The Big Question in HABAKKUK 1

By Michael Griego on October 27, 2023 • ( 0 )

“God, why don’t you save us from violence?!” It was an admonishment of God yet a sincere question 2,600 years ago from the prophet Habakkuk. People today are still asking the same question. ◊

We all can say that we are living in unique times. But it must have been unique times living during the days of Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, King David, Daniel, Jeremiah, King Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Jesus, Muhammad, Genghis Khan, or the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the US Civil War, World War 1 or World War 2.

While all the time periods of mankind have been somewhat unique, I suspect our modern life in 2023 takes the prize given today’s global economics, communications, travel, technology, weaponry, and national/political complexities.

But there still remains the common big question that mankind has been asking all through the eras of time:

“God, why don’t you save us from violence?!”

Essentially, this question is loaded with an expectation that a Higher Power (God) is able to protect and save us from apparent or immediate harm.

From a Biblical perspective, this question, while fair and reasonable, actually misses the point.

Habakkuk, circa 608 BC
Habakkuk was a contemporary of Jeremiah and Ezekiel living in the latter decades of the 7th century BC in Jerusalem. The Book of HABAKKUK is his prophetic writings just prior to the invasion of the southern kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians (Chaldeans) which took place from 605 BC to the final destruction of the capital city of Jerusalem in 586 BC.

This short book of 3 chapters captures the questions we all have about evil, violence, and injustice around us while God seems to be silent or absent. He is essentially asking God why He allows this.

HABAKKUK: “Why, God, Why?”
The opening verses in Habakkuk Chapter 1 start right into the big questions we’d all like to ask God:

The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

How long, 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 wrongdoing? 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. (Habakkuk 1:1-4)

GOD: “You Don’t Know the Half of It.”
In the same manner that the Jewish prophets, including young contemporaries like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, received direct communications from God, we have God’s response as follows:

“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. (v.5)

God tells Habakkuk that what is going to transpire is actually amazing. That Habakkuk won’t understand the whole picture even if God tells him. But God tells him anyway. At least God tells him the summary event soon to take place – that He is going to raise up and use a ruthless and violent group of people, the Babylonians, whose “own strength is their god.”

I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.

They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk.

Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour; they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.They mock kings and scoff at rulers.

They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them.Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—guilty people, whose own strength is their god.” (v.6-11)

Clearly, these are not good people. Yet God is going to use them (the Babylonians) like pawns in a larger game of chess.

HABAKKUK: “Why Use the Wicked to Punish the Less Wicked?”
God is correct – Habakkuk does not understand what God is doing. Yet, Habakkuk is wise enough to tread carefully, and with rightful respect, while he comes back at God with more questions. He wants to know why God tolerates such evil people to be used to punish Habakkak’s own Hebrew people, who he posits are more righteous than the Babylonians.

“Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment; you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler. 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. 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.

Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?” (v.11-17)

Essentially, Habakkuk is asking how evil can continue to destroy mercilessly and yet be allowed to exist.

God has a very clear and cogent answer in Habakkuk Chapter 2 covered in a following post.

Application for All of Us Today
As mentioned earlier, when we wonder why God would ever allow evil things to happen, we best not miss the point of a larger story: God controls the rising and falling of nations and leaders – He’s doing a work we often don’t understand.

“He makes the nations great, then destroys them; He enlarges the nations, then leads them away. (Job 12:23)
He delivers up nations before him and subdues kings. (Isaiah 41:2)
…and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation… (Acts 17:26)

Yes, God is doing a work we can scarcely understand in the broader scheme of time. We can only know that He is God and all things are under His authority, not ours.

When evil people, either individually, or as groups, or as nations, conduct harm, cruelty and violence, we can be assured that this is not beyond the purview of God. Consider that God allowed Jesus, God incarnate, to die a horrific death tragic and unfathomable to those who witnessed the hope and dreams gone awry before them. Yet God’s plan was broader and larger in scope than most understood. Today we see the picture clearer.

At the time of Habakkuk’s dialogue with God in 608 BC, God was setting up the overt punishment of a woefully wayward Israel that was worshiping foreign idols and prostituting themselves to the pagan culture and nations around them.

It’s not like they weren’t warned. The prophets Nahum, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and Ezekiel had all delivered stern warnings to an increasingly secularized Israel that God’s punishment was coming if they did not stop their ways.

God is Not Mocked
As often noted here, God is not mocked. He is alive, active, and in control of all things in heaven and earth below. At times though, He is silent and seemingly uninvolved. Do not be deceived. God and His Holy Spirit is ever-present and available to bring peace, love, and joy, even in the midst of a chaotic and dark world.

Mankind, in our arrogance, pride, and desire for power, wealth, comfort, and hedonistic pleasure, have choices as to who we follow. God has made Himself clear and evident in His Word and through His Creation.

While we know that God is open to our ongoing questions, we do best to listen to what He has already said and revealed in His Word.

Are you asking big questions and understanding answers?
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“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.” – Habakkuk 1:5