Habakkuk

Habakkuk 3:8-11, I Sing the Mighty Power of God

/ Melissa

Habakkuk 3:8-11, “8 Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation? 9 You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah   You split the earth with rivers. 10 The mountains saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice; it lifted its hands on high. 11 The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear.”

Are you a mountain person or a beach person? I’m 100% mountain girl! And I love all things fall—especially fall in the mountains! So, a couple weeks ago, I drove up to NC with the boys to introduce them to one of my favorite fall hobbies: antiquing! I don’t know what it is about old things, but I could spend hours in an antique shop; and some of them you can quite literally get lost in! It was a good teaching day—how to look and not touch, how to appreciate without having to purchase.

Maybe it’s the post-hurricane chaos, or maybe there’s a little extra grief because my mom loved fall so much, or maybe it’s the nostalgia from just reading Farmer Boy to my boys again, (or the fact that it’s an election year)—but, this year especially, I’ve been craving calm. Visiting these little towns is like going back in time; they’re smaller, slower paced—something I long for and strive really hard to hold onto for our family in our ever-racing spiral of a culture.

When you’re antiquing, sometimes you have a particular piece in mind. And sometimes, you’re just browsing because you need a place to slow down and think and remember. It’s good for us to remember days gone by and to teach our children about them too. It establishes an appreciation of the blood, sweat, and tears that came before us, and grows a sense of gratitude for what we have now. It’s good for us to slow down and look back. And, oh, the smell of old books! It’s good for us to pull out the old history books and even collections of nursery rhymes. Frankly, if we studied our histories better, maybe we wouldn’t repeat them so often. 😉 And it’s good for us to pull out the old hymnals and sing through their melodies.

Nursery rhymes and songs have been used through the ages to teach children history lessons. And Scripture uses poetry and song for the same reason—to teach God’s story to the children of His kingdom.

Today we’ll learn that one of the things God’s people remembered and praised God for was His wrath. This sounds strange to us today, but we need to lean into this part of God’s nature because His wrath and His love are both perfect and inseparable. God uses His wrath to save His people! And we can absolutely rejoice in that!

Let’s set the stage. Hab. 2:20 – Habakkuk sees the LORD in His holy temple! And there’s this cosmic mic-drop! The whole earth falls in silence at the woes the LORD has just pronounced on evil. But Habakkuk does something different—he can’t help but burst into a song of praise, recounting God’s past deliverance of His people, and resolving to wait for the coming deliverance of His Savior and LORD. And he calls the people of God to join Him in learning and singing this song in their temple worship as well.

Remembering God’s past acts of deliverance grounds our faith in His future and final acts of deliverance. And… Recalling God’s covenant anchors our hope in God’s future and forever reign.

Now, this song is structured in a way that points to the center; and the center of this song is verses 8-15. Now, we’re breaking this center section into two parts, which at first might seem a little odd, BUT I think it’s good to slow down and really dive deep into the center of this song because it holds a lot of rich theology. And the MAIN IDEA?  We don’t like to talk about this, but the main idea of this text is the WRATH of the LORD…and His SALVATION. God uses His wrath to save His people! God’s sovereign wrath is displayed over creation in v. 8-11, and then over the nations in v. 12-15; and the purpose of all of it? “in order to save His people.”

I. First, God’s Salvation is Declared.

I.A. Habakkuk starts this section with his final question, (again, starting with the LORD’s covenant name, as we’ve seen in each of his prayers thus far).

v. 8, At what or whom is God’s wrath directed? Is it the rivers or seas? The small bodies of waters or the large ones? Because sometimes, it has seemed like it was!

In last week’s lesson, we were drawn to thinking of the Exodus—being reminded of the plagues and pestilence that God used to draw His people out of Egypt. So, it’s natural to think of the Exodus again. Speaking of plagues, we remember the story of God turning the water of the Nile into blood, right? (Exodus 7)

And, of course, we remember the crossing of the Red Sea. But in that story, the Egyptians were the ones riding on chariots, and what happened to them?  Exodus 15: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. 4 “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea.”

Was God angry at the waters? NO, God used the Red Sea that He created to swallow up the enemy of His people! And Isaiah tells us, that God divided the waters and led His people in order to make for himself an everlasting and glorious name (Isaiah 63:12, 14).

This wasn’t the only time the people walked across on dry land either! God did it again! In Joshua 3, the people walked across the river bottoms of the Jordan River into the Promised Land! And this time in flood season!

Why did God do this? Yes, to remind them of the Red Sea, but ultimately, He says it was “how [they] [would] know that the living God [was] among [them] and that He without fail will drive out … the Canaanites” (Joshua 3:10). But it wasn’t just for Israel; God says it was “so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever” (Joshua 4:24). The whole earth will fear the LORD! But He is our God forever!

Habakkuk is recalling these mighty deeds of God to mind and putting them into song, and he’s doing that to help himself and the people to remember that God is sovereign over His creation. The sea was a symbol of judgment in the Bible—from beginning to end. What was Habakkuk experiencing?

Well, the main god of the Babylonians was Marduk, the god of creation, water and storm. So, judgment using water was a direct hit on the Babylonians’ god (just like the plagues of Egypt were direct hits on their gods)!

Next, we know that Babylon covered much of the Sinai (now, Arabian) peninsula, which is surrounded by the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean Sea; and Ur was on the Euphrates River, running right through the middle of the peninsula. We saw lots of fishing imagery in chapter 1, so we know they valued their seaports because it brought them their luxurious lifestyles.

At the end of Habakkuk, he mentions figs, vines, olives and fields perishing—so they may have already begun to experience droughts—the drying up of the rivers and the seas, as one of God’s means of calling His people back. (“yet you did not return to me,” Amos 4.)

So, we’ve seen God’s mighty deeds in the past, we’ve discussed a little of what He might have been doing in Habakkuk’s day regarding the rivers and seas, but then, because we’re looking at a prophet, we have to consider that there may be future ramifications as well.

The Past Exodus always points to the Future Exodus.

Remember, prophecy is kind of like a mountain range. I think we’ve talked about the mountain range before—how when you see a mountain range from a distance, it kind of looks like one big range, but the closer you get, you can start to tell that it’s actually a bunch of mountain ranges stacked against each other. So, with prophecy, it can have a direct fulfilment at the time it’s given, but then it can be fulfilled repeatedly throughout history—especially when it comes to the cross and Christ’s return.

So where do we see God using raging waters in the future? If you look at Revelation 8-10, Jesus opens the final seal, which brings woes upon those who refuse to repent—they include the sea turning to blood, darkness, plagues, a third of the earth’s population being destroyed, because they would not repent of their idolatry, violence, immorality, and theft. Sound like Babylon? (It even mentions the Euphrates River.) And as Jesus sets his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, he declares that when the final trumpet sounds, “the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.” In Revelation 16-18, the same images are repeated for the same reasons, and he calls out Babylon specifically (which symbolizes all the evil nations by this point).

SO, no, God isn’t angry at the rivers or the sea. But He is using them! Why is he pouring out this wrath?  

I.B. God salvation is declared as He rides in wrath for salvation. What salvation? We have to look ahead to v. 13 – for the salvation of His people, and His anointed!

Now we shift from the “horse and his rider being thrown into the sea” to a picture of God Himself on His chariots! It reminds me of one of my favorite songs, “O Worship the King,” verse 2 – “O tell of His might, O sing of His grace, whose robe is the light, whose canopy space. His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, And dark is His path on the wings of the storm.”

I asked you to read a couple of psalms last week. Hopefully that was refreshing and helpful. Psalm 68: 17 The chariots of God are twice ten thousand,  thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them; Sinai is now in the sanctuary.  20 Our God is a God of salvation,  and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. 33 to him who rides in the heavens, …35 Awesome is God from his sanctuary; …—he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.                    

Who is this awesome God of salvation?  Rev. 6:2 says, “And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.”

And then in Rev. 19: 11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. … 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and [His] name … is The Word of God. 14 … the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 …[He comes]  to strike down the nations, and … rule them …. [Then it says,] “He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.  16…. [And his name is King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Jesus Christ holds the reins of His Heavenly Horses, and He is riding in wrath to save us—to save you!—His beloved Bride—all those who repent and believe!

TRANSITION: So, even though Habakkuk begins with a question, it’s more of a rhetorical one—he knows God’s wrath is right and good because when God shows His wrath to destroy the enemy, His intent is to save His people! Next, Habakkuk sees God’s Sovereign Splendor Displayed throughout creation! Let’s look at how creation responds to God’s chariot of salvation!

II. First, God’s Sovereign Splendor is Displayed as

II.A. God rightly judges over earth and heaven!

He continues with this War Imagery:

9 You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah

I’m a boy mom; I have 3 boys, ages almost 3 to 9, and they all love weapons! They are especially into bows and arrows. But this is no child’s play, so I did a little research on Avid-Archer.com. 😊 Avid-Archer explains, “In contemporary films, archery often symbolizes empowerment and liberation.” “In literature, archery often symbolizes the dual forces of love and war, [get this!] both of which require precision, focus, and an understanding of the target. [I thought that was cool.] Arrows can represent: [1] The piercing nature of love … [he mentions Cupid]… [and arrows can represent] [2] The destructive potential of war….” He goes on to say that “the bow often… symboliz[es] … power within waiting to be unleashed… As the arrow is released, it represents the triumph over one’s struggles—a climactic release of potential leading to victory.”

And there is no greater power than the power of our God. In v. 9, we see God as our Coming Warrior King, riding on his chariot. The sheath of the bow was part of the quiver; the sheath is what you would carry your bow in to protect it; the quiver would also carry the arrows. For riders, the sheath would either be worn on their backs or actually mounted to the side of the chariot, for easy access. When he strips the sheath from the bow, He is grabbing out his war bow.

This should remind you of the flood—when God hung his war bow in the sky—what we now call a rainbow! This rainbow symbol has been manipulated for evil and flown to celebrate the “Pride” of and for the LGBTQ+ community; they’ve even distorted into 6 colors instead of 7 (number of man vs. number of perfection); BUT, it will be redeemed by its Maker! And this bow will bring judgment, not in a worldwide flood (because God always keeps His promises), but in fire. And the rainbow will be seen again… Ezekiel saw it: … his first vision is of a storm and fire, a man seated on a throne, surrounded by a rainbow. And he realizes he has just been given a glimpse into heaven. He says, “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and [listened]”(1:28). Then, in Rev. 4:2, John has a similar experience: “I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne… 3… and around the throne was a rainbow. … 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder,” and we see burning torches of fire and a sea of glass, all reflecting the glory of our Coming Warrior God!

Gospel Connection: FOR those of us who are believers, instead of using this bow on us, God stripped Jesus of His life at the cross, pouring out judgment on Him in our place.

The next line is really hard to interpret. ESV says “calling for many arrows.”

  • Other translations use various words for “Calling”, such as “ordering, swearing, oaths being sworn, even as thy word, etc.”
  • “Arrows” can be translated “rods, chastisement, spears,” etc.
  • “Many” can be translated as “7” – signifying fullness, completeness or the perfect number—exactly what God needs. Complete Jewish Bible: “order it (the bow) filled with arrows”

So, it is a perfect execution of this covenant promise to not only show steadfast love (Exodus 34:6), but keep reading the rest of the covenant… verse 7 says, “who will by no means clear the guilty.” God’s love and God’s wrath are inextricably connected! He must accomplish both things—rescuing His people AND destroying His enemy. If this idea of wrath and love being connected is hard for you, you might picture a mama bear acting in wrath to protect her cubs from a mountain lion.

The word “Selah” is a musical notation that most believe is like a “rest” or “pause” in order to reflect. So, the fact that Selah is here makes me lean toward the idea of the reminder of the covenant – we can reflect on God calling His perfect Word back to mind and using the Word of God, Jesus, to pierce the hearts of His enemies. For us, the Word pierced and divided our hearts to see truth and repent of our sin; for those who refuse to repent, the Word will pierce to destroy.

No matter how you translate this, God is intent on loving His people, and He releases a cosmic war effort to retrieve us. In the end, the cosmic battle will be once and for all won when all God’s enemies are cast into the lake of fire, and God’s people and brought to dwell with Him as His forever bride in His forever kingdom.

Psalm 7:11-13 says, “ 11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels [wrath] every day. 12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.”

Isaiah 43: the LORD says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
3For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

We love these verses, but I didn’t realize till I was studying for this that the context is God redeeming Israel from the hands of Babylon, v. 14, says “even the Chaldeans.”

16Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,
17who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

And chapters 44-45 are where Isaiah foretells of not only their exile but their return…

[If you have time, spend some time soaking in Isaiah 40-50 this week; it’s so refreshing!]

TRANSITION: Salvation is Declared; Victory is Sure; God rightly judges over earth and heaven! A second way we see God judging rightly is how he “split the earth with rivers.”

We’ve already covered a lot on water imagery, and we’ve seen firsthand in the recent hurricanes how God literally redirects the flow of water; He unleashes the power of water to move mountains! Sides of mountains fell off their foundations last month. Towns and bridges were annihilated—washed away. Routes have been changed—not just in the roads but in where the rivers will run for years to come.

Several commentaries, and our workbook this week, pointed us to the splitting of the Rock in the wilderness, providing water for the Israelites, which is a valid point. But God has been splitting the earth and dividing waters since the very beginning.

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. … 7 And God … separated the waters [below] from the waters … above. … God called [this] Heaven. [Then] God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together … and let the dry land appear.” … 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters … he called Seas.”

Gospel Connection: God is the Sovereign Judge of All Creation: He gets to decide where the land should split and the water run through. He Rightly Judges over Earth and Heaven. And He is Worthy of Worship.

Application: By the way, God rightly judges our hearts too. Proverbs 21:2, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” He changes kings’ hearts, and he can and will change our hearts too. Have you experienced this? Do you need to experience this? Ask God to show you how your heart needs to change—towards Him? Towards your spouse? Your child? Your neighbor? Your coworker? Pray that God would turn your heart to be pleasing to Him. And then watch Him work.

TRANSITION: Verses 10 and 11 switch from 2nd person (YOU) back to 3rd person, and we get to see how earth and heaven—all creation—responds to its Sovereign Judge. God came down, riding on his chariots of wrath, readying his bow and arrows, and

II. B. The power of His presence is utterly intense and supremely glorious!

The heavens and earth cannot handle it! How do they respond?

      ” 10 The mountains saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice; it lifted its hands on high.”

QUESTION: Have you ever “writhed” in pain? Childbirth and back pain come to mind for me. Can you imagine the mountains doing this? The mountains (think the Appalachians, the Rocky  Mountains, Mount Everest). Writhing. God is so supremely glorious that the mountains themselves writhe!

We saw this in v. 6, “the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low.” Now, “mountains” can also be symbolic for “nations”. So, both the literal, physical mountains, but also the symbolic nations, are writhing when God comes down. We see God as our Glorious and Sovereign Creator, but this time, He is leveling the landscape and beginning to make all things new, as He Recreates His Dwelling Place in the New Heaven and New Earth!

The mountains saw the LORD and writhed…then what happened? More water imagery. The Deep sees God and gives up its voice, being rendered utterly speechless. Or… when the deep gives forth its voice, it’s crying out—lifting its voice and its hands in surrender to the Almighty! Water is symbolic of chaos. And just as God did in Genesis 1, God sovereignly brings order out of chaos again and again and again throughout history—and one day, there will be no more chaos! The LORD is on His throne, and the earth is silent, swept away.

Psalm 77: “16 When the waters saw you, O God, …, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled. […once again, we have thunder and lightning and earthquakes… Then it says,] 19 Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters;
    yet your footprints were unseen.“

Gospel Connection: Jesus walked through judgement for us. We cannot always see God working, but we must trust that He is. He will make our paths straight, and He will win in the end! But, in His love, God often uses His wrath in order to save His people!

In Revelation 16-18, we see the fall of Babylon, once again accompanied by lightning, thunder, and earthquake. Rev. 16:19-20, “And God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found.”  In Rev. 17, God reveals a vision of mountains as actually the kings who “14make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”

TRANSITION: God rightly judges over earth and heaven, and God’s righteous presence is supremely glorious. The mountains and seas writhe. Next, the sun and moon stand still. Joshua 10:12-14 gives us the story of “when the Lord gave the Amorites over to …Israel,” through Joshua’s request. Joshua said, ““Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 [and they did!], until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. 14…for the Lord fought for Israel.”

Why did the sun and moon stand still? Was it a solar eclipse? No, Habakkuk says it was because of God’s speeding arrows of light and the flash of his glittering spear! They saw his glory in full display, as He came to take vengeance on His enemies once again. This is a supernatural eclipse, a revelation of God’s glory—the all-encompassing, incomprehensible sum of all of God’s attributes, shining forth in His presence.

The sun and moon that God created were ordained to submit to their Sovereign Creator—as were we. One day, the sun and moon will stand still forever! In contrast to the city of Babylon being thrown down and her light being no more, we see in Rev. 21 “ a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. [no more judgment or chaos] … 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb…and there will be no night.”

God, as the Glorious Sovereign, Eclipses us with His Glorious Splendor!

Speaking of the Heavens, we looked at prophecy as being like a mountain range. A second image that might help is a constellation. When we look up in the sky and see the Big Dipper, for example, it looks like a cluster of stars, but the reality is that these stars are literally Light Years away from us and each other! The stars in the Big Dipper range from about 78 light years away to 128 light years away! Just ONE light year = 6 TRILLION MILES. So, if we even COULD travel at 600 mph, it would still take us 1 MILLION YEARS to travel ONE light year! This is the vastness of God’s creative and redemptive power! He uses one text, one image, to remind us of His past, present, and future eternal reign!

Conclusion: I want to look at one final passage in Revelation 18. As Babylon is falling, you hear a voice, which I think is an echo of Habakkuk, along with Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the rest of the prophets—warnings to the nations—and to us.

Rev. 18:4-5 says, “Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.”

It’s a call to repent. Will you listen to His call? Are you one of the arrows? Jesus gave His life for you; are you willing to have your blood shed for Him? OR will you join Babylon and refuse to repent? Oh, I hope not. For the end of those who refuse to repent is to be pierced by His mighty arrows, fatally, for eternity.

God’s “splendor” and wrath bring salvation and destruction. God displays His wrath through creation in order to save His people. So, can you rejoice in God’s wrath better now than yesterday? The wrath of God is a sobering topic. But as believers, we can rejoice that God will rescue us through His wrath. He did this by pouring out His wrath on Jesus instead of us. And He will do it again when He comes to bring us finally Home.

I got a glimpse of this as a summer camp counselor during my college years. We were on a hike at the 4th falls at the Wilds (which is a pretty intense hike), but an unexpected summer thunderstorm came out of nowhere. Thunder, lightning, even limbs dropping onto the trail. We tried to find hollowed out places on the side of the trail to shelter until it passed. And someone began to sing this song. “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.”

So I want us to sing this together today. When I taught this to our preschoolers, we added a little bridge that can be sung at the beginning and end of the song. It’s really simple, and it’s become one of my sons’ favorite bedtime songs. It goes like this.

Teach Bridge:  “There’s no greater power than the power of our God.” X2 (LifetreeKids)

So we’ll sing the Bridge, all 3 stanzas, and close with the bridge. Let’s sing of the Glorious Splendor of our  Sovereign King, who will come in Victory—may it be soon!

I Sing the Mighty Power of God (Isaac Watts, 1715)

  1. I sing the mighty pow’r of God, that made the mountains rise,
    That spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies.
    I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
    The moon shines full at His command, and all the stars obey.
  2. I sing the goodness of the Lord, who filled the earth with food,
    Who formed the creatures through the Word, and then pronounced them good.
    Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed, where’er I turn my eye,
    If I survey the ground I tread, or gaze upon the sky.
  3. There’s not a plant or flow’r below, but makes Thy glories known,
    And clouds arise, and tempests blow, by order from Thy throne;
    While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care;
    And everywhere that we can be, Thou, God, art present there.

Habakkuk 1:12-2:1, My View from the Watchtower

/ Melissa / Leave a comment

Before we get into our main lesson today, I want to take our first few minutes to look at a couple of study tools as we come to God’s Word.

First, let’s talk Context.

Context helps us get a fuller understanding of what’s being said. This might mean we study what’s going on during this time period. But it also includes literary context, which is the passage before and after your text. Habakkuk is such a short book that it can actually really help us to read the whole text each week…maybe even several times. If you have a Bible app, consider listening to it while you’re running errands or washing dishes. Soak in the text. The more you read it, the more connections you are likely to see.

How did the book start? With a prayer… Habakkuk receives this heavy burden from the LORD and rightly brings this burden back to the LORD. Habakkuk sees and questions, “God, do you see what I see?!”

Then, God assures him that He’s seeing it all and tells Habakkuk to look and watch because He’s about to do something that is unbelievable!

Now it’s Habakkuk’s turn to talk. And, just as we saw in that first passage, in today’s text, we’ll see Habakkuk continuing to carry this burden back to the Lord for as long as it takes to see God bring about justice.

What comes next? God answers again. The wicked will receive woes, and God will get the glory. And then the last chapter is a song of remembrance of God’s past deliverance and Habakkuk’s determination to sing praise to God no matter what. So that helps us remember in our text today that God will answer His people’s prayers. And God will execute perfect justice. And it helps our theme of waiting and watching for God to work to become a strong emphasis.

The next tool in our toolbox is Parallelism.

Did anyone find it hard to figure out who was who in this passage? We have to remember that we’re looking at Hebrew poetry. And Hebrew poetry is not about rhyming like our standard English poems. It’s not even about cadence or number of syllables. It’s more about parallel ideas that either compare and contrast or repeat and elaborate upon each other. So, let’s look at Habakkuk 1:12-13 in the ESV and NIV for just a minute to see if we can learn anything new by using this tool.

I tend to go with the oldest date (if we know that), and the fact that the oldest manuscripts also reflect Hebrew parallelism seems to confirm this interpretation.

Lines 3 and 4 (v. 13) follow the same pattern of parallelism as Lines 1 and 2 (v. 12).  Another reason I don’t think Habakkuk is assuming he won’t die or can’t die.

Let’s say you’re not convinced. Is it okay to translate this we? Even if Habakkuk IS saying “We will not die,” He’s still basing this belief on the covenant nature of God that we’ll talk about in a minute. I don’t think he’s saying that he will never die physically, because he knows death has been a part of humanity since the curse; it’s appointed to every man and woman to die once. And he’s seen what happens when evil nations bring other nations into exile. People do die. But it may be that he’s confident that even unto death, he will live with God forever because our souls never die.

“My View from the Watch Tower”

Have you ever been in the middle of a really hard conversation and the phone cuts out? Maybe it’s an argument with your husband or a friend. Maybe you’ve been waiting all week for a response to a job interview—did you get it or not? I have two examples that come to mind… the first was when my twin sister was having her third child. So, we knew she was going into labor, we’re excited that this baby is coming, and then about 12 hours in, we get the dreaded phone call: ” Baby’s in distress, we’re going in for emergency c-section! [Click.]” And there’s nothing you can do. So, you pray and you wait and you watch the phone because you know that they’ll call you back as soon as they can, but there’s just not an answer. Then we got a second phone call: “The baby’s okay. [Silence.]” “And Michelle?” “We don’t know yet. [Click.]” And we wait again. And you don’t know if the answer will be positive or not. The other example was my brother this January, my dad called me and said, “I’m taking Jordan to the ER because we think he had a stroke.” And he did. And it was pretty serious. And I remember giving Callan a bath that night and just kneeling by the tub, crying out to God, “God, it hasn’t even been 6 months since mom died… please don’t take my brother too!” And you fast and pray and wait. And wait.

And that’s the kind of feeling we drop into with Habakkuk. He is reeling with a pit in his stomach and holding his breath, and he cries out to God. (And, yes, we praise God that both my siblings are alive and well today, and God used those things in their lives to grow their faith in the LORD, just as He did with Habakkuk.)

The poetry of this section is more of a personal lament than a complaint. We see the personal nature as he refers to God as “my God” and “my Holy One.” Then, there’s the typical lament pattern: there’s a statement of faith, followed by an extended question, then another statement of faith (A-B-A). He also seems to be elaborating on his first lament in verses 2-4, even using many of the same words.

Don’t we do this? We pray a quick prayer and then the answer seems to be confusing, so we pray in a longer way? What attitude do we do this with? Is Habakkuk questioning God in a disapproving manner? I’d argue that Habakkuk comes to God in an attitude of confidence in God’s character and promises. And we can follow this pattern as we bring our laments to the Lord too.

Habakkuk begins by taking a hard look at the character of God. So, let’s do that with Habakkuk.

I. First and foremost, we need “A Right View of the Rock of the Ages.” (1:12-14)

When God gives us heavy burdens, it is absolutely necessary that we are grounded in who God is. We cannot look at our circumstances and change our view of God. Rather, we look at our God, and let what we know to be true about Him give us perspective about what we’re going through. In fact, isn’t usually the hardest circumstances that actually help us get a bigger view of God and understand Him even better? This is God’s heart throughout Scripture—isn’t it?! To give us a big view of Himself. And He doesn’t change—so this is God’s heart for you and me too—to know us and to make Himself known to us in a big, personal way. Relationship, not just religion. So, what does Habakkuk know about His God?

  1. He knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God (v. 12)
  2. He knows God is eternal (v. 12)
  3. He knows God is all-powerful and good (v. 12)

Let’s look at each of these attributes for a bit. First, God is a personal, covenant keeping God.

One of the first covenants we have is the covenant between the LORD and Abram (Abraham). In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of his home country (Ur of the Chaldeas—ironically, the same people group that are attacking his descendants now) and God promised to make Abram a great nation and through him bless all the families of the earth. Fast forward over two decades, and Abram is still waiting for a single son, let alone a great nation! And this is where the covenant comes in. In Genesis 15, The LORD promises again to give Abram a son and make his offspring as numerous as the stars in heaven! “And he [Abram] believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (15:6).

Then God did something as a sign of the covenant He was making with Abram. He had Abram bring a bunch of animals and cut them in half and lay them out. Then Abram fell into a deep sleep, and the LORD said to him, “Know for certain” that I will do what I said I would do (15:13). Then Abram saw “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces” (15:17). This was a special ceremony—the smoke and fire were symbolic of the LORD Himself, and the cutting in half of the animals was saying in essence, “If I, the LORD, do not keep my end of the covenant, may I be cut in two just like these animals.” But we know that God always keeps His promises! God Himself cannot die! He is eternal! And He’s serious about keeping His word forever!

Habakkuk is grounding his prayers in his relationship with God. In fact, every prayer of Habakkuk begins with the word LORD in all caps (see 1:2; 2:12; 3:2). This is God’s covenant name, YHWH, revealed to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. All of our relationships with God are grounded in this covenant history—in this covenant name—and Habakkuk highlights this first.

TRANSITION. The phrase “from everlasting” can point to both God’s eternality, but even more frequently, it implies a specific act of deliverance in Israel’s history. So once again, it points us to the covenant keeping nature of God—the Rock of ages—”our help in ages past,” “our hope for years to come.”

The covenants of God are really important to understand as we look at OT prophecy. We don’t have time to dive into all of it, but I would recommend two books: 1. Christ from Beginning to End by Stephen Wellum and our pastor Trent Hunter, which points to Jesus in every book of the Bible! It’s fantastic if you’ve never seen that before; and 2. Covenants Made Simple by Jonty Rhodes, which is an easy-to-understand introduction to the covenants (this is a really excellent read and very helpful).

TRANSITION: So, Habakkuk knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God. Next, Habakkuk knows that God is eternal—completely sovereign from eternity past thru eternity future. He has no beginning and no end. And His eternality is part of what makes Him supreme. We cannot comprehend this, but we must have this faith, as Habakkuk did and base our laments on it.

God is unchanging. I love that Habakkuk calls God “my Rock.” Is God your Rock today? If not, He can be…when we fix our eyes on Him.

Deuteronomy 31 is the passing of the torch from Moses to Joshua. Moses is 120 years old and about to die. He reads the Law to the people and he writes it all down (which we know as the Pentateuch, or first five books of the OT), then God tells Moses, “I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods” (31:18). Then God commands Moses to write a song and sing it to the people. And we find that song, the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. Let’s read v.3-4, and then if you haven’t done this yet, I’d make a little note to read through all of Deut. 32 and see what similarities you see and how often God is referred to as The Rock.

“3 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
    ascribe greatness to our God!

4 “The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.

The song goes on to talk of God leading the people to the Promised Land, but how they grew discontent and “forsook [the] God who made [them]; [they] scoffed at the Rock of [their] salvation. 16 They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods [idols]; …  18  were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”  And it goes on about their idolatry against their Rock.

I read this to remind us that what Habakkuk is seeing is not new. This is not the first time Israel rebelled. In fact, it’s somewhat of a broken record by this point. Verse 13 reflects Habakkuk’s wrestling with what He believes to be true about God with His circumstances.

TRANSITION: Habakkuk knows the Scriptures, and more importantly, He knows God. A. He knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God; B. He knows God is eternal; and C. He knows God is all-powerful and good. God will execute perfect, right justice.

Let’s read verse 13: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do You idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”

Habakkuk knows God is pure and will not tolerate evil, because that’s part of His covenant promises, and yet the reality of Habakkuk’s surroundings and his theological belief do not seem to line up for him. He’s like, “I see all this evil all around me. How is God letting this go unnoticed? He sees everything, right? He’s all knowing, right? All powerful? I just don’t get it, God!”

We’ve all been there—or if we haven’t, we will be at some point. I get Habakkuk’s paradox here! I know I’m only in my 40s, but the older I get, the more wickedness and brokenness and frailty I see in this world. And no matter how hard we try to guard ourselves from it, it’s simply unavoidable. We live in a fallen world, and we know that man apart from God is NOT essentially good—but rather, deceitful and desperately wicked. We are messed up! We need Jesus!

When Habakkuk says that God has “purer eyes than to see evil,” does he mean that God is not omniscient? No. God sees all and knows all, and yet He cannot and does not dwell on the evil. Fast forward hundreds of years to Jesus on the cross—what did God do? He looked away from His Son. Jesus was forsaken for us—because Jesus took all of our sin upon Himself.

So, we, like Habakkuk, have a choice—we can either let ourselves become overwhelmed by our circumstances and the wickedness of this world, and the wickedness of our own hearts and get depressed and doubt and even turn from God, like so many of the Israelites did! We can reject God and His covenant promise, and pursue idols and all forms of evil to fill up our own desires and pleasures, to try to fill the void and distract ourselves from our fears, OR we can run to God in prayer and faith and trust that God is doing something bigger and deeper and more eternally significant than we are able to see, even through these hard and horrible things. He is 100% sovereign over every aspect of His creation. And He is good!

We don’t get to decide what “good” means. We want to think that “good” is subjective to what we like or want, but God defined goodness in Himself! Whatever He does is good, and we must align our hearts with His sovereign goodness.

We will go through hard things, but hard is not the same as bad. When we go through hard things, we must remember that it is absolutely God who caused it! Is that hard to think about? To wrap our minds around? Sure. But v. 12 says that the LORD  “appointed” and “ordained” the Chaldeans for a purpose—“to execute judgment” and “to punish”—and the judgment and punishment was on the people of God in order to lovingly draw them back to God! The word “punish” here has the idea of doing what is right or just to correct AND to redeem!

Now we come to v.14: “You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.” “You” refers back to the LORD! God is the one removing their kings and scattering them into foreign nations! We see this language throughout the prophets, God causing affliction through armies—of men or of locusts, through weather, drought, famine, and then saying, “Yet you did not return to me!” In Romans 1, it is God who gives those who refuse to repent over to the lusts of their hearts and a debased mind.

God gives His people so many warnings, including this one in Deuteronomy 29:

“18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, 19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.”

We as a nation are consumed with the idea of safety—physical, emotional, all of it. But we’re also consumed with stubbornly holding to what I want to believe is true—whether it is or not—and attempting to silence anyone who dares disagree with me. We are not so far off from the wickedness of the Israelites, are we? The result of this stubbornness: the LORD overthrew them because they abandoned the covenant, uprooted them, and cast them out…and ultimately, blotted out their names from under heaven! This is serious! Do we think we can walk in our sin and still inherit the kingdom?!

If you are walking around saying, “I’m okay,” but your heart is stubbornly set against God and His Word,   I beg you to repent of your sin and walk humbly with God! If you refuse to repent, you will find yourself among the religious crowd in Matthew 7 crying, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then Jesus answers, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” Salvation was never about our works! Apart from God, there is ZERO goodness in any of us!

Habakkuk was pleading with God because he saw God as being silent when the wicked were swallowing up Israel—he called Judah “the man more righteous than they” (referring to the Babylonians). But are they? Was Judah “more righteous” than Babylon? No! The Northern Kingdom had already been sent into exile, and now Judah was following in her footsteps! Judah had sinned every bit as wickedly as Israel AND Babylon. Why? Because they rejected God, which made them traitors and enemies of God!

This is a distorted thought of comparison: “we’re more righteous than they are!” But no, God tells us it’s foolish to compare ourselves among ourselves. Rather, we must compare ourselves to God—and when we do that, He corrects our thinking by humbling us and drawing us to repentance and righteous living.

Romans 3 (v. 9-12, 23) tells us that we are all sinners! The Jews aren’t any better off, and neither are we as Gentiles! There is none righteous, no, not one! God sent the Law and the Prophets, and then He sent Jesus—the righteousness of God manifested to us—to rescue and redeem us from our sin! We are not more righteous than anyone, except through faith in Jesus, the truly Righteous One, who loved us and gave Himself for us, taking our sin, and giving us His righteousness in its place.

If you study through the prophets, you will see this theme over and over and over… God’s heart is always FOR His people. He loves us desperately! And will do whatever it takes to bring us to Himself. And that doesn’t always make sense to us as humans. But God’s ways are better than our ways. He does everything for His glory and our good, because He knows what our best good is…to dwell with God Almighty for all eternity! That is good! Because God is good! And we can be confident that God will always keep His covenant promises to preserve His children and destroy His enemies.

Which brings us to our next point regarding God’s (and Habakkuk’s) enemies…

II. A View of the Wicked Netsmen (1:15-17)

We switch from “You” (referring to God) to “he” (referring to the Chaldeans). v. 15 – “He [Babylon] brings all of them [Judah] up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.”

    Habakkuk keeps with his fish imagery here and sees the enemy capturing God’s people with hooks and nets—symbols of aggression, but also symbols of divine judgment in their day. And the evil nations were known to use hooks literally to drag their hostages away, treating them like hunted prey rather than human beings. The word used for “net” here in the original language is a wordplay, and in Deut. 7:26 it’s translated “devoted to destruction.” This is seriously awful!

    And then we see this phrase, “he rejoices and is glad.” Do we see this anywhere else in Scripture? Yes! The joining of these two words is throughout Scripture as a call to worship! “Rejoice and be glad!” But here it’s used of the wicked rejoicing in their conquests, not worshiping God! (v.11, “their god is their own might.”)

    v. 16 continues their false worship ceremony: “Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings [or burns incense] to his dragnet.” This is a very public form of idolatry!

    Why? “For by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.” The evil seem to be prospering here! They are very affluent, and they follow a very logical, and yet very wrong, line of thinking. They think, “Well, sure I’m cruel, but it must be okay because it’s making me rich, and if I’m fat and happy, then that’s a sign of the gods’ favor, right?!” “The end justifies the means.” But no, just because someone is rich and powerful in this world, it does not mean that’s because “the gods” or God Himself is blessing him!

    Habakkuk felt this… and he asks God directly (v.17), “Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?”, echoing the “O LORD, how long?” cry from his first lament (1:2). (Spoiler alert: Will the Babylonians keep doing this forever? No, the woes are coming in the very next chapter! And we’ll look more later at the end of Babylon in a future week.) 😉

    Asaph felt this in Psalm 73… he was so weary because he saw the wicked seemingly prosper and always at ease, increasing in riches. And he wonders, is being pure before the Lord and worshiping God worth it?! Then, he goes into the sanctuary of God and God revealed their end. They will be utterly swept away, but God’s beloved children will be received to glory, to be with God forever!

    We must remember that our sin is every bit as snaring as the enemy’s nets, but Jesus sets our hearts free to wait and to worship. We need to follow Asaph into the sanctuary of God and follow Habakkuk to the top of the watch tower… and look at Habakkuk 2:1 for a minute.

    III. Right Responses from the Watch Tower (2:1)

    We can’t look at verses 1:12-17 without finishing Habakkuk’s thought with 2:1, so let’s read that now, noticing the very personal language Habakkuk uses.

    “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.”

    Notice he doesn’t say “we”—he is in a lonely, isolated situation, with a heavy weight, or burden to bear, but he takes individual, personal resolve to take up the task that God has set before him. He uses words like “I” and “my” 7x in this short statement.

    Habakkuk began his lament with a personal relationship with God and now he ends his lament with a personal resolve to wait for God’s answer in God’s time.

    Hosea 9:8 tells us one of the main purposes of a prophet: “The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, [“the people of my God”].”(NIV) The watch post position was one of not only looking for the enemy attacks, but also sounding the alarm to the people! This is the job of a prophet—to watch and to warn! And this is what Habakkuk is resolved to do! He loves God and He loves the people of God, so no matter how hard it gets, he’s going to wait for God’s answer and continue to warn the people to turn back to their God.

    We are not prophets, especially in the OT prophet sense of the word. But the crux of the word prophet is a proclaimer. And that we can do! We have this picture of a watch tower—this would be a position on the wall of a fortified city. In Habakkuk’s case, this would have been the watch tower built into the city wall of Jerusalem (before the wall was destroyed and the people taken into exile).

    For us, as women, we are to be keepers of the home—this has that same watch tower / gate keeper imagery. We fix our eyes on Jesus and set the tone for what comes in and out of our four walls. We are called to proclaim truth to one another—particularly to our own children and to women younger than us (as in Titus 2).

    Waiting takes time. We need this message more than ever! We must slow down and be still. We must resolve to look for God in every aspect of life and be ready and willing to warn those in our sphere of influence that Jesus is coming. This definitely includes home, but it might also include other spheres—whether it’s a leadership position at church or outside the home with a job or in your community. Each of us has been positioned by God in a personal watch tower of sorts. And we can and must proclaim God’s truth in these watchtowers God has placed us in. But how do we do this?

    Waiting requires perseverance, humility, and patience in quietness. When we see God for who He is, He gives us the gift of repentance to turn from sin to following our Savior. He gives us faith and other gifts to call others to join us in a life of repentance and faith, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus! Say with the psalmist, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made Heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

    These last five years have had a lot of laments for our family. We’ve had hard diagnoses, death, difficulty in relationships; I quit a job I loved because it was the right thing to do for our family. Life is full of hard things and various disappointments. Sometimes it seems like life is shadowed by a little black raincloud. BUT GOD! Through every single thing, we have seen God proving Himself over and over and over to be faithful to His covenant, and faithful to us as His covenant children. We have seen God strip away our expectations and lift our eyes to a greater understanding of His goodness and glory. And in those lonely, dark hours, we must follow Habakkuk’s example once again. Fixing our eyes on our coming King Jesus!

    So, when you are hit by a wave of emotion—grief, anger, fear, confusion, doubt—for whatever circumstance God has placed you in, remember God is with you! The God of Habakkuk is our God too! And we can follow Habakkuk’s example—confidently taking our laments to the Rock of Ages, and then confidently fixing our eyes on the God who will answer and rescue.

    Meanwhile, we wait patiently; we wait humbly; and we wait expectantly. So, take your stand and look to see what God will say! God will answer, and God will win! But you’ll have to keep reading for that part.

    Let’s pray. “O LORD, You are our Holy One, our God, our Rock—and we do not always understand Your ways, but we trust Your character. You are our stability and eternal hope. And we thank You for the hard realities that drive us to Your goodness. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus who “endured” much more “hostility” than we ever have, and yet did so with “joy, so we may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Thank you for the “discipline” you use “for our good, that we may share in Your holiness,” by the mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.”