Think Wink.

In this post we come to Habakkuk’s second complaint, responding to God’s solution to the problem of injustice in Habakkuk 1:5-11. As you read this passage, I hope that you will see a close connection between Habakkuk and two other Old Covenant prophets: Jeremiah and Jonah. Let us turn to the text now and begin the third post in introducing the context of Habakkuk 2:4.

Habakkuk 1:12-2:1 reads as follows in the NET*,

12 LORD, you have been active from ancient times; my sovereign God, you are immortal.
LORD, you have made them your instrument of judgment. Protector, you have appointed them as your instrument of punishment. 13 You are too just to tolerate evil; you are unable to condone wrongdoing. So why do you put up with such treacherous people? Why do you say nothing when the wicked devour those more righteous than they are? 14 You made people like fish in the sea, like animals in the sea that have no ruler. 15 The Babylonian tyrant pulls them all up with a fishhook; he hauls them in with his throw net. When he catches them in his dragnet, he is very happy. 16 Because of his success he offers sacrifices to his throw net and burns incense to his dragnet; for because of them he has plenty of food, and more than enough to eat. 17 Will he then continue to fill and empty his throw net? Will he always destroy nations and spare none? 2:1 I will stand at my watch post; I will remain stationed on the city wall. I will keep watching, so I can see what he says to me and can know how I should answer when he counters my argument.

This is Habakkuk’s response to Yahweh’s plan of action to remove the “violence” (Habakkuk 1:2-4) the prophet witnesses in Judah, namely to bring forth the Babylonians under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar to conquer and destroy Judah. In this post I want to see how Habakkuk links directly to the prophets Jeremiah and Jonah. Let’s start with Jeremiah.

Note the tone of the passage. Habakkuk does not like what he is being told to preach to Judah. He does not like Yahweh’s answer to his complaint. He anticipated one solution, God enacts another. One can tell from his response to Yahweh, that he in fact finds it repulsive and distasteful. It may not be too strong to say the prophet hates what Yahweh has planned. Yet nowhere in the book of Habakkuk do we read that Habakkuk did not preach the message of judgment. In fact, Habakkuk 1:12 shows that Habakkuk acknowledges what Yahweh has ordained. He sees that the Babylonians are coming as God’s instrument to judge Judah. Habakkuk, despite his feelings of the message, obediently preaches the message. Judah hears of the impending doom from this prophet of Yahweh. Three prophets are raised up by Yahweh in those days to warn the people of Babylon’s coming–Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel–and they do not listen. All three obediently preach the message. Jeremiah and Habakkuk voice their dislike of their ministry. Consider Jeremiah’s complaint in Jeremiah 20:7-9,

7 Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet, and I allowed you to do it. You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me. Now I have become a constant laughingstock. Everyone ridicules me. 8 For whenever I prophesy, I must cry out, “Violence and destruction are coming!” This message from the Lord has made me an object of continual insults and derision. 9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message. I will not speak as his messenger any more.” But then his message becomes like a fire locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. I grow weary of trying to hold it in; I cannot contain it.

Jeremiah hates the message he preaches (Jeremiah 20:6 speaks of the Babylonians coming). He feels forced into preaching. And when he does preach, the people mock him and spit on him in derision. He is laughed at and mocked. He is continuously insulted. Yet when he tries to be quiet, he burns inside and he cannot hold it in. He must preach it. I imagine that Habakkuk feels the same way as Jeremiah does. Habakkuk tells God that he couldn’t let someone as wicked as the Babylonians be his instrument of judgment. There’s no way. And when the Judahites hear it, they mock him like they would mock Jeremiah, for the same reasons that Habakkuk has a hard time grasping why God would use such unrighteous filth. Yet like Jeremiah, Habakkuk remains obedient. The message inside him compels him to obey and preach. There is no other option. No matter how hard the message is to accept, no matter how much people will ridicule him or mock him or insult him or walk away in utter disbelief, the prophet must preach or go insane holding the message in. Habakkuk preached for his own sake. Even Jonah entered Nineveh and preached (Jonah 3). He hated his message and yet God compelled him to preach.

I have become more and more certain that the same is true for God’s prophets today. Those who have a message from God to give to his church cannot help but proclaim it loud and clear. There is no option. He or she must get the word out or lose their minds and souls. I think that this is a good test of a person who wants to preach from the pulpit. Is there a fire in the inmost depths of their souls that if they do preach, they will go insane? Has Christ so burdened them that to face rejection is better than to not preach at all? The Christian preacher must really understand this before he goes behind the pulpit or to the missions field. It may take years before anyone listens to them. It may never happen. But that is better than the alternative of holding in God’s message and loosing their minds.

This makes it all the more important for people to listen to those whom Christ has put as his undersheperds over the churches. They must hear the preacher, understand the preacher, and obey the word of the Lord that the preacher gives. They cannot be like the ones that Jeremiah faced, that Habakkuk faced, and laugh at the preacher as he preaches because he has a funny accent or he contorts his face wierdly–both of which I am guilty of. I know of a person at one particular church who has a lisp and instead of hearing the man out, I laugh at the lisp. Oh how wrong I was to do such a thing! We need to hear those people who have been burdened like this prophets of old.

Even though Habakkuk obediently preaches the message he hates, he reacts to it like Jonah. Go back to the text of Habakkuk 1:13-15, “You are too just to tolerate evil; you are unable to condone wrongdoing. So why do you put up with such treacherous people? Why do you say nothing when the wicked devour those more righteous than they are? 14 You made people like fish in the sea, like animals in the sea that have no ruler. 15 The Babylonian tyrant pulls them all up with a fishhook; he hauls them in with his throw net. When he catches them in his dragnet, he is very happy.” It is important to note here that the evil that Habakkuk has in view here, the wrongdoing that is spoken of, is not that of those whom Habakkuk initially complained about, the wicked men of Judah. It is that of the Babylonians. They are so wicked that they God cannot tolerate them, yet he does. God permits them to take over the land. He permits them to conquer and then offer sacrifices to their victories (cf. Habakkuk 1:16). Surely a holy God would not do that, would he? That is what the translators means by “sovereign God” in Habakkuk 1:12. The Hebrew word there is אֱלֹהַ֛י קְדֹשִׁ֖י (elohai qedoshi), “my holy God” (LXX: ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἅγιός μου; click here for all Hebrew and Greek comparisons). Habakkuk uses the correct theology of God’s holiness to justify his prejudices.

Babylonians were unholy people, filthy Gentiles. They cared not for Yahweh or the things of Yahweh. Habakkuk knew this. As an Israelite he shared in their prejudices against the other nations. He was a proud Israelite, like Jonah. Remember Jonah’s response when he saw Yahweh not destroy the unrighteous nation of Assyria when they repented at Jonah’s preaching? Consider these words of the prophet in Jonah 4:1-3,

1 This displeased Jonah terribly and he became very angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, “Oh, Lord, this is just what I thought would happen when I was in my own country. This is what I tried to prevent by attempting to escape to Tarshish! - because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and one who relents concerning threatened judgment. 3 So now, Lord, kill me instead, because I would rather die than live!”

Jonah was enraged that God actually saved the Assyrians. They were so wicked that they deserved death. Yet at their repentance, God spared them! Jonah was so upset that he pleaded for God to kill him rather than let the prophet live with this knowledge. It wasn’t righteous indignation, it was simple prejudice that moved Jonah this way. And it is the same prejudice for Habakkuk to speak of Judah being more righteous than Babylon, even after his complaint in Habakkuk 1:2-4.

The question that we must ask ourselves is this: are little Jonah’s or Habakkuk’s? When God commands us to love others, as the Samaritan loved the Jew in Luke 10, do we do it? Or do we pass by not wanting to become unclean like the priest and the Levite? How dare we show compassion and love as God commands us to do (Micah 6:8). We are to love our neighbor, the stranger from another land no matter how unrighteous they are (Leviticus 19:34). Consider Paul’s words to the Galatians in defense of his apostleship and message, Galatians 2:15-16,

15 We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, 16 yet we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by the faithfulness of Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 2:15 reads in the Greek, ἡμεῖς φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ οὐκ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμαρτωλοί. Literally it reads, “we by nature Jews [Israelites] and not out of nations sinners.” The phrase “out of nations” is adjectival of “sinners,” note how the nominative of “Jews” and “sinners” parallel. Hence the NET and most translations go with “Gentile sinners.” Another way to translate it is “sinners among the nations.” They aren’t Jews they are sinners among the nations. Yet Paul does not allow this be a place of boasting for himself. For he goes on to give the crux of his message, “no one is justified by works of the law” but rather by faith in Jesus Christ and his righteousness imputed to us. Therefore no one can boast or rejoice in who he or she is by birth or by achievement. Habakkuk is guilty of doing just that. He says in effect, “The Babylonians are Gentiles sinners. We are Jews. We [Judah] are more righteous than they [Babylon] are yet you [Yahweh] let them devour us. That cannot be.” This shows a gross misunderstanding on Habakkuk’s part because he fails to understand that one does not stand before God on his own two feet on his own self-wrought turf. It will never measure up. You and I, like Habakkuk, must always remember that one fact, our righteousness comes by Christ’s obedience being imputed to us by faith in the finished work of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 2:16-17; Romans 3:21-26).

And yet at the end of his complaint in Habakkuk 2:1, he comes to some sense here. He realizes that he has overstepped his bounds. For he says, “I will stand at my watch post; I will remain stationed on the city wall. I will keep watching, so I can see what he says to me and can know how I should answer when he counters my argument.” Here the ESV really let me down. It isn’t very readable. It reads, “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.” That last phrase really doesn’t bring out what is going on. Habakkuk is expecting a rebuke, a reproof. He comes to see he has put his foot in his mouth and that his mouth is writing checks his body can’t cash–so to speak. The ESV creates a confusing translation that does not understand Habakkuk. The prophet knows he has misspoken and waits his correction. It is as though as he complains, the Holy Spirit flipped a light on in Habakkuk and he realized his mistake. He concludes the complaint with his admission of the wrong. I pray that I too can see when I mess up so heinously, sin so grievously, that I can admit it was wrong of me and confess it, even while making the mistake. Let us all have that kind of understanding. Let us all study and know God so well that we know that we are sinning even as we do it and are able to repent. Just like Habakkuk.

*All Quotations are from the NET. Biblical Studies Press: The NET Bible First Edition (Noteless); Bible. English. NET Bible (Noteless). Biblical Studies Press, 2005.

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