We know nothing in scripture about Habakkuk, so we must picture him as best we can from his own evidence. A prophet, a singer perhaps in the temple services, where lyres, harps and cymbals accompanied the patterns and rhythms of the ancient music, which had risen there in praise and thanksgiving for three hundred years. He was an older man, perhaps, among the musical apprentices. A writer. A poet. A thoughtful man, concerned for his people, who were God's people.

His people had ancient traditions, handed down for over a thousand years since Abraham, six hundred years since Moses. The history and the laws were there, written down, a record of God's help to His people, a statement of His commands. Over the centuries there had been high points and low - a wonderful Exodus from Egypt followed by a painful forty years in the wilderness - judges bad, judges good - Samuel, David the king, and his son Solomon, whose servants had built this temple. Through the years there had been wars, alliances, factions, idolatry, the forsaking of God and following the excesses of idol worship.

More recently, the good young king Josiah had wilfully gone to his death in battle against the Egyptian superpower, a death the singers still lamented. The Egyptians had deposed his son after only three months, and set another young man in his place. And the Egyptian army had gone north to Carchemish, where, it was reported, Pharaoh Necho had been defeated by an active new superpower.

At this time, Habakkuk could see his people suffering, not at the hands of foreigners but of each other. Society had become lawless, the picture was violence and contention (we might see a similar picture on our television screens of conflict in middle eastern countries today.) Those who stood up for justice were outnumbered by the gangs and the mob, and were not supported by the authorities. The law had lost its power because of a lack of moral fibre in those who administered it. And this state of affairs went on, and on, and on. Habakkuk appealed to God about it, but nothing happened. "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and thou wilt not hear?"

Jeremiah, the prophet from the village of Anathoth, had similar concerns and a similar message. But while he, with the aid of Baruch the scribe, was active in the thick of the fray, Habakkuk we may imagine watched events, and feared for his nation, and looked to his God, and recorded what he 'saw' in poetic form - a dialogue with God, five woes on the wicked and a psalm to be sung in the temple.

He knew the Psalms. He knew that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." The Lord of Hosts is with us, destroying weapons, ending warfare, protecting His city.... The heavens are telling His glory. His law is perfect, to revive the soul, make wise the simple, give a clear view of what is right and true, keep His servants humble. "Yes, but..." thought Habakkuk, "this is not what I am seeing around me. The wars continue. The righteous suffer. How long, O Lord?"

The answer was unexpected. "Look among the nations. I am rousing the Chaldeans" (Babylonians). Babylon was the new superpower. Their horses made possible swift attacks. They were a law to themselves, taking no account of a chieftain's authority, capable of raising seige banks against the walls of any fortress to take it and move swiftly on. For them, might is right. They come for violence, fear of them goes before them wherever they turn their attack. And was God rousing them up? Against Israel? Israel, who were still under the wing of their enemy, Egypt? It meant annihilation.

Habakkuk could not understand how a judgment like this, at the hands of wicked men, was in keeping with God's righteous character, or with His eternal care for His special people, to whom He was a Rock. It could not be that they would face slaughter, "We shall not die." But perhaps captivity? The Babylonians were like a fisherman with his net, gathering captives from all nations. To them in their strength, their victims were despised like ants perhaps whose nest has been destroyed. Was it possible that God would bring this fate upon His people? Some at least of them were righteous and had faith in Him.

Habakkuk resolved to settle himself, like a watchman on the battlements, to see how God would answer his perplexity.

The answer came, "Wait." Write the vision plain upon tablets, the vision awaits its time, but it will inexorably come even if it seems slow.

What vision? The Jews who later translated Habakkuk's words into Greek took this to mean a person, a coming one, and so it is quoted in Hebrews (and we can think of a 'coming One' six hundred years after Habakkuk. Even a coming One future to our own day.) But what Habakkuk saw was a principle and a promise in God's dealings. As translated in the RSV it reads: "He whose soul is not upright in Him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by His faithfulness." (Hab.2.4)

He was not to despair, but to keep on keeping on, obedient, trusting.

The next section of Habakkuk's writing consists of five woes. Most commentators believe these apply to the Babylonians, others say they should apply 'wherever the cap fits' (it would not be hard to find cases in our time where the fit is good). In this section, along with the poetic descriptions of how certain people will receive their come-uppance, we find two glorious insights, one a quotation from the earlier prophet Isaiah, and another a mouth-stopping vision, reminiscent of God's revelation of Himself to Job. This will settle all Habakkuk's questioning.

The woes are similar to the woes of Isaiah 5, and Jesus used the same form of words when he denounced the 'scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites' (Matthew 23). Habakkuk's woes are expressed as a taunt from the enslaved nations against their persecutors.

1. Woe to those who plunder, and impose payments on their victims like a cruel moneylender. The tables will be turned, they themselves will be plundered.

2. Woe to those who build their dynasty by slaughter. The very stones of their palaces will speak their shame.

3. Woe to those who build their cities based upon the sufferings and death of others. What they have achieved is transitory and will go up in smoke. In the end, the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as completely as the waters cover the sea. (This from Isaiah. It is still our hope.)

4. Woe to those who bully their neighbours and take pleasure in humiliating them. They will reap the same treatment. The cup will come round to them also filled with the blood of men and violence in the earth.

5. Woe to those who trust in idols. They are confident in what they have made for themselves, but idols are lifeless, powerless. Habakkuk's vision reaches up to the true God.

God is alive in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence, whether in speechless terror or in quiet faith.

To the dialogue with God and these woes, is added Habakkuk's prayer, set to music. It carries the theme of God's transcendent power at a time when His people are threatened by the great earthly powers. Habakkuk recalls God's past interventions. He asks help now, God's mercy now, even if the foreign invasion is expressing His punishment.

Just as God's power from the south was displayed in the Exodus long ago, so a terrifying thunderstorm coming from the south is a sign of His power now, a picture of God's armies bestriding the earth, coming to rescue His people.

"He stands still and shakes the earth,
He looks and makes the nations tremble;
the eternal mountains are riven,
the everlasting hills subside
Art thou angry with the streams?
Is thy wrath against the sea, O Lord?
When thou dost mount thy horses;
thy riding is to victory....
The torrent of water rushes by.
The deep sea thunders aloud....
With threats thou dost bestride the earth
and trample down the nations in anger.
Thou goest forth to save Thy people (NEB)

Compare with this a modern report of a thunderstorm in the area: "At 5pm a tremendous thunderstorm began. The rain fell in torrents, and the roar of the thunder echoing from peak to peak, and the howling of the wind, were quite deafening. It soon grew dark, but the flashes of lightning were so incessant that we could see everything around us... In less than a quarter of an hour every ravine and gully in the mountains was pouring down a foaming stream.... in the watercourse a white line of foam appeared.... wave after wave came rolling down.... a few minutes after 6 pm it had ceased raining and there was a foaming torrent from 8 to 10 feet deep carrying hundreds of palm trees....boulders ground along beneath the water.... and every now and again the ground shook as some huge rock charged down against it. By the next morning there was only a gently flowing stream a few inches deep...." For Habakkuk to experience, or even just to imagine such a storm would shake him to the core. God's 'army' is more terrifying than the Babylonians. He determines that he will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the invaders.

But in the meantime, they may do their worst, stripping the land of produce, making agriculture impossible, threatening starvation. Even if this befalls, Habakkuk knows he can be happy, happy to trust and rejoice in God, who saves him personally and gives him strength. As one of the righteous, he will live by his faithfulness - God's faithfulness too. Like a sure footed deer, he can climb the hills away from the trouble. The hills bring him closer to God and God's ultimate triumph.
GC