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)
- 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. - 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. - 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.
Word-Filled Women 