Last week we lamented with Habakkuk over the violence and destruction that was rampant in Judah, among the very people of God (Hab. 1:2–4). Why didn’t God do something to bring order and peace? How long would Habakkuk continue to cry out to the LORD and have his petition fall on seemingly deaf ears?
This week in class, Jeanette reminded us that Habakkuk is a lament. Biblical lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust. When we lament we cry out to God in our anguish, let him know our needs, and then we praise because we trust him. This is the pattern of many of the psalms. Yet, as David Firth points out, the complaint to hope petition we see in so many psalms is not in Habakkuk. There is a big distinction here: “Habakkuk does receive a response to his complaint from God, but he does not find it comforting” (ESV Expository Commentary).
The LORD’s Perplexing Answer
“Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
What Did He Just Say?!?
The LORD responded to Habakkuk’s lament almost indirectly. He didn’t say that he was going to do thus-and-so in response to each of the prophet’s specific complaints: destruction and violence, strife and contention, the paralyzed law and the lack of justice among his countrymen. Instead, God revealed to Habakkuk what he was doing on a grander scale. For Habakkuk’s God was no mere regional deity, but the Sovereign ruler of the whole world, and he was at work ordaining the means by which his covenant promises would be fulfilled.
God told Habakkuk that he would raise up the Chaldeans, a nation who would “march through the breadth of the earth” bringing war and devastation everywhere they went (v. 6). They are a law unto themselves (v.7), and they worship their own mighty strength (v. 11). Their cavalry is a terrifying force which moves faster than the speed of leopards, with more cunning and ferocity than a pack of wolves and the surprise attack of an eagle (v. 8). There is no mercy in their advancing army as they scoop up their captives and mock the kings and defenses of their victims (v. 10–11). As the Assyrians did with the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Chaldeans will take the citizens of Judah away into exile, removing them from their homeland and scattering them among foreign nations, bringing captives from other conquests to live in Judah.
The LORD addresses his response to a group, using plural verbs, which suggests that there are others besides the prophet who have been pleading with the LORD for justice. They, along with Habakkuk will “wonder and be astounded” at the LORD’s plans. How could raising up the Chaldeans be the answer to the issues internal to Judah? David G. Firth points out the parallel statement in Amos 6:14, where God declared that he would raise up the Assyrians against Israel, “suggesting that this whole response to Habakkuk is in effect a judgment against Judah. . . . What is to amaze the righteous in Judah is that God would use a people like the Chaldeans, who by this time were already known for their militaristic and expansionist policies against other nations. It is astonishing that so violent a people would be used to address the violence occurring in Judah. If the problem is injustice, how could God use a nation whose own idea of justice is so contrary to God’s?” Indeed, why would God allow a tribe so cruel as the Chaldeans to annihilate Jerusalem?
We must keep God’s attributes firmly in view as we consider the questions raised by his answer to Habakkuk. According to the answer to the fourth question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” These attributes operate together. Nothing God does ever drops one or more of these character qualities from his action. So when God exercises his justice, he does it together with his wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and truth. You and I may act in a way that is not consistent with our general character. A generally thoughtful person may act rudely or impulsively, and we’d say that it was “out of character” for her to do so. But God always acts infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably according to his character.
God’s At Work
Keeping God’s character in mind when we read that God is bringing the Chaldean blitzkrieg to seize Judah, we may be as astonished and perplexed as the prophet Habakkuk. His justice and power are certainly obvious in this action, but remember, he is also acting in wisdom, holiness, goodness, and truth. We learned last week that the wickedness of the people of Judah was so deeply ingrained that the LORD would bring the curses of the covenant against them. His truth demands he face their sin honestly for what it is, his holiness requires him to act against their wickedness, his goodness moves him to not allow their self-destruction to continue, and his wisdom determines the best means to accomplish his purposes. This may be oversimplifying the answer, but God is at work, and he knows what he is doing. Don’t miss the authority in his answer:
“Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,” (v. 5–6).
Indeed, we wonder and are astounded together with Habakkuk the prophet, for this is the intent of the passage. As I wonder at the working of the LORD in our passage, I’m reminded of the lion Aslan, from C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. When the children first hear of him Lucy asks, “Is he safe?” to which Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
And so we wait and trust, because we don’t serve a tame God; his ways astound and perplex us. But he’s good. He’s the King of kings and the Lord of lords, I tell you.
Grateful 