Don Cram

Habakkuk 1:1-11

The violence of the wicked around Habakkuk permeated Judah. Not only this, but the organs of justice had also become tainted. “Violence” means general ethical wrong-doing of which physical attack is only one meaning. The word is used six times in Habakkuk, fourteen times in the Psalms, and seven times in the Proverbs to mean all kinds of wrong-doing. In Habakkuk’s complaint is the tension of unanswered prayer.

How long? Why? Three pairs of descriptors are used in the text to paint the wickedness that Habakkuk witnessed in Judah: Injustice/Wrong, Destruction/Violence, and Strife/Conflict. Each pair commonly appears together throughout the Old Testament. The first is sometimes translated as Evil/Trouble and is used most frequently in situations of perverted justice and social oppression, the dual focus of Habakkuk’s complaint to God. The second pair, Destruction/Violence, is also associated with injustice toward the oppressed. The third pair, Strife/Conflict, refers to the anger that boils over due to conflicting wills and factionalism. In contrast to all these are “law” and “justice.”

Law is more than a legal list of proscriptions; the word also means instruction, guidance. The knowledge of God’s truth is what Habakkuk longs to see around him. Justice is the application of that knowledge.

Habakkuk wrestles in the chasm between past blessings and current trials, just as we often do.

God’s response, 1:5-11, is that the Babylonians will be the rod of correction against the wickedness of Judah. Habakkuk was to be amazed because God’s using the wicked Babylonians in this way contradicted all the beliefs, convictions, and expectations of Judah. To destroy Jerusalem was simply unimaginable. But it happened.

The Babylonian empire was defeated by the Persians in 539 BC, just a generation after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem.

They are called “minor” only in the sense that they are shorter than Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The messages contained in these twelve little books are not in any way less important or significant than the bigger books. They were long called The Twelve because they were copied onto a single scroll of about the same size as that of Isaiah.

The way to avoid the slight embarrassment of paging through all twelve in search of any one of them is to memorize their order. Do it in 2/2 time with a finger snap on the second beat. The first beat, the downbeat of each measure, is indicated by capital letters. The chant begins with a brief pick-up note for the first syllable of Hosea:

Ho-SE-a [snap]
JOEL [snap]
A-mos, O[snap]-ba-DI-ah [snap]
JO-nah, MI[snap]-cah, NA-hum [snap]

And the rest are easy: Two H-Z pairs followed by Malachi

[snap] Habakkuk, [snap] Zephaniah
[snap] Haggai, [snap] Zechariah
[snap] Malachi

Try not to snap your fingers in church when looking up one of the Twelve.

As to the correct pronunciation of the prophet’s unusual Hebrew name, don’t worry about it. The English spelling would suggest Ha-BAK-kuk, the Hebrew is Ha-bak-KUK which sounds slightly insulting in English, and the most common American pronunciation is HA-bak-kuk. Choose one; someone will always be there to point out your error.

The name Habaqquq seems to be a Piel intensive form of the verb habaq which means to fold the hands together, grasp, or embrace, but the name is unique and its meaning ultimately unknown. It might be an Eastern Semitic name for a plant.

The book divides into three sections.

I. Habakkuk’s Complaint and God’s Response in 1:1-11
II. Habakkuk’s Reply and God’s Response in 1:12-2:20
III. Habakkuk’s Psalm on Praise in 3:1-19

Generally, the focus in on three aspects of faith or faithfulness:

Chapter 1: Faith Wrestling with a Problem
Chapter 2: Faith Finding the Solution
Chapter 3: Faith Resting in Confidence

Habakkuk’s prophecy is unlike any other Old Testament prophet’s. The others speak to God’s people to deliver a message from God. Habakkuk speaks directly to God to solve a problem.

Israel and Judah had three great oppressors: Edom, Assyria, and Babylon. The prophet Obadiah dealt with Edom, Nahum with Assyria, and Habakkuk with Babylon. Edom and Assyria were no more as Habakkuk penned his work. They are not mentioned in his book.

Before Habakkuk was born, King Hezekiah was worried about the Assyrian Sennacherib’s attacks on Jerusalem (II Kings 18:13), and had just been miraculously restored from a fatal illness, when a delegation of possible allies appeared at the city gate. These were Babylonians ostensibly come to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery. Perhaps to convince them what a worthy ally Judah would be, Hezekiah took the Babylonians on a tour of his treasures, the temple’s treasures, and his full armory (Isaiah 30:6ff), knowledge the Babylonians would later use in sacking and destroying Jerusalem. Babylonia’s attack was imminent in Habakkuk’s day. Judah was ruled by Jehoiakim, the wicked king who had Jeremiah’s prophecy scroll burned (Jeremiah 36, II Kings 24). The Babylonians would take him, along with the nobles (including Daniel) of Jerusalem, into captivity before taking almost the entire population away in subsequent attacks.

To Habakkuk’s complaint that Judah was filled with wickedness, God replied that the Babylonians would be the chastening rod to correct things. But the Babylonians were much more evil than the people of Judah. This was Habakkuk’s problem. How could God do this thing?

It is sometimes confusing that the Bible refers to these people as either Babylonians or Chaldeans. Babylonian is the name based on their capital city. Chaldeans is a form of Arpachshad (Genesis 10:22), one of the five sons of Shem, so these were a West Semitic people closely related to Abraham’s descendants (Abram came from Ur of the Chaldeans). The other close relations of the Jews were the Elamites (in Western Arabia), the Assyrians in what is today Northern Iraq (from Asshur), the Ludites (in today’s Turkey), and the Arameans of Syria and Palestine. The Chaldeans pushed east and south, carefully bypassing the rising power of the Assyrians, and settled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at their extreme southern end near where they enter the Gulf. Chaldeans and Babylonians are synonymous terms.