Reflections on Habakkuk 1

 Habakkuk 01  (Contemporary English Version)

1. I am Habakkuk the prophet. And this is the message that the LORD gave me.
2. Our LORD, how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from all this violence?
3. Why do you make me watch such terrible injustice? Why do you allow violence, lawlessness, crime, and cruelty to spread everywhere?
4. Laws cannot be enforced; justice is always the loser; criminals crowd out honest people and twist the laws around.
5. Look and be amazed at what's happening among the nations! Even if you were told, you would never believe what's taking place now.
6. I am sending the Babylonians. They are fierce and cruel-- marching across the land, conquering cities and towns.
7. How fearsome and frightening. Their only laws and rules are the ones they make up.
8. Their cavalry troops are faster than leopards, more ferocious than wolves hunting at sunset, and swifter than hungry eagles suddenly swooping down.
9. They are eager to destroy, and they gather captives like handfuls of sand.
10. They make fun of rulers and laugh at fortresses, while building dirt mounds so they can capture cities.
11. Then suddenly they disappear like a gust of wind-- those sinful people who worship their own strength.
12. Holy LORD God, mighty rock, you are eternal, and we are safe from death. You are using those Babylonians to judge and punish others.
13. But you can't stand sin or wrong. So don't sit by in silence while they gobble down people who are better than they are.
14. The people you put on this earth are like fish or reptiles without a leader.
15. Then an enemy comes along and takes them captive with hooks and nets. It makes him so happy
16. that he offers sacrifices to his fishing nets, because they make him rich and provide choice foods.
17. Will he keep hauling in his nets and destroying nations without showing mercy?

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Habakkuk raised the age-old questions of why God allows injustice, violence, and oppression. But the more perplexing question was why, in the face of such injustice, God did nothing in answer to his prayers? Habakkuk called out to God for help, but none came. It appeared that God was tolerating wrongdoing. The law was totally ineffective and God did nothing about it. So it seemed to Habukkuk.

Though God may have seemed silent to this point, He responded this time to Habukkuk's questions. In effect, God said, "I am doing something about the injustice, you just can't see it yet." Furthermore, God said, "you will not believe (it) when you hear about it." God was indeed going to do something about the injustice and it would astound Habakkuk and his countrymen. God's justice would be imparted by a people even more unjust than the people of Judah. It would come from the Chaldeans, also known as the Babylonians. They were more violent than Judah even thought to be, and this violence would be turned loose on the Judeans.

Habakkuk he was even more perplexed with God's answer. Why would God use a people more unjust than Judah to punish them? Compared with Babylon, Judah was rigtheous. Was this not more unjust? Was it not tolerating wrongdoing? In the face of this answer Habakkuk raised much the same questions on a different front. His first set of questions related to God's tolerance of injustice within Judah. His second set of questions related to God's tolerance of wrongdoing by Babylon.

We often raise these questions ourselves but do not persist with God to get His answers. Instead, we rely on our own logic and settle for insufficient answers that leave us wallowing in our questions of injustice. How can we imagine that our finite minds could do justice in understanding the purposes of an infinite God? We will not have the true answers to such questions unless we seek them from the only One who can give them.