He was, in all probability, director of the musical service at the Temple in the days of King Jehoakim and just before the shadow of Babylon fell across the land. He was a prophet; the particular form of the title used, applied only to Haggai, Zechariah, and himself, appears to indicate that he held a definite prophetic office. He was not one of the wandering seers like Elijah, nor a layman like Nahum, but a priest or a Levite whose prophetic gift had been so far recognised by the ecclesiastical authorities that he was officially accepted as a prophet of God. His life therefore must have been spent in and around the Temple and its services.

He might have known Ezekiel and Daniel; the latter was a boy at the time. He must certainly have been acquainted with Jeremiah and the two men were probably close friends. They both lived at the same time, were probably of much the same age, and shared the same outlook on the things of God. They were both passionate for the righteousness of God and both waited longingly for the coming of his Kingdom. But whereas a great deal is known of the life of Jeremiah, from his youthful days in the reign of good King Josiah until we lose sight of him forty years later in Egypt after the destruction of Jerusalem, nothing whatever is known of the life of Habakkuk. He comes upon the scene and delivers his prophecy, calm in its faith and resplendent in its presentation of the majesty of God, and passes out into the unknown. Whether he lived to witness the fall of the city twenty-five years after his prophecy, and was carried into captivity with his nation, or on the other hand had by then been laid to rest to await his reward at the Last Day, we have no idea. His prophecy is his history and his only monument.

Habakkuk was essentially a prophet of faith. He gave the Apostle Paul the inspiration for that greatest of doctrines, justification by faith. "The just man shall live by his faith" cried Habakkuk. Paul sensed the inner truth behind the words and carried them to an infinitely higher plane when he showed that the life enjoyed by the just man can only be received in Christ and through belief in and acceptance of Christ. Habakkuk's own personal faith is revealed from time to time in his prophecy, shining forth like illuminated gold and red initial letters on an ancient parchment. His sterling confidence in God's holiness and justice despite the apparent triumph of evil (Ch.1.12-13); his steadfast belief that God would perceive his standing on his watch, and reveal to him his plans (2.1); his plea that God would preserve alive his work with his people in the intervening years between the early and the latter fulfilments (3.2); his willingness to "rest" in death until the time of Israel's deliverance and glory at the end of the world (3.16); and his determination to honour and praise the Lord despite the apparent utter failure of his promises (3.17), all attest the deep-rooted faith which enabled this man clearly to see, not only the faults and shortcomings of his own people and the retribution that must surely come upon them in consequence, but also the Divine intervention which, at the end of time, would restore that people, repentant and purified, to its destined inheritance, destroy its enemies, and exalt righteousness over evil for ever.

It would be a matter of surprise, therefore, if such a man did not see, in prophetic vision, something of the circumstances attending the dawn of that great day, the day of the Messianic Kingdom. Sure enough, his words do convey some very definite foreviews of these circumstances, and stamp him as one of those prophets who "spoke" of the coming "Times of Restitution" to which Peter referred in his sermon to the people of Jerusalem (Acts 3.21).

The prophecy of Habakkuk is a striking example of the manner in which "holy men of old" were led to a perception of things relating to the "last days" only after they had been prepared for that perception by an understanding of the presence of sin in the world and the cause of that sin. In these three short chapters there is a whole process of development which must be repeated in the life of every Christian disciple who would understand intelligently "what his lord doeth". Habakkuk was first led to supplicate God on account of the injustice and apostasy which was rampant in his own day. "Why does God permit such evil?" was his question. "How long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save"? (Ch.1.2.). The answer of God when it came to him was not one of reassurance. True, it showed that God was not heedless, and that the wicked would not escape retribution, but it also showed that retribution was to come in the form of an invasion of the land by the Chaldeans, "that bitter and hasty nation", under Nebuchadnezzar, and that the land would be destroyed and laid desolate. Habakkuk, filled with dismay at the drastic nature of the remedy, approached God once more and appealed to his holiness and righteousness, that He would remember his promise and purpose with the children of Israel, and not permit them to be utterly destroyed by the heathen. There was apparently no immediate answer to this plea, and it was then that Habakkuk rose to the heights of faith and took his stand upon the watch tower to await further instruction from God, instruction which he knew would come, because he knew that God was faithful.

His faith was honoured, and the message came through to him. It was a message of woe and condemnation against the persecutors of Israel. It was to be for a long time; as with Daniel not many years later, the vision was for the "time of the end" but at that time it was to speak plainly and not lie. And then, at the end of the message, God appeared to the prophet upon the throne of his holiness in the glory of his heavenly Temple, just as He did to Isaiah (Isa.6.1), and gave this faithful servant a vision of the "end time" set against the background of the Exodus incidents. Under those vivid symbols there appears a dual picture of the great Time of Trouble that is to close this Gospel Age and usher in the Millennial Kingdom; a picture that shows, first, God's working in the affairs of men during the "Time of the End", the period during which the kingdoms of this world are disintegrating and breaking down in face of the imminent Kingdom of Christ, and second, arising to intervene in that short and final phase of human resistance to the incoming Kingdom which is called "Jacob's Trouble", the invasion of the Holy Land by the forces of "Gog and Magog". And perceiving the final glorious outcome, Habakkuk closes his prophecy with an expression of his own confidence in his awakening from the "rest" of death when that day shall have come, and all God's promises would certainly be fulfilled.

So his first complaint serves but to awaken him to a consciousness that all is not well with man's world; it is sunken in sin and iniquity. "Why dost thou...cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me...therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous" (Ch.1.3-4).

The reforms instituted by King Josiah had lapsed very soon after his death. His son Jehoiakim, a young man of twenty-five, had no reverence for God and was much more interested in political bargaining with Egypt. He appears to have been a "modern" ruler surrounded by a "smart set" which had but scant respect for older and wiser counsellors such as Jeremiah, the men who saw quite plainly to what this state of affairs must lead. In consequence public morality declined, injustice and oppression flourished, unbridled commercialism forced the observance of the Sabbath into virtual disuse, and the Temple of God was neglected. The nation had repudiated its covenant with God—the covenant entered into at Sinai upon their organisation as a nation—and in accordance with the terms of that covenant, national disaster must surely follow.

Verses 2 to 4 record Habakkuk's prayer. Verses 5 to 11 tell of God's answer to that prayer. It is a message of condemnation and judgment; prophetic, because the events of which it spoke were yet future. "Behold ye among the heathen (nations)...and wonder...for, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs" (1.5-6). Within a very few years the word was fulfilled. Nebuchadnezzar with his armies invaded and ravaged Judah, captured or slew successive kings and many of their godless princes and nobles, and took the people captive into Babylonia. For nineteen years or more he continued those raids until at length the Temple was burned, Jerusalem destroyed, and the land utterly desolated. The historian rightly attributed this great disaster to the people's neglect of the things of God, and their mocking his messengers "till there was no remedy" (2 Chron.36.14-20).

Habakkuk's complaint was fully justified. The description of the Babylonian invaders struck fear into the prophet's heart. Neither he nor his people knew much about the Babylonians. They had but recently, under Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, become a power in world affairs. The Assyrians had been known and feared, but Nineveh had been destroyed forty years before, destroyed by these very Babylonians, and the once-dreaded names of Sennacherib, Sargon and Shalmaneser were dreaded no longer. But this was a new menace. "They are terrible and dreadful...their horses are swifter than leopards,…more fierce than the evening wolves...their horsemen…shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat (the prey)...they shall come all for violence...they shall scoff at kings, and...princes shall be a scorn" (Ch.1.7-11). No wonder that the heart of Habakkuk failed him at the terrible prospect and he betook himself again to God, praying this time, not for judgment against the unrighteous, but mercy upon the wayward.

Verse 11 requires re-translating. It should be rendered rather "Then he sweeps by like a wind, he, the guilty, whose might is his god". An apt description of Nebuchadnezzar, the man who said later "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the (my) kingdom and by the might of my power?" (Dan.4.30). The keynote of this prophecy is the triumph of Divine influence over the material might of man: it commences with the growth of Babylonian world dominion, the "head of gold" of the world-image (Dan.2.38) and its decline to ultimate destruction, and it concludes with the greater world-empire of the end of this Age and that empire's utter overthrow by Divine intervention at the time of Christ's Kingdom upon earth.

Now Habakkuk (in vss.12-17) comes before God in supplication that Israel might not perish utterly. He reminds God of his own glory and power, and of his infinite righteousness. "Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die...thou hast ordained them for judgment...established them for correction" (vs.12). Because God is, and because He is the God of Israel, and his promises are bound up in Israel, it is unthinkable that the nation should die. The Babylonians were "ordained" or appointed for "judgment" and "correction" upon the faithless nation, but not to exterminate it utterly. That is Habakkuk's first reaction. But then there comes another thought to his mind. Is not the Lord violating his own principles by inflicting evil in order to purge from evil? Is He doing evil that good might come? "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil...wherefore lookest thou upon them (the Chaldeans) that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? And makest men as the fishes of the sea...They take...them with the angle...in their net...in their drag...and are glad"(1.13-15). In this wonderful picture the prophet alludes to the helpless condition of his people, as fish in the sea, swept up by the nets and drags and torn away from their native habitat without strength or power to resist. Can this be the will of God, God who is pledged to destroy all evil, God Who said to Moses that He would fill the earth with his glory? (Num.14.21). Had the Lord indeed given the earth over to destruction and all people on it to slavery and death? These all-conquering hordes had subjugated Assyria and the northern peoples, they held Damascus and the land of Israel to the north of Jerusalem, and they ruled Moab and Edom and the desert tribes to the south. Only Judah and the coastlands were left, and now it seemed as if they were to be swallowed up also. What was to become of all God's promises? The heavens were dark unto Habakkuk and the Lord seemed very far away, almost as if He had forgotten his people, and yet the prophet knew within himself that such a thing could not be. But the prophetic message, so full of tragedy and disaster, was trying his faith to the uttermost, and he broke out in the anguish of his heart with the despairing cry which closes the first chapter, "Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?"

* * *

But it was at this crisis that Habakkuk's faith inspired him to take his stand upon the watch tower and hearken diligently for the Divine message; and from this point that his prophecy expands into increasingly glorious stages of revelation, taking him far beyond the events of his own days and showing him that which was to come upon his people "at the end of the days". The next issue will tell of his experiences.

AOH

Map from www.jesuswalk.com