Last week, Habakkuk faithfully wrestled with the Lord’s perplexing ways. He grounded himself in what he knew to be true—that God is all powerful, he is holy, he is faithful, he is just, and he is a steady refuge in time of storm. None of that squared with what God revealed he was planning. The coming Babylonian invasion left Habakkuk confused, but still looking to the Lord. He left his concerns with God in prayer, and then set himself to watch for an answer.
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.
Habakkuk’s watching as an act of faith:
When he takes his stand in the tower, at the watch post, looking out for God’s answer, it’s an act of faith. Habakkuk is waiting on the Lord expectantly, persistently, and actively.
Habakkuk is waiting expectantly. Though he has left his concerns with the Lord, it doesn’t mean he’s no longer hoping for an answer. On the contrary, his posture of waiting demonstrates that he expects to hear from God. This should shape our own expectant waiting on the Lord. We may not have literal watchtowers from which to wait, but we have the landscape of God’s Word to give our attention to as we look for God’s answers to our problems. James Boice writes: “Just because we have left something with God and have ceased worrying about it does not mean that we should forget about it entirely. . . . How do we look for God’s answer? How does God speak? The primary way is through scripture.”[1]
Habakkuk is waiting persistently. He says that he is going to stay in his watchtower until God answers his question. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes that “We must believe that God is always true to his word, and that his promises never fail. So, having committed myself and my problem to God, I must persist in looking with an eagerness which knows that God is certain to answer.”[2]
Habakkuk is waiting actively. Waiting upon God is not a passive thing on our part. Think about when you go to a high-end restaurant: white tablecloths, crystal glasses, fresh flowers on the tables, and perhaps even live music playing gently in the room. What do you expect from your waiter? Do you expect them to show up to take your order and only reappear to bring the food, and then later, the check? No, you expect them to be keeping an eye on your table—watching for when the water glasses need to be refilled, for you to be finished with each course and ready for the next, for you to ask a question or make a request. The best waiters anticipate your requests and seem to materialize out of thin air almost the moment you realize you need something. To wait on the Lord is something like this.
Actively watching for his hand in your life and for answers to your prayers involves taking up the means of grace God has so graciously granted to us. And so, as we wait we saturate ourselves in the Scriptures, we pray, we take part in the fellowship of the saints, we attend Sunday worship and partake of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Participating in the means of grace keeps us in the life of the body of Christ and it may be where we find our answers, or it may simply keep us “sharp” to recognize the answer when it does come by another means.
And so, Habakkuk waited and watched for an answer from the Lord, and after an unspecified amount of time, the Lord did answer him.
On tablets so he may run who reads it:
And the Lord answered me:
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
In his commentary on Habakkuk, David G. Firth explains that: “The text here draws parallels between Habakkuk and Moses: Habakkuk is told to write down his vision and to do so plainly on tablets. . . . The point is that what God has to say to Habakkuk is important and must be shared, just as Deuteronomy was meant to be passed on from generation to generation. It is likely that “the one who runs” is a messenger who takes a copy of the tablets in order to read it in public. However before the vision is revealed, we are told that those who hear it are not to be disheartened by any delay in its fulfillment. Its completion is certain —it is from Yahweh, and he has set an appointed time for it.”[3]
The woe oracles which follow do not specify the people or nations to whom they are directed. Rather, they specify the actions and character traits of wicked people—or nations. We will discuss these in the coming weeks, but I point it out here because they are integral to the passage we’re studying today. Habakkuk has complained about God’s inaction against the wicked in the culture around him, and then he complained about God’s use of a wicked nation—the Chaldeans/ Babylonian Empire—to judge the wickedness of Judah. God is now giving him a more direct answer. He’s saying that though it appears the wicked people and the wicked nations are getting away scott-free with their wickedness, they will receive God’s justice at his divinely appointed time.
Lloyd-Jones points out what we’ve learned from history: “The greatness of the Chaldeans was going to be short lived. It was God who for a special purpose raised them up; but they took the glory to themselves and became inflated with a sense of their own power. Then God struck and raised up the Medes and the Persians who utterly destroyed the Chaldeans.” It may have seemed slow for Habakkuk, as many of the answers to our own prayers certainly seem, but God had an appointed time for the rise and fall of the Chaldeans, and it would surely come; it would not delay.
If it seems slow, wait for it:
That the Lord is sovereign over history is a supreme consolation to those who heard Habakkuk’s prophecy and to believers today. “The fulfillment of prophecy is certain. The events foretold are certain to take place in due course, and in God’s time. It may tarry and there may be delay, but nothing can prevent or frustrate the fulfillment. . . . What God has promised, he will most certainly perform. . . . The time for the fulfillment is fixed. The exact moment is determined by God. It will not be late. . . . God not only foretells what is going to happen, and reveals it to his servant, and reminds him that it is absolutely certain, but he adds that it will take place at the exact minute appointed, and that it will not be a fraction of a second late.
So wait upon God. He will certainly send the answer. Everything he has ordained will certainly and most surely come to pass, and at the exact time appointed for it” (Lloyd-Jones).
The righteous shall live by faith:
“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,
but the righteous shall live by his faith.
According to Boice: “this verse is God’s answer to the questions Habakkuk raised in the opening sections of his book. Just because the foreign army would pride itself on its strength and have a moment of triumph over Israel in its conquests did not mean that the Babylonians were justified in God’s sight. They were not. So judgment was going to fall on them too. This verse speaks of the life of the believer in a time of crisis: the righteous will live by his faith. To understand this is to understand the Christian gospel and the Christian life.”
This verse is quoted three times in the New Testament. In Romans 1:16–17 Paul writes:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Here Paul shows that the justified person is the one who has ceased trying to please God by his own efforts and who has turned to Jesus instead for the righteousness that God gives freely. This is what it means to be a Christian. It means to stop trying to attain heaven by our own good works and instead to receive what God has done for us in Christ.
The writer of Hebrews quotes this verse in the context of encouraging Christians living under great hardship to persevere in their faith:
Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.For,
“Yet a little while,
and the coming one will come and will not delay;
but my righteous one shall live by faith,
and if he shrinks back,
my soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Hebrews 10:36–39)
In this passage the stress is on faithful action. Faith is believing God and acting upon that belief. This faith involves commitment, a commitment which carries on throughout life. This is the kind of faith-life that Chapter 11 of Hebrews goes on to explore: the lives of the righteous men of faith from the Old Testament who committed themselves to God and lived out their faith. Their stories emphasize their obedience, which was only made possible because of the faith they possessed. Their obedience proved to the watching world and to us that they were given the gracious gift of faith by the God they served.
In the book of Galatians, Paul stresses the continuous nature of the faith of the righteous.
Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Galatians 3:11)
The believers in Galatia had begun well in their faith in Christ Jesus while Paul was there and establishing the church. But after he left, Judaizers infiltrated the church and started teaching that they needed to perform works of Jewish law in order to continue as Christians. So they began to adopt Jewish ordinances and feasts and circumcision and other ceremonies and added these to their faith. Paul writes the book of Galatians to warn them that they are now following a different gospel which will enslave them. He quotes Habakkuk 2:4 to call them out: “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (Gal. 3:10–11). “The only way to live the Christian life is by faith. This world may crumble about our ears. All that we know and love may vanish. But the righteous will live by his faith. He will live by faith in the one who keeps us, not only in the moment of our initial belief in Jesus Christ as Savior, but in every later moment of life as well” (Boice).
Lloyd-Jones asks, “What is the controlling principle in our lives? Is it calculation? Is it worldly wisdom? Or is it the word of God, warning us that this life and this world are only transient, and that both are merely a preparation for the world to come? It does not tell us to turn our backs entirely upon the world, but it does insist that we have the right view of the world. It emphatically states that what really matters is the coming of God’s Kingdom.”
Here in Habakkuk “the text affirms that the godly, in contrast to those who are not upright, will be sustained through the coming trial by their upright character and commitment to God. Right lifestyle, even in Old Testament times, is based upon an unwavering commitment to God coupled with trust in God’s promise to reward and protect his loyal followers. One sees this in the conclusion to Habakkuk’s prayer, where trust in God’s character and in his ability to save sustains Habakkuk (3:18–19). Faith and faithfulness are two sides of the same coin, and their close connection explains Paul’s use of Habakkuk 2:4. [The author of Hebrews] urges his readers to remain faithful despite their trials, for God will eventually reward their perseverance. This is consistent with the original meaning of Habakkuk 2:4, where the Lord reminds the prophet that persistent faithfulness will sustain the godly.”[4]
The proud shall hinder their faith:
“Moreover, wine is a traitor,
an arrogant man who is never at rest.
His greed is as wide as Sheol;
like death he has never enough.
He gathers for himself all nations
and collects as his own all peoples.”
The rest of our passage, verse 5, pairs with the first line of verse 4: Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him.” The one whose soul is puffed up and not upright within him is the one for whom wine is a traitor, the arrogant man who is never at rest, the greedy one who, like death and Sheol, will never have enough. This is the man—or the personification of the wicked nation—who will receive the woe oracles for the rest of chapter 2. He stands in contrast to the man of faith who, though in distress and facing fearsome circumstances, is justified by God.
[1] James Montgomery Boice, The Minor Prophets, Vol. 2: Micah–Malachi An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1986)
[2] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, From Fear to Faith; Rejoicing in the Lord in Turbulent Times (Nottingham, England: IVP, 1953, reprinted 1997)
[3] David G. Firth, ESV Expository Commentary, vol. 7: Daniel–Malachi (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018)
[4] Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, edited by G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson, Benjamin L. Gladd, and Andrew David Naselli (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2023)
Grateful 