clear. Habakkuk had actually been asking for
something like that from God! Then it seemed as if God would deal with one
wickedness and overlook another one. God cannot look favorably on anyone’s sin.
(Christians should realize that though we are forgiven in Christ, our sin is
just as repulsive to God as ever.)
Habakkuk sensed an irreconcilable tension between God’s holiness and His
sovereign decision to allow the wicked to indulge their sin, sin of a very
vicious kind. This is Habakkuk’s Why do
you tolerate …?
He also asked Why are you silent? God does
not explain all His decisions to us, especially in advance. He does not seek
our counsel (Romans 11:33-36). He does not “clear” things with us. He is not
accountable to us. The Lord is God and we are not. As Habakkuk said in his
prayer, the Babylonians would surely swallow up entire nations and then thank
their false god for their victories. It appeared to Habakkuk that the Lord God
of
The fact that Habakkuk wrote this oracle shows
that God was not silent for long. This prophecy is part of the Word of God. To
be without divine explanation is terrible confusion. If we have no word of
direction or explanation from God, we will suffer (Proverbs 29:18).
1:14–17
At this point the prayer switches from you to he, as the prophet speaks
about the Babylonian (singular). God had described them (plural) in 1:6-11.
When Habakkuk speaks of them, he adds no new factor to make their sin more
heinous. His appraisal agrees with what God had said. Habakkuk thinks the
Babylonians are more wicked than his own people. From the standpoint of
military aggression against other nations he was right (Ezekiel 7:23-27), but
from the standpoint of covenant-breaking,
The ease of
The gods of
2:1
I will stand at my
watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say
to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
The watchman stood in a high location to see if an enemy might be approaching. He would discern the danger and sound a warning. The prophet was to warn in a different way. He did not give his view of the danger. His duty was to wait for a revelation from the Lord (Ezekiel 3:17). True prophecy is never the prophet’s wisdom or interpretation of anything (2 Peter 1:21). He is an example of a godly approach to whatever problems afflict us and confuse us. He looked to God; He waited on God, and whatever response God would give would be what he would accept and repeat to others.
He knew that with God as the source, any
answer from Him would be truth, and it would be the only thing he could
proclaim to others with assurance and authority. Possibly the words “and
what answer I am to give” refer to what he would say to others after
receiving the Lord’s answer. The wisdom of the wise will perish (Isaiah 29:14).
The Lord Almighty is wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom (Isaiah
28:29). “He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of
salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this
treasure,” (Isaiah 33:6). It is crucial to Christian ministry that we not view
our thinking as a store of wisdom when we have the Word of God instead.
A
Little Review of This Prophecy The beginning of Habakkuk deals with the
prophet’s painful perplexity. Reviewing how God rules in this world is a very
humbling thing. God knows what He is doing, and all He does is right, including
using the wickedness of man to accomplish a righteous purpose. We are tempted
to sin by sitting in judgment of God. In this prophecy we are encouraged by
Habakkuk’s example to bring our frank questions before God. We may tell Him
what puzzles us. We must cling tenaciously to truth, such as the holiness of
God and His sovereign right to rule in the decisions of men. Habakkuk is a
revelation from God. The Great God of Heaven has condescended to speak to us,
allowing prayers, often stated in ignorance. To us He imparts His counsel and
explanation. It is a high honor to man that God would speak to us at all, and
He has done so very patiently! Before this short prophecy is finished, Habakkuk
will pray yet again (3:2). His review of God’s powerful redemption of His
people brought him comfort and joy. The prophecy ends with a prayer of faith
that has astounded all who have read it.
Appendix
A: Prayers of Complaint in Scripture
Rise up, O Judge of the earth; pay back to
the proud what they deserve. How long will the wicked, O LORD, how long will
the wicked be jubilant? (Psalm 94:2,3)
Puny dictators do not allow complaints,
while the great and majestic Lord God over all authorities welcomes the prayers
of His children. His view is that He is being looked upon as God when we cry
out to Him; He likes it, because our real God is whomever we call on for help.
(This makes all prayers to Mary or saints idolatrous.) What surprises us is
that God has allowed and placed in Scripture prayers we call laments. Our
encouragement includes that in speaking to God we are not limited to gentle
requests and positive praises. Painful groans and frank questions are also
welcomed. The man who saw his beloved wife and two children in coffins, then
turned his face to the wall saying in anguish, “O God, O God …” was praying as
a Christian. There is no teaching in the Bible that we must not pray in agony
about our burdens. Anguish stimulates prayer.
We are dealing with difficult matters. This
prophet questioned (what he thought was) the lax rule of God, God’s supposed
lack of intervention when greatly needed. These were trials the Lord made
Habakkuk “look at” (v.3), not matters of Habakkuk’s choice or pleasure. God’s
sovereign decisions were the assumption of all that Habakkuk said; otherwise he
could not complain to a Lord God Who had no control over the things that vexed
him. The Scriptures never defend God by arguing that anything is outside His
control.
One aspect of prayer that emerges here is
that we come to the Lord as little children with whatever we face. Casting
burdens on the Lord is a way that we learn that He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).
We are never in the situation where we believe in His care without any examples
of it being needed. God has made no promise that we would never have any
anguish. “… All the days [with no exceptions] ordained for me were written in
your [very private] book [containing all the circumstances I will face] before
one of them [i.e., the ordained days] came to be” (Psalm 139:16). (Please be
careful there, because I added my interpretation into the text itself.)
Laments cry out, how long,
as do the murdered saints in Revelation 6:10,11. In that text they were told to
wait a little longer. The Lord told
Habakkuk that He had a specific time for His intervention (2:2,3). Thus the
phrase “in God’s good time” is the language of cognitive faith and a contented
heart. These prayers also ask Why? Unbelief assumes “there is nothing He can
do about it”. Faith says, “It is in His hands”. The why recognizes that He has
a reason. Prayers may raise hard questions without a specific resolution in a
person’s lifetime. For example, Psalm 89 raises serious issues that were not
clarified until the first coming of Christ. The prophets and psalmists did not
have the information that it is now our privilege to have (1 Peter 1:10-12). We
must not misconstrue Biblical lamentations as assumptions that God would not
address the problems raised. It was simply that He had not done so when the
prayer was made. They prayed believing He would. God has chosen for problems to
fester so that we will eagerly wait for His response. Supreme patience waits
for Christ to return (James 4:8). The language of “come soon” is tempered by a
love for God that accepts His time.
Our eagerness to see the Lord intervene as
and when we think He should, assumes that He should submit to our wisdom. Overstepping
this boundary runs counter to God’s longsuffering. If God were quick to express
wrath (note Exodus 34:6; James 1:19) who of us would be saved? “Bear in mind
that our Lord's patience means salvation …” (2 Peter 3:15). God does not live
in fear of those who complain that He is late. He jealously guards His right as
God to decide both the “what’s” and “when’s” of His creatures. Because He
functions in His wisdom, He can only act according to His own timetable. That
is just God being God!
Another example is Moses’ lament in Exodus
5:22,23, but see also God’s reply in Exodus 6. For psalms of lament, see Psalms
10, 13, 73 & 74, though there are many more. We distinguish these from
imprecatory psalms, which cry out for the wrath of God so that the wicked will
have their due. Those too are in the Bible.
How we view history is important. In Habakkuk
1:6 the Lord said, “I am raising up the Babylonians”. This is a clear statement of God’s action. It
is much more than prediction. The Lord does not speak of Himself as only an
observer of the future. Of course He knows all that will ever happen, but this
text is telling us that God decided to use the Babylonians for His specific
purpose. God does not read history to learn from it in order to make comments
on it; He manages it, ruling over the lives of mankind, including those who
have come into bondage to Satan. God is sovereign in all matters of human
action and decision. “He does as He pleases with …the peoples of the earth”
(Daniel 4:35). This truth is contrary to popular notions of man’s supposedly
free will. (My brief reply is that as a result of the fall, man is not free. He
is in bondage to sin and Satan. His heart is dead to God, and so he lacks any
spiritual interest in repentance and faith. Notions of man’s freedom and
spiritual ability, apart from God changing our hearts, do not fit the Bible’s
description of our sinful condition.) This appendix reviews other Scriptures
that show God using the willful actions of unbelievers; we cannot avoid the
fact that God has the right to move the hearts of men as He pleases (Proverbs
21:1; Luke 22:22). God works through the righteous conduct of His people (2
Timothy 2:20,21). The Scriptures below will also show that the nations are
tools by which God accomplishes His purpose. He does this mysteriously; the
humans involved act freely without coercion. There is no wickedness in the Lord
(Psalm 92:15) when He uses the willful sinful acts of sinners for His holy
purpose. Examples of God using Gentile powers as His instruments follow.
1.
The Pharaoh of
2.
The Babylonians in the Prophecies of Jeremiah
No one can read the prophets and miss the proliferation of statements
that God would employ
3.
The King of
4.
Cyrus in the Prophecy of Isaiah Six texts
in Isaiah reveal that God would use the wicked king of
The six Isaiah texts are: a) 41:25; b) 44:24-28; c) 45:1-7; d) 45:13; e) 46:11; f) 48:14,15. God stirred up this king
(a). Though God said
5.
The Romans and Unbelieving
This prayer begins with wonderful truths about God. There was no
vagueness in Habakkuk’s mind about the Lord he was praying to. A clear
conception of who God is enables us to pray in His will and not to some false
deity of our own imagination.
1. Eternal & Unchanging God has not
merely lived forever. He is the same God from age to age, so what He promised
in Abraham and Moses’ day is binding forever. If He learned something or
changed in any way, He would be a different God from what He was before
(Malachi 3:6). Only God is eternal and unchanging, so His promises are eternal,
and thus Habakkuk was confident in saying We
will not die.
2. Holy We are right to think of God as holy when
we consider His sinlessness. He cannot be tempted to sin; He does not contemplate
sinning. He has never had any experience in sinning. He is thorough and
consistent in His purity. Sin is recent; God is eternal. By the word holy
we mean that God is different in many ways. Our life is contingent; His is
inherent. We may learn, but God knows. We act; God judges us. We make uncertain
plans; God decrees with certainty (Proverbs 19:21). God’s holiness sets Him
apart from all His creatures, not just from the standpoint of infinity and
superiority. He is set apart as transcendent.
God’s holiness includes His moral perfection, but it goes beyond to
include all that sets Him apart from us and makes Him unique. So He is holy in all His attributes. You can
never be wrong if you say, “God is holy in His justice, in His judgments, in
His creation, in His commandments, in His power, in His decisions, in His very
existence, (etc.)”
3. Almighty God is not a God who can only promise; He
is able to fulfill His word. He is a Rock, a wonderful image for being
steady, unmovable, and powerful.
4. Just Since God appointed the Babylonians for judgment
and punishment, this was evidence to Habakkuk that God does not tolerate
wrong, as he once worried in vv.2-4.
5. Sovereign When God appointed and
ordained Babylonian action, He did not check with them first to see if it was
all right with them. He is God and acts as God with unlimited rights. What He
never violates is His holy character.
God rules over His enemies, even their actions and motivations. God’s
enemies receive their life from Him and He sustains their existence. His
absolute right to rule them extends into their hearts, so that He can use the
devil or the Babylonians at will, whether they know it or not, whether they
like it or not. If you are going to pray, God is the One to turn to. God speaks as God in a way we must not
without assuming the unique rights of God: “There is no god besides me. I put
to death and I bring to life.” (Deuteronomy 32:39).
6. Self Existent This feature of God’s
transcendence is implied in His Name LORD. It is an expression of “I Am that I Am”
(Exodus 3:14,15). God’s Name is a statement. It is not just a label to identify
Him. When God says “I am”, He claims an existence beyond our reach. When a
human says, “I am,” he makes a temporary and contingent statement. It is not an
eternal reality. It is dependent on all the things he needs to support his
existence. Deny a man food, water, or air and he will be described as “he was”.
God’s life is from Himself!
Because God is unchangeable, His I
Am Name implies that His word is as faithful a million years later as the
moment He spoke. This solid reputation of God appears in the prayer of Habakkuk
3. Here in 1:12 God’s faithfulness is the reason for Habakkuk’s confident we
will not die. He again includes why
twice in this prayer, but in his perplexity he knows that the LORD cannot break
His covenant with Abraham. The people of
7. The Covenantal Feature All of the wonderful features of God
stated above could be true without God allowing us to be close to Him. None of
the attributes of God mentioned so far indicate that He has taken in anyone as
His sons and daughters. Habakkuk calls God, “My God, My Holy One”. Covenant language confesses that He is our
God (Exodus 15:2), and we are encouraged to say that we are His people
(Leviticus 26:12). God speaks that way of believers. The term “sons and
daughters” is commonly used to speak of the children of mankind. God uses it of
His family too (Deuteronomy 32:19; Ezekiel 16:20; 2 Corinthians 6:18). David
used my many times in 2 Samuel 22:1-7. The language of intimacy is
expanded in the NT with prayer being offered to Our Father (Matthew
6:9), with more reference to God’s children (John 1:12; Romans 8:16,17; 1 John
3:1,2; Revelation 21:7).
Notes on Habakkuk 2
[Habakkuk 2:1 is the end of his first complaint, so I have placed it in the Notes on Habakkuk 1.]
2:2,3
Then the LORD replied:
"Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a
herald may run with it. 3 For
the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not
prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not
delay.”
2:2,3
This verse supports the
idea in v.1 that the Lord’s answer is to be given to others. It was not for
Habakkuk alone. It was to be in writing as a permanent word to all who follow.
Perhaps make it plain meant to write
it in large letters, easy to read. God’s answer (and all of His Word) was to be
spread. The one reading was to run with
it to others. Note these issues in Christian ministry: The word awaited was
God’s; it must be understood, and then disseminated. Note too the confidence of
God; this is not a revelation where God is trying to guess what is coming. It
rings with authority and divine confidence. (God is absolutely
self-confident.) the end is probably the
end of
The oracle begins with a “how long?” Again
in the second complaint, Habakkuk waits. (Faith has the virtue of patience.) To
His waiting servant, God speaks of an appointed time, a time that is certain, a
time that He has chosen. From our standpoint God’s time may linger and delay.
We may treat God’s promised events as “someday, sometime”. For God it is an
appointed time. We are encouraged when we speak of God’s good time. Vv.2 &
3 are God’s introduction to His reply, which now follows.
2:4-6
“See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright –
but the righteous will live by his faith –
5 indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied, he
gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples. 6 "Will not all of them taunt
him with ridicule and scorn, saying, ‘Woe…’”
2:4-6
Here is a description
of the Babylonian, spoken of in the singular. Chapter 2 ends with a reference
to God in the singular. There were many Babylonians and many gods, but there is
one LORD God of
The Babylonian is
depraved. His appetite is like hell (grave
is “Sheol” in Hebrew); hell never has enough. The section is all about the
Babylonian except for one line inserted in a place where it does not seem to
fit! This is a benefit to us, because it
sets up an important contrast. There are other contrasts: idols vs. the Lord
(2:18-20); and the frustrated efforts of exhausted nations (2:13,14) vs. the
certainty of God’s purpose being fulfilled. This contrast in v.4 is of the
Babylonian as a model of the proud man, whereas the righteous person out of his
faith lives. My longest appendix is Appendix D: The Role of Faith in
Justification. These verses contrast the self-confident individual and the
righteous man whose trust is in the Lord. I leave further discussion of this
vital theme to the appendix.
The way of the
wicked is hard (Proverbs 4:19). The Lord’s answer involves five woes upon him.
(See the similarity to Isaiah 5.) These woes are pronounced by the victims, but
it is really God stating the charges. It shows that God does not tolerate the treacherous (1:13). He
judges them. The greedy destroyers of man and everything else will be brought
down. Notice though that God’s judgment
is not limited to punishment. God spells out the offenses. He is judging when
He appraises. We should listen carefully when God tells us what He thinks of
sin. His action in judgments logically follows His judicial review.
2:6b – 8
" `Woe to
him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long
must this go on?' 7Will not
your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then
you will become their victim. 8
Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder
you. For you have shed man's blood; you
have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
2:6b
– 8 In v.5 the greedy person gathered people; here he
gathers property. He steals and extorts. God gives possessions, but His way is
that we are not to covet anything that belongs to our neighbour. If we obey
this, we will not steal from him. (See the tenth and eighth commandment.) The surviving victims have memories.
2:9-11
"Woe to
him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high, to escape the
clutches of ruin! 10 You have
plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your
life. 11 The stones of the
wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.
2:9-11
The moral issue of unjust gain is described
as the ruin of peoples. Their plunder enabled them to build a city of wealth
and wonder. However, the house (of
2:12-14 "Woe to him who builds a city with
bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!
13 Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people's
labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for
nothing? 14 For the earth
will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover
the sea.
2:12-14
The focus continues on
how the city was established by murder. Instead of adding what we already
expect, namely that
2:15-17
“Woe to
him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin till they
are drunk, so that he can gaze on their naked bodies 16 You will be filled with shame
instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and be exposed! The cup from the
LORD's right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your
glory. 17 The violence you
have done to
2:15-17
Humiliating trouble
forced on others may be pictured as drunken staggering (Psalm 60:3; Jeremiah
25:16). There are multiple images here. This loss of control is also tied to
the shame of nakedness. This is the kind of degradation
The
Cup from the Lord’s Hand The cup of wrath appears in a number of
Scriptures. It also conveys the imagery of God’s wrath upon the Son in His
death on the cross. I have adapted the material in the box below from my
lecture notes on Isaiah 51 [4].
What the cup of the Lord was like for Christ is clearer to us when we ponder
Habakkuk 2:16. The cross of Christ is properly understood not only in terms of
physical suffering, or judicial sentence, or separation from God, or the defeat
of Satan, or reconciliation with God, or penal wrath upon our gracious willing
Substitute, or a sacrifice that brings forgiveness (it is all of these), it was
also the scene of Christ literally experiencing the shame due to us for sin. At
the crucifixion, they removed His clothes and people watched (Matthew
27:35.36), or in the language of Habakkuk, they gazed. Shame is the
opposite of glory.
The Cup of God’s
Wrath in Isaiah 51:17-23 In Isaiah 12:1 salvation includes God’s comfort and
His anger turned away; both themes recur here in Isaiah 51. God tells a people
without help, comfort or hope that the cup of wrath has been removed from
them. In Jeremiah 25:15-38,
2:18-20 "Of what value is an idol, since a
man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in
his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. 19 Woe to him who says to wood, `Come to life!'
Or to lifeless stone, `Wake up!' Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold
and silver; there is no breath in it. 20
But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before
him."
2:18-20 The other woes pronounce or anticipate judgment. This
last one does more to teach than taunt. (Some are uncertain whether taunt is the best translation in 2:6.)
Like Isaiah 44 this woe shows the futility of idols by examining their
creation, their lifeless existence, and their inability to speak or answer. In
Habakkuk the real God gave answers. Surely faith in a physical object is
misplaced and will lead to disappointment. (See the notes for 1:14-17.)
The apologetic of
the Bible sometimes examines error, and sometimes contrasts truth and error.
The contrast here is a description of idols followed by a cryptic statement
that the LORD is in His holy
God has an image
too. He will not allow us to make any, for any we make will misrepresent Him
grossly. How can we show this unchangeable eternal Spirit by a thing recently
created and decaying? How can the infinite God fit on a shelf? How can the
beauty of His grace be shown in gold or silver? How can a metal mouth stand for
His eternal Word spoken through the law, the writings, the prophets, and the
apostles? There is good reason for the second commandment. It saves us from
striving for an unreachable objective. There is no image of God that anyone can
make, that can in any way even approximate the real Lord God. But God has an
image of Himself. The Lord Jesus in His incarnation is the visible image of the
invisible God. (See Colossians 1:15-21; Hebrews 1:1-4; 1 John 1:1 and 2
Corinthians 4:4-6.) To see Christ is to
see the Father (John 14:7-9).
Why does it say, “Let all the earth be silent before him”? Sometimes silence before God is a matter of
such guilt that there is no excuse that can be offered, (Romans 3:19,20.) The
way to be saved is to “shut up” (or be silent) and offer no reason for God’s
mercy, and to accept what He offers in Christ no matter how much that hurts our
pride! Naturally many see in this statement a sense of awe before God. I would
add to that that after Habakkuk’s complaints, he had to be silent and wait for
God’s answer. We would wait forever for an idol to speak, but the Lord our God
does give guidance (2:19). Our God has given His word and in what He said (no
matter when) He still speaks. We hear when we cease from our poor wisdom
cluttering our minds. If we are silent before the Lord Who is in His holy
heavenly temple, we will learn that Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). The Father has said
that we should listen to Him (Luke 9:34-36).
Appendix D: The
Role of Faith in Justification
(Habakkuk 2:4)
This appendix may
be more difficult to understand than the others. If that is so for you, read
the very last section first. That may help some.
Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardons all our
sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of
Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone. Q & A 33,
“See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright – but the righteous will live by his faith – indeed wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest …” Habakkuk 2:4,5
The gospel the
Apostle Paul proclaimed was not received from other men, not even from other
apostles. He received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ (Galatians
1:11,12). The Bible does not tell us any more about the Lord Jesus instructing
Paul privately. Since there is only one gospel, the faith he then proclaimed
was the same one the other apostles embraced (Galatians 1:23,24). We do know
that right after His resurrection the Lord showed the other apostles truths
about Himself in the OT Scriptures. Paul used this same way to explain the
gospel. On of his favorite statements was Habakkuk 2:4.
The Apostle Paul’s Quotation of OT Texts to Support
Justification
·
In Romans 4:1-3, 9-11, 20-25, he taught imputed
righteousness from Genesis 15:6.
·
In Galatians 3:6-9, quoting Genesis 15, he again
taught justification as imputed righteousness with the major emphasis being on
faith.
·
In Romans 4:4-8, he taught from Psalm 32 that sins are
not imputed to the man who trusts God.
·
In 1 Corinthians 1:29-31, Paul joined boasting in the
Lord (from Jeremiah 9:24) with boasting in Christ as our righteousness.
·
In Galatians 3:10-14, Paul included Habakkuk 2:4 to
emphasize that it is by faith that we are justified, and not by keeping the
law.
·
In Romans 1:17, at the introduction of his most
detailed treatment of justification, Paul quoted Habakkuk 2:4 as his first text
to show that justification was by faith.
Paul taught that
justification appears in Genesis and has further support in the Psalms and the
prophets. Justification is not a doctrine limited to the New Testament. The OT
law and prophets teach this gospel (Romans 3:21), and OT saints were justified
in the same way that we are (Romans 4:1-8). The chief contribution of Habakkuk
2:4 is on the role of faith.
We do not find the
entire doctrine of justification spelled out in 2:4. In my opinion, Genesis 15
and Psalm 32 give more on the nature of justification. Habakkuk does not say
what justification is, though it does refer to the righteous person. Faith is
then mentioned as the way the righteous live, but the Apostle Paul will insist
in his writings that faith is the way one becomes righteous. How can Paul teach
that we are justified by faith from this text?
The holy Lord, Who requires perfect righteousness, could for some
reason call a person righteous, though that man was born in sin and still has
sin in his life – for all have sinned, and all do sin (Ecclesiastes 7:20). The
only thing in the text that could be the reason for God calling this someone
righteous is that he had faith as a response to the Lord. [5] Habakkuk does not elaborate that
righteousness is a gift from God, and Paul does not say that that aspect of
justification is taught in 2:4. However, since his righteousness came by faith,
it was not procured by merit, and so it had to be a gift.
How Does Habakkuk Help Us to Understand Faith?
In Habakkuk, faith
is directed to the word of the Lord. That point has much support throughout the
oracle. The prayers are all to the One who can explain and act. These prayers
rest in God’s promises. (See the notes at 3:2.) They are prayers of faith, and
none of this faith is in the worth of the one praying. Habakkuk 2:4, Paul’s
choice text, fits the gospel. Justifying faith is opposed to the attitude of
those impressed with themselves. Faith is unlike the pride of the Babylonian;
it rejects religious confidence in one’s own righteousness (Luke 18:9). We
cannot have faith in the accomplishments and words of God and at the same time
have our trust in our faithfulness. Justifying faith cannot be in our
obedience, our baptism, our birthright, or anything other than the Saviour our
God has provided. Justification is strictly by faith, and only by faith, so
that it may be by grace (Romans 4:16). Grace is God’s principle in salvation,
so any addition of our works in justification destroys faith and grace. He who
looks to his own religious life is like the puffed up Babylonian, not the man
of faith. Faith “looks to the Son” (John 6:40).
The Three New Testament Quotations of Habakkuk 2:4
1.) In Hebrews 10:37,38 it is
part of a call to perseverance. Not only will it come (i.e., the end of Babylonian oppression), but He will come (i.e., Christ).
2.) In Romans 1:17, Paul uses
2:4 as part of his major emphasis that the righteousness that comes from God is
received by faith. (See the discussion of this above.)
3.) In Galatians 3:10-14, the
apostle is engaged in a major conflict over the competition of works with
faith. Justification cannot be by faith
if it is also by works.
Faith vs. Works
The righteous in
2:4 do not live by works, nor are they righteous by works. The only response of
the righteous in 2:4 is faith. Works follow from faith, but they do not assume
the role of faith. A child is not its own mother, and good works cannot
generate themselves. Our relationship with God begins in faith and continues in
faith, which “expresses itself through love” (Galatians 5:6), and shows itself
by what the believer does (James 2:18). At the moment of justification nothing else is present as the reason
for the gift of righteousness to become our possession.[6] Since righteousness is acquired by imputation
from outside ourselves (a source other than the believer), its reception must
be in harmony with the gift nature of the righteousness offered. God does not
justify for the righteousness in us. If our righteousness were imputed to us –
even in the most godly person on earth – it would be a very poor gift. Such
native obedience is still stained by sin and is incomplete in obedience. God
would reject it. And worse, if it is possible to be worse, imputing our
righteousness to us would replace the good gift, the perfect gift, the
righteousness of Christ.
In Justification Faith and Law Keeping are Opposing
Principles
· …No
one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather … But
now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known … This
righteousness from God comes
[a
different way] through faith in
Jesus Christ to all who believe.
(Romans 3:20-22)
· …
a man is justified by faith apart from
observing the law. (Romans 3:28)
· If
… Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about
…[However] "Abraham believed
God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." … To the man who does not work but trusts
God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. (Romans 4:2-5)
· …
A man is not justified by observing the law, but by
faith
in Jesus Christ. [We] have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in
Christ and not by
observing the law, because by observing the law no one will
be justified. (Galatians 2:16) Paul’s
repetition was to make sure that the difference was clear. See also Romans
4:13,14; 10:4; Philippians 3:9 and Titus 3:5.
A Survey of Various Aspects of Justification
Justification is a strong and basic doctrine. However, any revision of its nature, means or basis destroys the purity of the gospel in the one adopting an unbiblical doctrine. The Bible’s message of justification, the very core of the gospel, is powerful because it brings sinners to Christ. It is fragile in that we cannot tamper with it. Like a large bathtub with many plugs at the bottom of the tub. It does not matter which plug is pulled, the water drains away.
The good works that are God’s reason to justify:
These are Christ’s, not ours.
The obedience required: It is Christ’s righteousness not ours.
The death in which God punished our sin: It was the sacrifice of Christ, His blood,
not ours.
The One Who pronounces the sinner
forgiven/acquitted: It is God, not us.
The One Who pronounces the ungodly person
who believes righteous: It is God not us.
The nature of justification: It
is a legal declaration of God’s view of us because of Christ; it is not a
transformation produced in us.
The principle of God providing
justification: It is His grace to us, not our merit.
The means by which we acquire
righteousness: It is by faith, not any kind of religious activity by us.
The nature of justifying faith: It
receives from Christ and rests
in Him. Justifying faith does not provide but takes.
The result in our attitude for this divine
grace shown: We are eternally grateful, with no reason
for pride in anything we have done.
The result in our conduct for this grace:
Since God has given the believer a new status, He graciously treats us
as children, not mere subjects, and gives His Holy Spirit to produce godly
graces in us.
The venue in which all necessary conditions were
accomplished for forgiveness and righteousness: Perfect righteousness has appeared only once
in human history. It was in the life and death of Jesus Christ as a man. Our
Lord Jesus Christ satisfied all the requirements of the law and endured its
sanctions for us. These conditions were not accomplished in our hearts or
experience but in Christ’s.
The venue in which the decree of
justification occurs: It happens in the mind of God the Forgiver,
God the Justifier, again, not in our hearts or experience. Since this is
transcendent to us, it can only be known by the supernatural revelation of
God’s promises in Scripture. His word is our assurance of God’s new view of us
in Christ. Justification is then confirmed to us in the fruit of the Spirit in
every believer’s conduct.
The difference from all other religions:
Every human religious invention lacks grace and supplants it with merit.
It has no forgiveness by faith, but only by works and ritual. It has no imputed
righteousness; sinners can only try to gain some dubious benefit through their
own religious practice. Only in the Christian faith has the Holy Lord God
Himself died for the sins of His people and obeyed in the place of all the
enemies whom the Father had chosen to love and save!
Consequently, just as the result of [Adam’s] one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus Christ] the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:18,19
Appendix E: The Universal Knowledge of the Lord
When the Apostle Paul said, “We live by
faith not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), he was saying the same thing as
Habakkuk 2:4, the righteous man will live
by his faith. In that passage, Paul spoke of a new body, which at that
moment he did not have and had never seen, yet he was confident in the Lord’s
promise of the resurrection. Since we live in a world of unbelief, it seems
unreal that the entire earth will be inhabited one day only by people
reconciled to God. We do not see this yet, but since the righteous live by
faith in whatever God says, we know it will come. Not one of us has seen it yet
“but in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a
new earth, the home of righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13).
Christians are
certain of this redeemed earth. It will be more than just a large number of
redeemed people (Romans 8:18-25). All agree that there will be an ultimate
separation of godly and ungodly people (Revelation 21:7,8). Yet we still have
among us quite different views about how this will be worked out. Perhaps these
views may be stated this way:
I do not hold
views 1 or 3. I think the second is correct, yet we are humbled by limited
understanding. We should remember that “we see [now] but a poor reflection as
in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12, NIV). God has withheld from us many details,
but this is a clear prediction in the Old Testament:
…
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the
sea. Isaiah 11:9
For
the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the
waters cover the sea. Habakkuk 2:14
“No
longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, `Know the
LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD. Jeremiah 31:34
It
shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the
LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted
up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it … Isaiah 2:2,3
We have certainty
of the final character of life on earth but with some uncertainty about how it
all comes about. Suppose it were the other way, and we only had knowledge about
what is going on right now, but no assurance of how it will end. That would be
terrible! The Lord has chosen to assure our troubled hearts (John 16:33) with
enough revealed truth of the
We are further
encouraged concerning the Great Commission. (The thread I am pursuing is that
our current service ties into the earth being filled with the knowledge of the
Lord.) The agenda of God is not a crushing weight imposed on us. The universal
knowledge of God is not only possible; it cannot fail. First of all, it rests
on Christ’s almighty shoulders (Isaiah 9:6,7). Then we have been allowed the
privilege to participate with Him as fellow-workers. We do not replace the Lord
or work apart from Him, but under and with a Lord Who cannot fail. After all,
to restore
In Acts 13:47, the
apostolic team spoke of their work with Gentiles as a fulfillment of an
assignment to them spelled out in
Isaiah 49:6. In other words, this commission, though clearly given to Christ,
was nevertheless one in which they participated. Furthermore, it was not
optional whether they would participate; they were commanded to do so. Christ’s
task was the ministry into which they had been inducted! Compare the two
Scriptures:
He
[the Father] says: "It is too small a thing for you [Christ] to be my
servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of
For
this is what the Lord has commanded us [Paul & Barnabas]: " `I have
made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of
the earth.' " (Acts 13:47)
A “Great Commission” had been placed on
Christ. In Matthew 28:16-20 the Lord included those united to Him in salvation
in a functional union of service with Him. Though the disciples were bound to
it as duty, it was not “dumped” on them. The ascension was not a desertion of
them. The Lord did not relinquish His role. All authority remains His. This
indicates His position. Then too, He will be with His servants to the “very
end” (NIV). That indicates His active involvement with them. It might be
helpful to say that it was not just that He would be with them, but that they
were going to be with Him in what He had to do in the assignment from the
Father.
In this way (bringing them into His
ministry) Christ builds His church (Matthew 16:18), but since He is still the
Builder, success and completion is an absolute certainty. Other Scriptures
supply relevant details: He opens hearts in response to His gospel (Acts
16:14). He will lose not one that the Father has given to Him (John 6:35-40).
The earth being filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord entails the
entire Godhead. The Father draws to Christ (John 6:44). The Son builds His
church. The Spirit indwells and empowers every believer (Romans 15:17-21; 2
Corinthians 3:7-9; 6:3-10). This is an agenda of success, because the Lord
Himself is the driving force behind it.
In my opinion, the two parables in Matthew
13:31-33 are additional support for my thesis. In the first one Jesus taught
that His kingdom in this age would increase greatly. The second parable assures
us that the gospel will penetrate every culture and overcome every barrier.
Surely this is being fulfilled today. Moving ever closer to the goal, we too
believe that the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Everyone works better when he knows his labour is not in vain. In the Lord, it
is not (1 Corinthians 15:58). “From the
west, men will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they
will revere his glory…” (Isaiah 59:19).
In Romans 15, Paul links his ministry to the ministry of Christ so closely that his
does not even exist apart from it.
Romans 15 elaborates on what we observed in Acts 13:47. Such divine
involvement in our time leads inevitably to Habakkuk 2:14.
In Romans 15:8-12, Christ is a servant to
bring to reality what the Old Testament promised concerning the salvation of
the Gentiles. Since Gentiles were being converted in his ministry, Paul viewed
the serving role of Christ as what generated this success in his ministry.
Gentiles were being converted, so the activity of Christ had to be the reason.
In Romans 15:15,16, Paul speaks of himself
as a servant of Christ.[7]
Two ministries (Christ’s and Paul’s) were so joined that he spoke of his work
as what Christ had accomplished through him. He says more, for Christ’s efforts
resulted in leading Gentiles to obey God by what Paul had said and done. Paul
views all he had done as the accomplishment of Christ. Therefore it was the
almighty Christ evangelizing Gentiles and Paul was the weak instrument by which
He was doing it.
Romans 15 teaches the fellowship we have
with Christ in ministry. Thus Paul, with good reason, emphasized encouragement
in this chapter (vv.4,5). Then after four OT references about the inexorable
salvation of Gentiles, he added, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and
peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of
the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Paul does not convey any defeatism in the
assignment he had received – this mandate we call “the Great Commission”.
Instead, he received his work as a gift to him and he viewed all of his success
as the manifestation of Christ’s work through him (Philippians 4:13). For Paul,
the idea that the earth would be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” made
sense. It was already underway. There are no dry places at the bottom of the
ocean, and likewise on this planet all shall know the Lord from the least to
the greatest.
Notes on Habakkuk 3
© David H. Linden University Presbyterian Church, Las Cruces, New Mexico USA May, 2017
This is a
prayer. It says so in v.1. Habakkuk had opened this little book by speaking to
the Lord, yet the two prayers in chapter one are different from this one. The
first prayers complained, looking for answers; they lacked the peace of heart
that comes from trusting the Lord. This closing prayer springs from faith in
the information God had revealed to Habakkuk. That godly man accepted it; though
it was troubling to his spirit. He could then pray in faith, in submission, and
in contentment.
The structure of chapter three Habakkuk is in two parts, each beginning
by a reference to Habakkuk the prophet (1:1 & 3:1). One is an oracle (1:1)
and the other a prayer (3:1). The prophet uses inclusios, markers used
by Jewish writers of that time to show what they intended as units. Inclusios
are obviously similar words or statements at the beginning and end of a
section. Whatever was included within the inclusios was the authors
intended unit. For example, in 3:8 horses churn up the water, and then horses
trampling water reappear in v.15. Also the opening line (v.1) probably refers
to something musical, and the chapter ends with another reference to music.
These are not coincidences; this means 3:1-19 was intended by the prophet as a
unit. In writing the Scriptures they did not use A, B, C outlines, and they did
not indent to show a new paragraph. Instead they often arranged these word
indicators within
the text! By following such clues the divisions of this
chapter emerge clearly. I conclude that this chapter is laid out like this:
3:1-19 Parameters of the whole with
inclusios related to music.
3:2 The
introductory
petition
3:3-7 God’s power and splendour in
history
Note in vv.3
& 7, geographical clues.
In vv.3-6 God is spoken of in
the third person only.
3:8-15 Further review of God’s
powerful reaction to rescue His people.
Note
the horses and waters in vv.8 & 15
God is spoken to in the second
person only.
3:16-19 The effect on the prophet emotionally and
spiritually
The
prophet speaks in the first person.
The theme of chapter three Habakkuk 3 is
about the awesome power of God in creation and judgment. Habakkuk’s LORD God
has a record of acting decisively against His enemies to preserve His people.
The prayer in Habakkuk 3 is closely related to the earlier complaints. It
reviews what the early revelation in Scripture shows of his unchangeable God.
So much of this prayer reviews what God has done that it hardly appears to be
petition. It is a prayer that is so taken up with the reputation of God that
petition is overwhelmed with worship! Habakkuk began his oracle in turmoil. He
ends as one awed with his faithful LORD God and strong in the peace God gave
him.
3:1
Prayer in 3:1 is not the usual word for prayer. This kind of prayer is a
painful intercession fully aware of impending danger. That the Babylonians
would take over his country was a traumatic realization for Habakkuk. They had
a reputation for cruelty (1:6). Then the devastating punishment of
3:2 LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in
awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
Habakkuk’s heartfelt plea to God was
coupled with confidence in God’s unchanging character. He prays convinced of
the continuing goodness of God. He was certain what God would be like, because
He knew what God had been like. The Lord’s fame
refers to His reputation. He has “made a name for Himself” (Nehemiah 9:10 &
Daniel 9:15.) It is called fame
because Habakkuk was not there to observe the Exodus and other events. Just as
it is with us, he had to learn these ancient reports. God has preserved for us
in the Bible a record of His deeds, so that our view of Him and prayers to Him
will be formed by them. Renew them
[God’s works] probably means “Do it again for us”. This petition acknowledges
that the Lord is the same from everlasting to everlasting (Psalm 90:1,2). The
just live by faith in the dependability of God.
Truth may appear contradictory. God
punishes and God shows mercy. He does both; they are compatible. We do not
choose between them. The Apostle Paul wrote of “the kindness and sternness of
God” (Romans 11:22), so with the Lord wrath and mercy co-exist. He is not
capable of accepting sin; He has a holy reaction to it. God may show grace to
sinners as He chooses, but He can never suspend His justice. (That is why mercy
to sinners required the vicarious death of Christ on the cross.) Repeatedly the
Lord warned
Deuteronomy 4:25-29 predicts a future
apostasy by
When God’s people sin, the Lord chastens.
Chastening His own is a priority expressed in Hebrews 12:5-11 where fatherly
love motivates correction. For true believers there is mercy, though merited
for us only by Christ. In His death the Lord Jesus absorbed wrath for our sin.
At the cross both mercy from God and wrath from God reached their ultimate expression
at the same time in the same event. Habakkuk knew God must punish (1:12). God
did not threaten in vain (Ezekiel 6:10).
Habakkuk also knew he could still pray for mercy, and in doing so he was
praying in the will of God. He did not pray against God’s judgment, because
living by faith meant accepting that God’s judgments were well-deserved. (Note
Romans 3:4-6.) We cannot represent God faithfully if we are embarrassed
concerning the righteousness of God’s judgment. Unlike ours, His wrath is
clean. It is as holy as His love and mercy.
The
Deeds of God This
is a major Biblical emphasis. The Bible is not simply a collection of sayings
by God for us to hear. His words to us are of infallible quality and are called
“holy words” (Jeremiah 23:9). Psalm 138:2, a psalm with considerable likeness
to Habakkuk 3, speaks of God’s word as exalted.
God does more than speak.
Scripture
emphasizes the deeds of God as well. This is clear not only in the earlier
books in the Bible, but in the profuse praise in later generations of God’s
previous actions. Such worship is common
in the Psalms. A good way to delve into this is to use a concordance to look up
“deeds”, “works” and “acts” in the Psalms. (See Psalms 26, 45, 65, 66, 96,
& 106.) The Lord shows Himself to us in words AND in actions. Both are an
intentional revelation of God. God’s deeds promote a true image of the Lord in
our minds and thus assist our prayers.
Habakkuk prayed by reviewing God in action, and so should we. In
The
Likeness of Psalm 77
Habakkuk 3 is similar in many ways to Psalm 77. The emotional distress
of the psalmist provoked a prayer of anguish. He wondered about mercy when God
showed anger. His review of God’s deeds in the past paid specific attention to
God’s violent deliverance of His people from their enemies and safe passage
through the
3:3a God came from Teman, the Holy One from
Two places are named outside the
3:3b
His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled
the earth.
The glory of God and the reasons for which we
must praise Him fill heaven and earth. His glory is not always obvious to our
dull hearts. We may not think of His glory when we ride on a crowded bus or
hear a news broadcast. In Isaiah’s day, a time of great wickedness, the
seraphim insisted that the whole earth was full of God’s glory (Isaiah 6:3).
That is true whether we see that truth or not. That wicked men are still alive
shows the glory of God’s patience; that men die shows the glory of His justice
and His faithfulness to His warnings. When God sends rain for everyone (Matthew
5:45) to supply us with food, this too shows the glory of God, the glory of His
kindness (Romans 2:4).
Habakkuk reviews God’s past glory where He
showed Himself pre-eminent above all of nature and all competitors. The Lord
God Who covers the heavens spoke from heaven and came down at Sinai (Nehemiah
9:13). He displayed His splendour before the eyes of His people (Judges 5:3-5).
In the early words of this prophecy, Habakkuk feared that God was passive. God
answered him by showing, to his amazement (1:5), how very active He would be.
Early in
On the morning of the third day there was thunder
and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet
blast. Everyone in the camp trembled …
When the people saw the thunder and lightning and
heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear… The
people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where
God was. Exodus 20:18-21
3:4-6 His splendor was like the
sunrise;* rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden. Plague went before him; pestilence followed his
steps. He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed. His ways are
eternal. (NIV)
* [Or, His
brightness was like the light; rays flashed from His hand … (ESV)]
There is good reason to interpret the
flashing rays as lightning (as in Exodus 20 above). While plagues and
pestilence occurred in judgment on
3:7 I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the
dwellings of Midian in anguish.
Speaking of
nations that have been removed from the earth, Habakkuk closes this small
passage about God at Sinai with the mention of two ancient adversaries cowering
in fear. Midian is better known; it was a large and fearsome enemy. Judges
gives three chapters to the encounter with this particular foe (Judges 6-8).
Cushan is probably not
3:8-15 Habakkuk
continues his prayer with words that address the Lord directly. The entire
section is expressed in military language mentioning weapons of that time:
arrows, spears, horses and chariots. In this section there is considerable
mention of events related to the waters of the sea. Everything in this section
is a poetic review of God’s former actions. Because it is poetry, some ancient
words are obscure, and it is more difficult to be certain of every event
Habakkuk may have had in mind. Since it begins and ends with charging horses;
that makes us certain that vv.8-15 were intended to be read as a unit. The
previous section (vv.3-7) focused on the events at Sinai. In vv.8-15 Habakkuk
speaks much of the Exodus and
3:8-11 Were you angry with the rivers, O LORD?
Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode
with your horses and your victorious chariots?
You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. Selah
You split the earth with rivers; the mountains saw you and writhed.
Torrents of water swept by; the deep roared and lifted its waves on high. Sun
and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the
lightning of your flashing spear.
3:8-10
The single Hebrew word which the NIV translates as rivers and streams may
refer also to the sea. It is not limited to inland waterways. God’s anger was
not against the waters. Everyone would understand his rhetorical question. Yet
God’s wrath was certainly present. The section begins with anger, wrath, and
rage and an attack of such fury it shook the earth. That is not a strange way
to picture God’s wrath in the Bible. It appears in the Bible in the OT, often
in Revelation and then too in Hebrews 12:25-29. With what or with whom was God
so angry? If we identify the event, we have the answer.
This section speaks in ways that would take
the minds of its first readers back to the Exodus. (Exodus here is not the Book
of Exodus, but rather the exit or escape of
First, Pharaoh pursued
Second, there is a strong emphasis on this powerful
activity occurring in relation to water.
Saying in v.9 that the waters were split,
as in Exodus 14:16,21 and Psalm 78:13, fits the dividing of the waters of the
Third, an enemy
leader of God’s people was brought
to a speedy death, not just a defeat. The
leader of the land of wickedness (v.13) is a good description of Pharaoh.
The Hebrew word for land in v.13 is
usually translated “house”, and God saved Israel from that “house of slavery”
(Exodus 20:2, ESV). Pursuing
Fourth, the purpose
of all this spectacular warfare was to
deliver your people (v.13). Enemy warriors were out to devour (v.14), and
God came out to deliver. The Ten
Commandments begin with, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of
The correspondence of these verses to the
Exodus is convincing. God’s powerful intervention centuries earlier saved
3:9
Scholars find this verse difficult to translate with certainty. The word
many in many arrows might be a
slightly different word that means to swear or commit to something. If that is
right, then in this case it would mean that God was obliged by covenant to
fight for
3:10
We should not assume that Habakkuk here speaks only of the Exodus. The
reference to mountains and especially torrents of water and high waves sounds
more like the Great Flood, which in its destructive force would be like a
tsunami overrunning the entire earth.
Habakkuk did not write to give a chronological account of history; he
was remembering the fame of God in His powerful deeds.
3:11
The sun and moon standing still immediately reminds anyone knowing
Literal: You
divided the sea before them, so that they passed through it on dry ground,
Figurative: But
you hurled their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters.
(Nehemiah 9:11)
3:12-15 In wrath you strode through
the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. You came out to deliver your
people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of
wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot.
Selah With his own spear you pierced his
head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to
devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled the sea with your horses,
churning the great waters.
3:12
God marching in this earth in wrath is a continuation of military
imagery. Very temporarily, the devil is the
god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4 and 1 John 5:19); that is still true.
Yet God still moves as He pleases throughout the earth. Never has He given up
His claim that the earth is His (Psalm 24:1). He may call Satan to account as
He chooses (Job 1:6-12). All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
Christ. God is not passive, absent from, or careless about this earthly scene.
He judges the nations. (Psalm 96 is but one example.) The kind of judgment in
v.11 should be considered in light of v.12. How has God dealt with nations that
afflicted His people? The death of the firstborn in the
God made a great distinction between
3:13,14
The order of God’s wrath is the chastening of the covenant people first,
then the Gentiles (1 Peter 4:17). In His exercise of wrath on
Crushing the leader of the land of
wickedness is discussed above. Stripping from head to foot is a total removal
of his armor, thus all his defenses, and thus his defeat.
With
His own spear is discussed
above. Warriors seeking to devour the weak surely refers to Israelites on foot
being pursued at the
3:15
It is easy to see how mention of horses churning great waters is
repetition and finishes this section. But do not miss that the text says your horses. This is part of prayer to
the God Who acts on behalf of His own. (Note how similar Psalm 68 is to
Habakkuk 3.)
3:16
I heard and my heart pounded, my
lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation
invading us.
"… This is
the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). See
also Psalm 119:120,161.
3:16
Here is the emotional reaction in Habakkuk to what He knows is coming.
In v.2 he prayed that God would repeat His mighty work. Then he trembled at the
reality of the coming invasion and the later calamity on
The prophet said, “Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come…” This
is very, very important. He knew how God had acted in the past as recorded in
Scripture. He knew God cannot change. God cannot break His covenanted promise
to the children of Abraham, nor ignore His warnings to them. Habakkuk knew
chastening was coming. He also knew the
cup from the Lord’s hand was coming
around to
Sometimes precise times are revealed as in
Daniel 9, but more often God withholds the day and hour of His predictions
(Mark 13:32). Every Christian should humbly submit to this word of the Lord:
"It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his
own authority” (Acts 1:7). The Lord gave much information and told Habakkuk
that the revelation (i.e., the future events revealed) waited for a specific
time of fulfillment. It will certainly
come and will not delay. (2:3). This holds for us too as we wait for the
coming of the Lord (Hebrews 10:35-39). In faith Habakkuk believed that God had
set a time and waited, note, waited
patiently and trembled. Faith involves waiting, and patience is a trait of
genuine faith.
3:17-19 Though the fig tree does not bud and
there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields
produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the
stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes
my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.
3:17,18
Here is an expression of faith and submission that has captured the
hearts of “God-trusters” for generations. Habakkuk expected devastation and
rejoiced in the Lord. I once visited a friend prior to a serious surgery. He
seemed cheerful. I said, “You could die.” He smiled and said, “I know,”
delighted that his life was in the hands of the Lord His God. (See Romans
14:7,8.)
Not all of God’s punishment was of a
military kind. It would also affect their agriculture. (See Leviticus 26:14-26;
Hosea 2:12; Joel 1:5-12, and the detailed warnings in the end of Deuteronomy.)
The food from the ground, trees and animals may be denied him. This godly man
of faith anticipated that he too would suffer along with his people. They had
rejected their Blesser and He denied His blessings to them.
Note in Deuteronomy 28 how often the curse
for disobedience was directed to crops and livestock. Verse 51 in that chapter
below is so very similar to that it makes one think it is the precise text
Habakkuk had in mind when he wrote:
They will devour the young of your livestock and
the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain,
new wine or oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you
are ruined. Deuteronomy 28:51
The poetry in vv.17,18 is graphic, but what
grabs the heart is the surprising attitude of this believer as he faces his
trouble. There is no diminishing the reality of the trouble; in fact that is
part of what is so vivid. Yet his faith sings in confidence. He admitted the
likelihood of losing all, and the confidence of losing nothing since he had the
Lord. Like Paul, Habakkuk anticipated “having nothing … yet possessing
everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10). His praise sprang from a satisfied heart.
True rejoicing replaces grudging resignation. As I have composed these notes, I
learned of the death (Sept. 5, 2007) of a famous pastor in the
“Now, I know
that someday I am going to come to what some people will say is the end of this
life. They will probably put me in a box and roll me right down here in front
of the church, and some people will gather around, and a few people will cry.
But I have told them not to do that because I don’t want them to cry. I want
them to begin the service with the Doxology and end with the Hallelujah chorus,
because I am not going to be there, and I am not going to be dead. I will be
more alive than I have ever been in my life, and I will be looking down upon
you poor people who are still in the land of dying and have not yet joined me
in the land of the living. And I will be alive forevermore, in greater health
and vitality and joy than ever, ever, I or anyone has known before.”
Habakkuk could suffer temporary destitution
but he would not suffer eternal loss. The Lord is the LORD, Yahweh, the
covenant-keeping God. He was to the prophet God
my Saviour. With such a Saviour he would be saved; he could not be lost or
deprived forever. Whether he knew it or not, he was an heir of all that belongs
to Christ (Romans 8:17). That makes every believer a co-owner with the Lord of
everything. The unbelieving billionaire
is a pauper in comparison with us. The fields in Habakkuk’s day might produce
no food, but this meek man would still inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). The
Holy Spirit gave him an assurance of how well-off he was and gave him joy, the
fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22,23).
3:19a
Habakkuk’s words exude faith. In spite of all that v.18 says, some will
twist his words to defend and promote self-confidence. The man who trembled at
the Lord’s words did not credit his personal fortitude or strength. His faith
was not in his faith, or any of its results. The major issue in faith is the
question of what or Who the object of faith is. The Lord was his strength. (See
Psalm 18.) The result was that he became like a surefooted deer able to climb
heights without falling.
To him who is able to keep you from falling
and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great
joy – to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude
24,25)
3:19b
Habakkuk 3 is a prayer, a fitting spiritual response to the word the
Lord gave him. Directed by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16), he wrote this for
us as well. . Here is a wonderful pattern: first, God speaks and we respond in
line with what He has said. That way we do not innovate and create our own
focus for worship. God sets the agenda and in this way we are led in worship by
the Spirit. This prayer is a psalm from beginning to end. It even has in it two
Selahs, which are found only in the
Psalms and here. It was sent to the music director (of the temple, perhaps?) to
be fitted to a suitable melody, or so I surmise, and sung by a choir or all the
people together. If even half of my guesswork is so, it is quite clear that
this oracle and prayer was not written for Habakkuk’s private use alone, but
for all the people of God. And convinced of that, I must note that Christian
music should not diminish the themes of God’s wrath and judgment. Let us treat
Habakkuk as a good model! Our worship should emphasize all of God’s mighty acts
in history including the destruction of the Enemy. The hymnbook of
Appendix F: Deuteronomy
as Background for Habakkuk
Every part of Scripture is consistent with
every other part. This includes the remarkable agreement that Habakkuk shows to
Deuteronomy. I propose that there was a conscious connection in Habakkuk’s
mind. This was the case with Daniel who prayed, “The curses … written in the
Law of Moses … have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you”
(Daniel 9:11). Before Moses’ death the Holy Spirit gave detailed predictions of
apostasy and restoration in Deuteronomy. Habakkuk never prayed against God’s
punishment of
Then the LORD appeared
…and said to Moses: "…These people will soon prostitute themselves to the
foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the
covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and
forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many
disasters and difficulties will come upon them … When they eat their fill and
thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and
breaking my covenant… I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring
them into the land I promised them on oath." Deuteronomy 31:15-21 (See also 31:27-29.)
In light of this, the wrath of God would
surely follow. Yet mixed in with these dire predictions were appeals for
obedience. If they obeyed, blessings would follow. That is to be expected when
God holds out the choice of life and death before His people. However, just as
And the LORD has
declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he
promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. He has declared that he
will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made
and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised. Deuteronomy 26:18,19
If there never
is a faithful
Note how plainly
the Lord spoke of their return in Deuteronomy 30:2-5. With a promised change of
their hearts, this early prediction speaks in the language of the new covenant.
The LORD your God will
circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love
him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live … You will again obey
the LORD and follow all his commands … The LORD will again delight in you and
make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the LORD
your God and keep his commands … Deuteronomy 30:6-10
Habakkuk believed that his merciful God
would not abandon his people or forget His covenant with them (Deuteronomy
4:31; Jeremiah 51:5). He also believed that since God is holy, severe
chastening was coming. These were not things Habakkuk imagined. Thus Habakkuk
prayed in wrath remember mercy!
(3:2). He was not being irrational. He was simply praying on the foundation of
God’s pronouncements. (See Psalm 89:30-34.) His nation would be judged
(Habakkuk 1:12), but a godly remnant would repent and be spared (Jeremiah
50:4,5,20). It was
The
lesson to us is that the chief guide for prayer is a Biblical view of the God
to Whom we pray. The chief content of prayer is whatever He
presents to us in Scripture. In Habakkuk’s case the issues of wrath and mercy
were not generated by the prophet’s feelings; they were God’s policies, and
Habakkuk knew about God’s character and ways through the revelation of
Scripture. He prayed in accord with what he found in his Bible.
In light of the entire prophecy and the
earlier Scriptures that so greatly affected it, I suggest that Habakkuk’s
prayer in 3:2 meant something like this:
“O Lord, in your
holy wrath against us, so well-deserved because of our sin, remember also your
covenanted kindness promised to us, and in mercy preserve us. Show your power
in our day too, just as you did long ago, and so save your remnant and deliver
us from these cruel Gentiles. Cause us to walk with you again in holy fear, in
obedience to your commandments.”
Anyone wishing to get a good understanding
of Habakkuk will benefit greatly from studying the end of Deuteronomy.
Appendix G:
The Deep Waters of the Bible
Deep
Waters in the Old Testament Habakkuk’s prayer resonates with themes
found in the rest of Scripture. Here is one more. I suspect that all of us have
a fear of being cast into the sea to sink to the bottom, knowing we have little
time left and unable to have one more breath of air!! Being drowned in the
depths of the sea with a large millstone hung around one’s neck is a horrible
fate (Matthew 18:6; Ezekiel 27:27). Sometimes a major trial is pictured as the
depths swallowing a person, as in Psalm 69. The angry sea is frightening; it
shows that we are such little people. For God, the sea has been the center of
some of His powerful activity on earth. Habakkuk has given enough clues to
convince us that he had the Exodus in mind in chapter 3, without being so
specific that he precluded all other actions of God related to the waters of
the deep.
The deep waters in
creation When the waters were divided in Habakkuk
3:9, this could be done by making two walls of water, as in Psalm 78:13. But
when land appeared in Genesis 1:9,10, that action also divided the waters,
though in a different way. We miss an enormous blessing if we simply view this
as the appearance of dry ground, without considering Who did it. “ … Darkness
was over the surface of the deep, and the [almighty and active] Spirit of God
was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2, NIV)! We did not see the division of water at the
The deep waters of the
Flood The flood in Noah’s day was not just an
accumulation of rain. “ … on the seventeenth day of the second month – on that
day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the
heavens were opened” (Genesis 7:11). The
great Lord Who had made the dry land appear, could make the dry land disappear.
Let us not rebel against such a God! When angry with human sin, He, at the time
of His choosing (as on month 2, day 17), may unleash His fury on this earth.
Note however, that He also saved
eight souls, when He preserved Noah and his family (2 Peter 2:5). The Great
Flood was an exhibition of God’s judgment and also His saving mercy! This
combination of grace (Genesis 6:7,8) with God’s destructive reaction to sin is
at the heart of Habakkuk’s intercession in Habakkuk 3. Someday the Lord will
appear: 1) in blazing wrath inflicting eternal destruction on all who do not
obey the gospel, and 2) at the same time bringing relief and glorification to
His saints (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10). If we get what we deserve it will be #1;
if we have the Saviour Who on the cross took what we deserved, we are given #2,
the reward Christ earned for His own.
The deep waters of the
Exodus Just as the first dividing of water was the
old creation, and the Great Flood was a renewal of the earth and its people,
God separated Israel and Egypt, making a distinction (Exodus 8,9, & 11).
This is a foretaste of the ultimate separation (Matthew 25:31-46), the ultimate
judgment, and the ultimate salvation. In Numbers 16, God’s judgment meant that
Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up in the earth the way Pharaoh died in the
water (Deuteronomy 11:4-6).
Subsequent deep waters (
Subsequent
deep waters (Christ in the heart of the earth) Matthew
12:39,41 speaks of Jonah in the belly of a great fish. From the depths of the
grave in the heart of the sea, poor Jonah prayed in great distress (Jonah
2:1-9). He faced that terror because of his rebellion, yet found merciful
deliverance from the Lord. Our Saviour, One greater than Jonah, entered
(figuratively) into “the heart of the earth” when He died. He entered into the
consequence of our sin (literally) and was not delivered from the dungeon of
death till the third day. Then He rose because our justification had been
secured (Romans 4:25). On account of His righteousness, Jesus deserved to live;
it was our sin that deserved the horrors of the deep. But our Lord took our
place and now grants the free gift of His righteousness to all who trust Him
(Philippians 3:9). Because He entered the deep for us and rose from it, all who
are His will also live (John 14:19). Out of the depths of our guilt, we sinners
cry to the Lord (Psalm 130) and find forgiveness through the One Who entered
for us into the heart of the earth. When the “mighty waters” of judgment for
sin rise, as in Psalm 32:6,7, they will not overwhelm the person who has made
the Lord his hiding place. For those in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation
left; our Lord took it for us on the cross. “Blessed
is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the
man whose sin the Lord does not count against him…” (Psalm 32:1,2; Romans
4:4-8).
The
opposite of deep waters: the heights He
enables me to go on the heights (3:19). Such a contrast
as depths and heights in this short prophecy is deliberate. It is something
“thought out” and directed by the Holy Spirit overseeing every letter of every
word in this prophecy. Heights may
indicate a military victory, for normally whoever occupies the high ground, or
takes it, is the victor. After defeating Satan, our Lord has ascended on high
(Ephesians 4:8-10). Deuteronomy has clearly affected Habakkuk, and it is
intriguing that expressing victory as trampling high places were the last words
of Moses to Israel (Deuteronomy 33:29; see also 32:13). Centuries later, I
think Habakkuk was reading Deuteronomy and thus listening to the Lord. This is
the way he ended this prayer in Habakkuk 3. Pharaoh ends up in the bottom of
the sea, but Habakkuk, God’s believer, ends up where? on the heights, seated with Christ, joined by all who are in Him by
faith (Ephesians 2:6).
[1] For an example of
prophetic censure directed to the nation, see Isaiah 1. Note there how many
topics are covered from religious matters to social issues. See also the bulk
of Jeremiah or the first half of Ezekiel. All the prophets wrote in a time of
great apostasy, thus they called God’s people to repent and gave as reasons the
offenses of the people. (Jonah is an exception; he preached only to
[2] The division of the law into two tables is
an old Christian tradition. It is the idea that the first four commandments
were on one tablet and the remaining six on the other. It is a harmless viewpoint, and in some ways
beneficial. The Ten Commandments do fall into two main categories: a) those
related to God and b) those related to our neighbours. However recent research has challenged this
notion. When covenants were made, there would be two copies of the agreement.
It is likely that in the covenant box which Scripture calls “the ark of the
covenant” the two tablets were two complete sets of the Ten
Commandments, God’s copy and
[3] The 1980 Gallup Poll on religion reported, “We have a revival of feelings but not of the knowledge of God. The church today is more guided by feelings than convictions. We value enthusiasm more than informed commitment.”
[4] My website is: www.grebeweb.com/linden. Other lecture notes are there, many of them in Chinese.
[5] When we say that the
reason for justification is faith, we maintain this distinction:
The ultimate and effective cause of our justification is the obedience of Christ in His entire life of law-keeping and in His sacrificial death for our law-breaking. Faith is the instrumental cause or the means by which we receive the benefit of justification. The ultimate cause is the redemptive ministry of Christ for us as the vicarious representative of His people.
An Illustration: If one person makes a coat and another person
accepts it as a gift, the coat maker is the efficient cause. Accepting the coat
is the means to having it (the instrumental cause). A person could answer “Why
do you have that coat?” in two ways. He might say, “My friend made it”, or he
might say, “It was given to me.” Faith
is resting upon Christ and receiving the benefit He procured for us. Faith does
not manufacture; it is not the coat maker. It is the coat accepter.
[6] Another illustration may help. A woman told a pastor that her husband had an adulterous affair with another woman. He urged her to tell the husband that he could have her as his wife, OR the other woman, but he could not have both. It had to be one or the other. Paul treats faith for justification as uniquely exclusive of alternatives. His gospel requirement for obtaining the verdict of righteous is one thing only, faith. Faith does not mix with works. It is not partly our obedience and also partly trust in Christ. Only a false justification can come through our righteousness. God’s salvation is by faith in Christ’s obedience. Faith allows no competitor. Faith receives its reward as a gift; the performance of works for God’s acceptance finds its reward as a payment earned (Romans 4:1-5). These two cannot mix; justification is by one and not the other. Justification by faith leaves no opening for any other way.
[7] The word for
servant here in v.16 is different from v.8. In v.16,
the word has the idea of liturgical service. Thus it fits the words, “with
the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God”. When the gospel is accepted, Paul has this
offering to make to God. The offering is converted Gentiles, made holy by the
effect of the gospel. This grace of God clashes with the Jewish rejection of
Gentiles as “unclean” or uncircumcised. God has accepted them in Christ, v.7.