Have
you ever felt flabbergasted? I’m certain you have, although you
may not realize it. It’s a relatively modern word, seeing its
first use in 1772. But Merriam-Webster reports that flabbergast is
in the bottom 50% of word lookups on its web site. So in spite of
its recent heritage, chances are you may not have ever heard this
term before. However, the emotion is actually quite common.
Flabbergast means “to overwhelm with shock, surprise, or wonder.”
As mentioned in chapter 4 this has to be how the prophet Habakkuk
was feeling when he wrote chapter 1, verses 12 to 17 of his book.
Yet as we have seen, he opened his response to God not with human
frustration or anger, but with a testimonial of God’s character and
how he trusted Him to do what was right.
Because
of this I have spent the last two chapters extolling the virtues of
his approach. And those virtues are certainly well founded because
their focus is squarely upon God. That being said, this prophet was
still only a man. And in the latter half of verse 13 through verse
17 we finally see what appears to be a small chink in the armor of
his faith. In these verses he openly questions God’s judgment in
the matter of Judah and the Chaldean punishment to come. And the
form of his questioning is, at first glance, very man centered in its
structure. But by digging beneath the surface a picture will emerge
to show that even here at his most vulnerable Habakkuk continues to
point the way toward a God oriented world view that exalts the
creator rather than the creature.
Let’s
begin by examining Habakkuk’s argument in detail. He begins right
on the tail end of the passage from the last chapter; in the middle
of the verse in fact:
Why
do You look with favor
On
those who deal treacherously?
Why
are You silent when the wicked swallow up
Those
more righteous than they?
We
can really feel Habakkuk’s confusion here. He is completely
puzzled as to how rewards can, apparently, result from evil. Notice
the two angles he approaches this from; God’s favor and His
silence.
Habakkuk
believes that the Chaldeans are receiving rewards in spite of the
fact that they are a deceptive nation who deals unfaithfully with
those who they come into contact with. Seeds of a typical human
desire for gratification are showing here through the soil of
Habakkuk’s question. Our way is to expect recompense for effort
given. If we do someone a favor our natural inclination is to expect
them to reward us. Either by a reciprocal favor, a gift, accolades,
or even a personal acknowledgement of our “greatness”, we want to
have our egos stroked and our pride inflated. And woe to the person
who neglects to meet our pre-conceived notions and lofty
expectations. In the event that our desires are not satisfied the
result is often bitterness, anger, or even retaliation.
In
Habakkuk’s case there seems to be an implied assertion here
relating to his expectations of how God “should” be acting. He
specifically mentions God looking with favor on the treacherous. But
the unspoken corollary to that is that God is looking with disfavor
on the righteous. He just cannot fathom how the nation of Judah,
although fallen far from the mark God had set for them, who were
still the people of Yahweh and who even in their sinfulness were
still “better” than the nations surrounding them, could be met
with a divine response that didn’t match his anticipation. And by
contrast, he is astonished that the Chaldeans of all people, who were
about as far from righteousness as you could get, could be rewarded
with wealth, power, prosperity, and conquest.
This
makes it all the more apparent that Habakkuk, in spite of his
profession of the holiness of God, still just doesn’t completely
get it. We considered in the last chapter how humanity has a
fundamental inability to comprehend God’s pure and transcendent
character due to our fallen existence. We have no frame of reference
with which to understand what it means that God is holy because we
have never experienced true holiness in a real and meaningful way.
Watching a video of a roller coaster is not the same as actually
riding that roller coaster. In the same way, reading that God is
holy is not the same as actually experiencing holiness ourselves.
This is on full display here in Habakkuk’s implied assertion that
His people were still better than others even in the midst of their
sinfulness.
A
perfect example of this type of humanistic thinking can be found in
the early church after Pentecost. The book of Acts records for us
the life and times of these believers in the heady days immediately
following the supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In Acts
2:44-47 we see a utopian view of the inner workings of these early
believers: And
all those who had believed were together and had all things in
common; and they began selling their property and possessions and
were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day
continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house
to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and
sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the
people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who
were being saved.
This is an incredible tableau of human harmony such as has rarely
been seen in recorded history. But it didn’t take long before
sinful pride and arrogance crept into the picture. If we jump
forward a bit, chapter 6 verse 1 paints an uglier picture: Now
at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a
complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the
native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the
daily serving of food.
Apparently, the Christians who were born and raised in Israel, were
showing favoritism to their own. They were giving their widows first
pick of the food each day. And remember, we’re not even talking
about Jew versus Gentile here such as what comes up later in church
history with legalistic requirements relating to circumcision (Acts
15). These are all Jews! But even with a purely Jewish community
people found a way to regard themselves as more virtuous than their
neighbors. In this case, the native born Hebrews were belittling the
Hebrews who had come from somewhere around the Greek speaking
Mediterranean world back to their ancestral Israel. We can see
shades of this in our own country today. When is the last time you
overheard a remark, or even made one yourself, that people of foreign
descent have less right to be in the United States than people who
were born here? Obviously, this is not a perfect parallel. But the
root issue of self-righteousness applies today just as much as it did
in the first century A.D. and in the sixth century B.C.
The
second angle Habakkuk uses to present his case to God runs parallel
to the first. It carries similar thought patterns but also some
slight alterations to that basic formula. Namely, he questions why
God is quiet while the unrighteous triumph over the righteous. Again
we see the seeds of his Jewish national pride coming out here in his
befuddlement. He obviously is referring to Judah as the righteous
and Babylon as the wicked, or unrighteous. He just cannot imagine
why the Lord would use a pagan and godless country to administer
justice to His chosen people. As stated in previous chapters, we
have to imagine that the chastening Habakkuk had in mind was probably
similar to that which he observed under King Josiah. From the
prophet’s point of view a spiritual renovation of the country which
began internally with the Jewish leadership was undoubtedly a
preferred method of fixing the problems he was witnessing.
To
add insult to Habakkuk’s perceived injury, his implication here is
that it is even more egregious of a slight due to the fact that God
is sovereign over these events. The prophet has already made it
quite clear his believe that the Lord is in control. In verse 3 he
stated that it was God who caused him to see iniquity and look on
violence. And in verse 12 he acknowledged that it was by God’s
decree that judgment and discipline come. So we know he was not of
the view that the Lord had not ordained these events. And that is
borne out with the way he phrases his confusion. He says “Why
are you silent?”
The implication is not that God is mute and unable to speak; far
from it.
The
Hebrews had around 30 different words for silence. They had a wealth
of varied ways of expressing the same theme. So when an ancient
Jewish writer uses a word that we translate into English as silent,
be still, or quiet it behooves us to dig deeper in an attempt to find
out what they really meant. Here the word used is “charash”.
There are two usages of it which appear to be completely unrelated.
One is cease, deaf, cease speaking, or keep silence. The other is
devises, engraved, plotting, or plow. It is in the melding of these
two ideas that we arrive at a clearer picture of the prophet’s
meaning. That is, a farmer plows his field and sows seeds, then
ceases working with an attitude of eager vigilance as he waits for
the harvest. In the same way, Habakkuk is describing God as being in
a mode of expectant watchfulness. God has prepared the setting and
orchestrated the circumstances to His liking. And He is now waiting
for events to unfold and observing their progress. So this flavor of
silence carries with it a connotation of waiting, of anticipation, of
preparedness. We can see this plainly in Exodus 14:14. The
situation is that the Israelites are caught between the rock of the
Red Sea and the hard place of Pharaoh’s army who have come to
re-capture them and take them back to Egypt. It is at this moment,
in what is to this point their most desperate hour, that God speaks
through Moses: “The
Lord will fight for you while you keep
silent
(charash).”
God was not merely telling the people to be quiet. He was telling
them to keep silent and
watch their God work.
So
rather than accusing God of impotence, Habakkuk believes that God is
perfectly capable of speaking, in other words acting, in this
circumstance and just chooses not to. This is what really gets
Habakkuk’s goat, so to speak. It is even more galling to him that
God is in this mode of expectant watchfulness, intentionally sitting
back and watching the impending doom of His people at the hands of
the wicked.
Then,
after opening this two pronged inquiry into the Lord’s actions our
prophet finishes the opening chapter of his book by taking the themes
he has developed and using them to paint a striking word picture to
make abundantly clear exactly what he is getting at. Observe verses
14 to 17 of chapter 1:
Why
have You made men like the fish of the sea,
Like
creeping things without a ruler over them?
The
Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook,
Drag
them away with their net,
And
gather them together in their fishing net.
Therefore
they offer a sacrifice to their net
And
burn incense to their fishing net;
Because
through these things their catch is large,
And
their food is plentiful.
Will
they therefore empty their net
And
continually slay nations without sparing?
The
image that Habakkuk paints of humanity is not very flattering. He
likens us to fish who swim in the sea. But he is not content with a
casual description of these creatures. He calls them “creeping
things without a ruler”. Creeping things has the idea of movement
or gliding. And this swimming is done with no master to oversee
them. In other words, in Habakkuk’s mind mankind is like a school
of mindless, aimless fish. These fish swim to and fro in the sea
with no one to guide them. There is no one to protect them. There
is no one to lend reason to their presence. They merely exist for no
apparent purpose whatsoever.
Habakkuk’s
portrait is already bad enough. But it gets worse. He likens the
Chaldeans to fishermen who cast nets and hooks into the water for the
purpose of catching the human fish who swim mechanically below them.
And catch them they do. Habakkuk doesn’t just limit the
Babylonian’s symbolic fishing skills to some of the people in the
nations they conquer. It is more than just a random partial
sampling. He says they “bring all of them up”, “drag them
away”, and “gather them together”.
Then
the atrocities continue as Habakkuk turns to the idolatrous practices
of the Chaldeans. In his word picture the fishing nets represent the
false gods of the Babylonian Empire. And his concern is that due to
the unabated success these people are enjoying they will be even more
likely to continue to worship their gods (nets). This success and
idolatry will, in Habakkuk’s mind, drive the pagans to continue
their march of destruction across the world.
Our
prophet is probably at his lowest point now. He is dismayed by what
God has revealed to him. He doesn’t understand how these future
events can possibly promote justice. He doesn’t understand how God
can see fit to do things this way. And we begin to see in his
diatribe an inkling of man centeredness that has not been present to
this point. Unlike his earlier concerns at the beginning of the
chapter and even what he just said in the previous verse, Habakkuk is
dwelling fixedly upon the human element in what’s going on. He
began his conversation with God so well, focusing upon the Lord as
the center of all that is. But now he seems to be reverting to an
emotional lament over the plight of the people.
The
question is, is it right or wrong for Habakkuk to do this? Is he
sinning at this point? To reiterate the point I made at the
beginning of the chapter, I think the prophet is still on the right
track. This is in spite of his humanistic lament that we have just
read. The reason I think this is because of how Habakkuk chose to
“bookend” his argument. Remember that all of these concerns and
word pictures are coming after a glorious, soul stirring, and
triumphant exaltation of God’s character. He has already affirmed
that he knows God has been present and active in history. He has
made clear that he is addressing Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. He has made the distinction between this God and the
false gods of the world religions around him. He has declared that
it is only through God’s correction that life will come. And he
has added to that declaration the truth claim that God is a God of
justice who is sovereign over the manner and method of the discipline
He imparts. Then Habakkuk finishes by zeroing his lenses in on God’s
holiness and righteous character. In point of fact, it is all of
these things that drive his thinking patterns. It is because of
God’s holiness that Habakkuk cannot believe He would look on
wickedness with favor. It is because of God’s righteousness that
Habakkuk has difficulty understanding how God can apparently reward
the treacherous. So even though his complaint here does definitely
stink of an exaltation of man and his plight, it would be a
disservice to our prophet to somehow forget what he has just
communicated about his God which is the same refrain he has been
belting out since the beginning of the book.
And
if that wasn’t clear enough, consider how he ends his participation
in this part of the conversation. Chapter 2 verse 1 seals the deal
of the question of where Habakkuk’s heart is:
I
will stand on my guard post
And
station myself on the rampart;
And
I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,
And
how I may reply when I am reproved.
Look
at this! It is astonishing how Habakkuk finishes up here. And it
conclusively eviscerates any argumentation that he was in the wrong
in what he said. He doesn’t stand on his guard post and station
himself on the rampart in an attitude of defiance. His intention is
not to challenge God with insubordination. Think about the choice of
words here. When Habakkuk says that he will keep watch, it’s the
same word used in 1 Samuel 4:13 to describe Eli. The Ark of the
Covenant had been taken into battle against the Philistines in hopes
of having success. And Eli was fearful for its safety, probably
because he knew it was being used in an unrighteous manner as a sort
of magic talisman. So the scripture says “there
was Eli sitting on his chair by the side of the road, watching,
because his heart feared for the ark of God.” His
whole attention was upon the fate of his beloved Ark. In fact, the
word doesn’t even carry connotations of physical sight. Eli was 98
years old at this point and blind. So the description of his vigil
has nothing to do with eyes. It is more the idea of a focused and
pent up observation, like a spring that has been coiled too tightly
and is trembling with unreleased energy. That is the same attitude
Habakkuk has as he waits for God’s reply. Not only that, but when
the reply comes Habakkuk fully expects to be chided. He uses
“reproved” at the end of the verse to describe the form that he
believes God’s answer will come in. Hosea 5:9 records the
following prophecy: “Ephraim
will become a desolation in the day of rebuke”.
The word rebuke there is the same word we are translating as
reproved here in Habakkuk. The obvious implication of the Hosea
passage is that God will discipline Israel with righteous wrath. And
Habakkuk expects the same thing for himself. He probably senses on
some level that his perspective, although mostly right, is skewed
somewhat by his fallen humanity. And not only does he understand
that he needs an attitude adjustment but he is ready and eager for
it. These are not the words of a man who is upright in his own
conceit and arrogance.
To
get a clearer picture of this we need to look at an example of
someone else who also had complaints to level against God and how
they handled themselves. The Bible provides just such a specimen in
the book of Job. You may recall the account. In the first few
chapters the tale is told of how God permits Satan to afflict His
servant, Job. The evil one begins by destroying all of Job’s
possessions and his family, seemingly on the same day. Raiders carry
off some of his livestock and slay the servants. A fire then falls
from heaven and burns up more cattle and hired hands. Worst of all,
a fierce wind came and struck the house where Job’s children were
staying, causing it to collapse and kill them all. In all of this
Job maintains his righteous testimony by honoring the Lord even in
the midst of his distress. He says in Job 1:21: “The
Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the
Lord.” So,
his plan foiled, Satan returns to God. This time he tries a
different approach, still desperate to drag Job down to his level and
in so doing dishonor God. He asks for permission to afflict Job’s
health. God grants this request, but commands him to spare Job’s
life. This time Satan afflicts Job with boils all over his body.
Still this righteous man of God stayed true to his master, in 2:10:
“Shall
we indeed accept good from God and not adversity?”
Unfortunately, after beginning so well, Job’s faith finally
started to weaken. He suffered with his boils for seven days and
then began his lament in chapter 3:
- 3:1 – Let the day perish on which I was to be born
- 3:11 – Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?
- 3:20 – Why is light given to him who suffers?
- 3:24 – For my groaning comes at the sight of my food, and my cries pour out like water.
The
common thread which runs through Job’s words is a focus upon his
own misery. He questions his very existence. He complains that God
continues to give him light, meaning let him live. He describes his
loss of appetite and his mourning. In all of this, it seems at this
point that Job’s and Habakkuk’s arguments are very similar. They
both began with worship of the Lord. Then they regressed into the
voicing of a complaint. We even see similarities in the questions
they posed to God. Habakkuk asked why the treacherous were looked on
with favor and the schemes of the wicked were met with divine
silence. Similarly, in Job 7:20 we read the following: “Have
I sinned? What have I done to You, o watcher of men? Why have You set
me as Your target, so that I am a burden to myself?
What then? Is there any difference in the approach of these two
men? The mechanics of their argumentation seem to be similar. Were
they both justified in their questions? No, they were not.
They
key dissimilarity between Job and Habakkuk was not the nature of
their questions. It was the internal heart attitude with which they
asked the questions. We have already seen that Habakkuk’s desire
was to be corrected by his God. He didn’t understand what was
happening and what God was doing. But he recognized his inferiority
and asked the Lord to correct him. In stark contrast we read the
words of Job in 31:35: “Oh
that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature; let the
Almighty answer me!”
After most of the arguments of his friends were spent Job’s final
posture was one of arrogance and defiance. He proclaimed his
integrity before God and demanded that he be given an answer, that
God explain to him the reasons for what had happened. Habakkuk
opened his speech with God, interjected man, and then closed with God
once again. Job opened with God, interjected man, and closed with
man. To say it another way, Job began well but ended poorly.
Habakkuk began and ended well. He wavered a bit in the midst of the
storm but ultimately stood firmly and staunchly in the Lord’s
corner. This will become even more crystal clear by the end of the
book.
This
comparison of Job and Habakkuk serves to illustrate an important
principle for us to live by. God has created us in His image. He
has made us to think, emote, and reason. He instructs us to utilize
those resources for His glory. But due to the contamination of sin,
all of our human attributes have the potential to be warped,
corrupted, and made into traitors against the cause of God. In
particular, as it relates to our discussion of Habakkuk, the dangers
of reason present themselves. Reason is a good thing. It allows us
to solve complex problems. By it we can create amazing inventions.
Man is capable of delving into philosophy, spirituality, and ethics,
to name just a few disciplines. And this is all by way of our
ability to reason. But we must be cautious to never place too high
of an emphasis upon our own resources because in so doing the
tendency of the sinful human heart is to denigrate God in the
process. The typical way it works is this. We reason to the best of
our abilities, reach a subsequent conclusion, and then become bold
enough to challenge Him and His infinite understanding with our
limited capacities. This is exactly what happened in the case of
Job. So we should be sobered by God’s response in Job 38:2: “Who
is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
He proceeds over the next three chapters to completely decimate
Job’s human arrogance with a withering assault upon the idea that a
mere man has any right whatsoever to question the Lord God Almighty.
What the Lord is communicating here is that all of Job’s lofty and
poetic, reasoned, arguments are in the end empty and devoid of
understanding. Further, this empty headed rambling is a blight upon
the thoughts of God. Proverbs 18:2 reinforces the idea: A
fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own
mind.
And Ecclesiastes 5:2 gets the point across even more plainly: Do
not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in
the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth;
therefore let your words be few.
The issue is a lack of reverence or respect for God. We dare in our
ignorance to imagine ourselves on a footing high enough to be
qualified to question Him. As Job found out the hard way, coming
before God with conceit, posing questions to Him, and demanding
answers is a surefire way to be set back on your heels in a hurry;
perhaps more drastically than you would like.
However,
the beautiful thing about the Lord is that there is a glorious
flipside to this issue. Namely, that although He is a holy and just
and wrathful God, as we have looked at in previous chapters He is
also a loving and patient and compassionate God who delights in the
prayer and supplication of His children. In John 16:23 Jesus taught:
“Truly,
truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name,
He will give it to you.”
And lest we self-interested humans take that as a blank check to
shower God with requests as if He is some sort of genie in a bottle,
in verse 7 of the previous chapter He said this: “If
you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish,
and it will be done for you.”
There is a pre-requisite for making requests of the living God. We
must first align ourselves with His will and submit ourselves to His
authority. In so doing we will side-step the human tendency to focus
upon ourselves rather than God.
In
a beautiful symmetry between Old Testament and New Testament, old
covenant and new covenant, Law and Messiah; Zechariah 10:1 presents
the same idea with an example from nature: Ask
rain from the Lord at the time of the spring rain – The Lord who
makes the storm clouds; and He will give them showers of rain,
vegetation in the field to each man.
God is saying “Don’t ask me to send rain in the dead of winter
or in the high heat of summer.” Our response might be “Well,
that’s rather obvious, tell me something I don’t already know.”
But the underlying message has nothing to do with seasons or
irrigation of crops. God’s point is this. He designed spring to
be the primary time of watering the earth. The cycle of seasons and
the natural workings of the earth are according to His plan. So we
are under obligation to conform ourselves to nature the way God has
ordained it rather than expecting Him to alter His designs on our
account. And in the same way, when we come before Him in prayer He
delights to hear us. He is interested in what we are struggling with
(He already knows anyhow, so what He takes delight in is our act of
veneration in bringing it before Him). He desires for us to, as
Psalm 55:22 says: Cast
your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never
allow the righteous to be shaken.
But He demands that we do so with an attitude of obeisance.
To
conclusively illustrate this with an actual step by step example we
will turn to, aside from Jesus, one of the greatest authors of prayer
in history; King David. In Psalm 7 he masterfully interweaves
worship of God with the realities of his present situation. In fact,
he does so in such a symbiotic fashion that often worship and
supplication are side by side in the same verse, such as in verse 1:
“O
Lord my God, in You I have taken refuge; save me from all those who
pursue me, and deliver me.”
Another example of this can be found in verse 8: “The
Lord judges the peoples; vindicate me, O Lord, according to my
righteousness and my integrity that is in me”
and again in verse 9: “O
let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the
righteous; for the righteous God tries the hearts and minds.”
And just like Habakkuk after him, David’s expectation is to be
judged and corrected by God if and when wickedness is found in him,
as verses 3-5 makes clear: “O
Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice in my hands,
if I have rewarded evil to my friend, or have plundered him who
without cause was my adversary, let the enemy pursue my soul and
overtake it; and let him trample my life down to the ground and lay
my glory in the dust.”
Finally, after have already seen how David opens his psalm with
worship in verse 1, notice how he closes it in verse 17: “I
will give thanks to the Lord according to His righteousness and will
sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.”
It was according to the standard of God’s righteousness, defined
by Him and revealed to us through His oracles, that David based his
thanksgiving. It was not according to human wisdom or human
suffering, as in the case of Job.
To
ascribe greater qualification for beseeching God based on the
perceived importance of the human element in the situation is to
elevate that human element to a place of equality with God. Rather,
the plum line we should use for determining our course should be the
character and nature of God. All things relate to Him according to
the standards defined by Himself, not the other way around. This was
the approach used by King David in his psalm. It is exactly the
approach Habakkuk took in Habakkuk 1:12-2:1. And as we will see in
the next chapter our prophet received a very different response from
God than Job did.
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