Habakkuk's Response

1:12-17 Habakkuk's Response

 

Habakkuk opens with a bang, “How long, O LORD will I cry out to you and you won’t answer!”
 
Then God answers with a bigger bang, “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, but you won’t believe it.” Then He reveals that He will use the Chaldeans to bring about His judgment on Judah. The ungodly, unrighteous, idolatrous Chaldeans!
 
Today, we consider Habakkuk’s response. Simply put, he couldn’t believe his ears! It’s not that he couldn’t believe God would bring judgment on Judah, he couldn’t understand how God could use the Chaldeans to do it.
 
He has two objections:
 
The LORD is holy

1:12  [Art] thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction.

Here is his conundrum: The LORD is the everlasting God, the Holy One, yet He has declared He will use these Chaldeans for judgment and correction.
 
1:13  [Thou art] of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, [and] holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth [the man that is] more righteous than he?

You can’t look on iniquity (that is, approve of iniquity), so how can You look upon the Chaldeans, who deal treacherously and devour Your covenant people?
 
The Chaldeans are idolators

1:14  And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, [that have] no ruler over them?
1:15  They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag: therefore they rejoice and are glad.
1:16  Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag; because by them their portion [is] fat, and their meat plenteous.
1:17  Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?

These Chaldeans don’t recognize You, they don’t honor You. They are idolators. He compares them to fishermen who use nets to catch their fish. They “rejoice and are glad” when they devastate and captivate, then they worship their net, as God had said, “imputing this his power unto his god” (1:11); and they start all over, they are insatiable in their lust for power and riches.
 
"O LORD my God, mine Holy One, how can you use these idolatrous, ungodly, unrighteous people to judge your covenant people?"
 
This is a good question, a tough question, a hard question. God is holy, but sometimes His ways are hard to understand. As God Himself explains in Isaiah 55:8-9:
 
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. [The entire chapter is great!]
 
Being the Almighty, God can do whatever He wants. What protects us from arbitrary abuse of this power?
 
He is light – there is no darkness in Him at all
 
He is holy – He can do no evil
 
He is righteous – everything He does is right
 
He is love – we can trust Him
 
All this is why Isaiah says in the verses that come just before those quoted above:
 
Seek ye the Lord, and when ye find him, call upon him; and when he shall draw nigh to you, let the ungodly leave his ways, and the transgressor his counsels: and let him return to the Lord, and he shall find mercy; for he shall abundantly pardon your sins. (Isaiah 55:6-7 LXX*)
 
Habakkuk’s question is also filled with irony - the “covenant people” were idolatrous, ungodly, and unrighteous themselves.

 
The chapter division is rather awkward here as the thought continues in the first verse of the second chapter, which we will see
 
 
NEXT WEEK: Habakkuk 2 The LORD provides more information

* LXX is the Septuagint. Both LXX and Septuagint mean 70, tradition tells us 72 Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Old Testament in Greek.