BEMA 58: Habakkuk — Watchtower

Transcription Status

1 Dec 22 — Initial public release

21 Sep 22 — Transcript approved for release

Habakkuk — Watchtower

Brent Billings: This is The BEMA podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host, Brent Billings. Today, we dive into one of Marty’s favorite prophecies, the book of Habakkuk. We will examine the complaints submitted by the prophet and his ensuing dialogue with God.

Marty Solomon: This is one of my favorite prophets. I like Habakkuk. I can’t really explain it. It’s meant a lot to me personally. God and I have spent time in this page and a half in multiple Bibles, and it’s just been one of my favorites. We find ourselves right in the middle of which time period, Brent?

Brent: We are in the Babylonian prophets.

Marty: Babylonian prophets. We’ve already covered two periods of prophets. We’re kind of dead center right now. Maybe after Habakkuk, Obadiah, we’re going to be right in the middle of our time in the prophets, but we’ve had two periods already. What periods are those?

Brent: Pre-Assyrian and Assyrian.

Marty: Pre-Assyrian prophets. I’ll do it today. I always lecture you and quiz you.

Brent: Well, I feel like over the course of a number of episodes, this has been a learning experience for the listeners as to the importance of review because the more I review it, the better I get at saying it. The prophets have always been kind of my weak point in the review.

Marty: Yes, absolutely. We’ve had four pre-Assyrian prophets. We had two prophets sent to Israel. We started with Amos, we talked about Hosea, both of them bringing warning to Israel. Amos had the image of a plumb line, also had a ripe fruit as an image, but Amos and plumb line we talked about Hosea and prostitute, how his life was really guerilla theater, and God asked him to put his whole life on display as his prophecy in a sense. That was Hosea.

Then we had two prophets in the pre-Assyrian period to Judah. We had Micah, whose image was the judge, and we had 1 Isaiah who spoke to us about a vineyard, the vineyard of God’s beloved on a fertile hillside. Isaiah 5. That pushed us into the Assyrian prophets. We again had four, two to Israel and two to Judah yet again. We had two prophets up top—Jonah and Nahum. Jonah and Nahum; they represent the two sides of the prophetic coin. As Assyria had conquered the Northern kingdom of Israel, you had this paradox. On one hand, why doesn’t God do more to stop the Assyrians? On the other hand, is God going to do nothing?

Jonah talked to us about potential. The reason that God doesn’t just wipe out our enemies every single moment is because people, our enemies included, people, humanity has a lot of potential, and so God spares us. God is slow to anger because of the potential, especially when we will acknowledge our participation in rebellion, and we will acknowledge our sin and repent. It unlocks all of this potential. God is slow to anger, but it doesn’t mean he’s going to do nothing, and Nahum reminds us of that. He comes in and says God is going to do something about injustice.

Then we had two prophets to Judah during the Assyrian time period. They had managed to hold off Sennacherib. Hezekiah had led that charge, but now those days have passed and they’ve fallen back into their ways. We had two prophets to Judah. We had Zephaniah, he spoke to Judah about repenting, that they’re now back in a place where they need to repent. They repented the first time, they need to do it again. We looked at the Hebrew word t’shuva, which meant what, Brent?

Brent: To return.

Marty: Return. We often translate it “repent,” and it’s a good translation, it’s not a bad translation, but to really understand the word repent is to understand the idea of coming back, returning, turning back, making a U-turn and coming back to the original place where you started—that original path. We also had 2 Isaiah, which was just a whole bunch of woes. We had gone from warning to woe. As the world is just destroyed and laid waste under the oppressive rule of the Assyrians, that’s the voice that we heard. That led us into the Babylonian prophets. In the last two podcasts we dealt with Jeremiah and we dealt with Lamentations. What did we say Jeremiah was, Brent?

Brent: The weeping prophet.

Marty: Weeping prophet. Then we had Lamentations. What was unique about Lamentations?

Brent: Well, it was full of lament, but it had the center nugget of hope.

Marty: Hope. Lament and hope. We like to call it an ACA. What do we mean by that?

Brent: The alphabet chiastic acrostic.

Marty: You better believe it. That’s where we left off. We’ve got three more prophets in the Babylonian time period, and we’re going to take the first of those three today, which is Habakkuk. Well, let’s just dive in. Read some Text here, Brent. You got Chapter 1.

Brent: All right, Chapter 1, The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence,” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me, there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

Marty: We start off with Habakkuk’s original complaint. He files and lodges his complaint with God. We see the same tension we saw back in the Assyrian prophets between Jonah and Nahum. On one hand, Habakkuk is going to be saying, “Why don’t you do something about our enemies? Our enemies are destroying us.” What was the statement there? Let’s see here. “The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.”

“God, I realize we’re not perfect, Habakkuk seems to say, but there are righteous and there are wicked in this world. It sure seems like you are letting the wicked rule the righteous, and this seems backwards. It seems upside down.” In a sense, Habakkuk almost—if there is, and there really isn’t, but if there’s a prophet that gets close to rivaling Jonah, in my mind it’s Habakkuk, because he really digs in his heels, as we’re going to see here. He’s got some complaints. We usually don’t see that from the prophets. The prophets receive a word, they give the word. They’re usually not sitting there arguing with God, but you got this Habakkuk that reminds me of Abraham here a little bit like, “Hey, I’m not just going to hear this and roll over. This doesn’t seem right to me. This doesn’t seem just.” That’s this opening complaint. Pretty easy to understand in a world where Babylon is laying waste to the world around you.”

Habakkuk says, “I know who Babylon is and I know who we are, and this seems a little upside down to me. I realize we make many mistakes, but I don’t feel like the godly should be getting punished like this, God. What’s up?” Go ahead and keep going.

Brent: This is the Lord’s answer, “Look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are a feared and dreaded people. They are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong, their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an Eagle swooping to devourer, they all come intent on violence. Their hoards advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. They mock Kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities, by building earthen ramps they capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on, guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”

Marty: Habakkuk starts his prophecy by saying, “God, how can this be, that you would let the wicked prevail?” God’s answer is, “Habakkuk, listen. I’m doing something that you wouldn’t believe even if I told you. I am raising up the Babylonians.” Then he goes on to describe how bad the Babylonians are, to which if I’m in Habakkuk’s shoes, I’m going, “That’s what I’m getting at! How could you be doing this?” We’re going to see him respond in kind here in the following verses.

Brent: Lord, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, you will never die. You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment. You, my rock, have ordained them to punish. Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet, and so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net, he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?

Marty: Habakkuk says, “Okay, I hear what you’re saying, but that’s exactly my point,” Habakkuk says. He says, “You can’t stand evil, and yet you’re going to just sit there and let this happen. I just don’t understand.” I’m going to pick up in Chapter 2 here. Habakkuk is not really going to let this go. He says this, he says, I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts. I will look to see what he will say to me and what answer I am to give to this complaint. I had a translation I always loved that said, “I will climb up in my watchtower and station myself on the wall. I will wait to see what answer God will give me.”

It’s like Habakkuk says—he starts with a complaint and God answers him. Habakkuk says, “Yes, that doesn’t cut it for me. I’m going to sit right here in my watchtower. I’m going to wait for you to answer my question, because you gave me a dodgy answer. I’m going to wait for an answer that satisfies me.” Then the Lord replies, which is always interesting. A little chutzpah, a little gutsy for the prophet to take this position.

God’s going to respond. He says this. He says, Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets, so that a herald may run with it, for the revelation awaits an appointed time. It speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it lingers, wait for it, it will certainly come and it will not delay. See, the enemy is puffed up. His desires are not upright, for the righteous person will live by his faithfulness. Indeed, wine betrays him. He is arrogant and never at rest, because he is as greedy as the grave, and like death is never satisfied. He gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples.

Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying, “Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion. How long must this go on?” Will not your creditors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble?” Then he will become their prey, because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you for they have shed human blood. You have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, setting his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin.

You have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life. The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a tower by injustice. Has not the Lord Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as waters cover the sea. Woe to him who gives a drink to his neighbors, pouring it from that wineskin till they are drunk, so that he can gaze on their naked bodies. You will be filled with shame instead of glory.

Now it is your turn, drink and let your nakedness be exposed. The cup from the Lord’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and your destruction of animals will terrify you, for you have shed human blood. You have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them, of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation. He makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, “Come to life,” or to lifeless stone, “Wake up.” Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver. There is no breath in it.”

Then he closes. God just closes with his own divine mic drop here. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. There’s this moment where Habakkuk is like, “I’m going to climb up to my watchtower because that answer doesn’t cut it for me.” God gives this long, lengthy response, which is full of—it’s full of source A and source B. It’s got some idolatry; it’s got plenty of talk about how you treat people, how you build your houses with unjust gain. He’s got this long treatise and then he just goes, “The Lord is in his holy temple. What do you have to say to that, Habakkuk?” Let me ask you this, Brent, as we read through Chapter 2, who is God talking about?

Brent: Well, he’s talking about building empires.

Marty: Obviously, the intended—who have we been talking about? We have been talking—Habakkuk is like, “How can you let these people rule like this? How can you let these people go on and do evil?”

Brent: He’s talking about the Babylonians.

Marty: Babylonians. God responded about the Babylonians. God was like, “Well, I’ll tell you something Habakkuk, tell you something you wouldn’t even understand if I told you, I’m raising up the Babylonians.” Habakkuk is like, “No, I don’t…” Up to this point, we’ve been talking about who?

Brent: The Babylonians.

Marty: Babylonians. As you read Chapter 2, you’re assuming that God is talking about the Babylonians. It certainly applies to all these things. Fishermen, dragnets, that was Habakkuk talking about, but this definitely fits Babylon, but do you get a sense as you read this about anything else, Brent?

Brent: They’re looking at themselves.

Marty: This sounds—the condemnation here, if it is aimed at Babylon, sure echoes all of the exact same condemnation that God has leveled at His own people, and all the other prophets we’ve studied up to now. You wonder—it doesn’t say this explicitly, but as I’ve read Habakkuk, I feel like that gets calculated in here. As we head to Chapter 3, it gets calculated into Habakkuk’s response, because Habakkuk I think hears what God has to say about injustice and realizes, “Oh no, we are guilty of injustice. How can I point the finger at Babylon when that same empire building is what we were dedicating so much of our own life and our own struggle to.”

I had written some notes here: Having been given a glimpse of God’s plan, and the slightest taste of God’s feelings about idolatry, injustice, and all things that pull the world apart, and fight against restoration, Habakkuk finds himself humbled and at odds to be able to comprehend and understand the mind and mission of God. Go ahead and pick up in Chapter 3 here, Brent.

Brent: Before we go on, in 2:14, The whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then right after that, woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, pouring it from the wineskin until they’re drunk so that he can gaze on their naked bodies, which makes me feel like flood and then Noah in the vineyard.

Marty: Absolutely. Yes, I was noticing that as I read through as well. We could just keep wrestling with that because I don’t know if God’s trying to insinuate, “I am doing the thing that I do. I am making creation new. I am restoring things like I did in the flood. When the world gets bad enough,” even though God promised never to destroy it with flood again, got that, he seems to be hinting at, “This is what I do when the world gets so bad. I put the things back in their proper place, Habakkuk.” Yes, I definitely think there are some allusions here to Genesis.

Brent: Yes, in this case, it’s as the waters cover the sea. It’s not the waters covering the whole earth, but it’s—I feel like it’s that callback. It’s like, “Hey, we’re talking about the Babylonians, but you’ve been here before, remember?”

Marty: Correct. Absolutely.

Brent: This is part of your legacy.

Marty: Which is interesting, waters covering seas, because that—Genesis is really the only place that you can make sense of that. The seas are water. What are you talking about? Except for water over the surface of the deep, hovering over the surface of the deep watery chaos. Genesis 1 is one of the few places where water over seas makes any sense whatsoever, but yes.

Brent: All right. On to Chapter 3.

Marty: Chapter 3.

Brent: A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet. On shigionoth… whatever that is.

Marty: Your guess is as good as mine.

Brent: I think it’s probably a literary or musical term.

Marty: Well, see, they don’t even know either, so you’re good.

Brent: Nobody knows. Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known, in wrath remember mercy.

Marty: You see in Habakkuk’s response here, he listens to what God says. All of a sudden he has this complete change in posture. Before this response, it was, “I will climb up in my watchtower and I will wait to see the Lord’s response.” Then God responds. He’s like, “Oh, I have heard, I have heard about your greatness, and I just caught a glimpse of it here.” Sometimes we are invited to catch a glimpse of God’s plan, sometimes we’re not. Sometimes God leaves us completely in the dark, but sometimes we get to catch a glimpse of what God’s doing.

Habakkuk, for whatever reason, I don’t know why God doesn’t tell Job, he doesn’t tell some people, some really main characters in the text. Sometimes he does it, sometimes he doesn’t. I don’t know why he does and why he doesn’t, but Habakkuk gets a glimpse. His knees tremble and his heart pounds. Sometimes we think we want answers. I can relate to Habakkuk. “I’m going to sit in my watchtower.”

Sometimes we think we want answers but we really don’t realize what we’re asking for. We really don’t want to know. Even if we did, we wouldn’t even know where to begin. We wouldn’t have the slightest clue how to stand in the face of the future. I believe that sometimes God keeps the future from us in order to enable us to walk into it. If we knew the kinds of things that waited for us on the other side, we would never choose to walk through the next door. I think often we would run for our lives, but luckily, Habakkuk has enough trust in the story that God’s telling.

He’s able to catch a glimpse of the future, stare opposition in the face, and know that the story of God will get the last word. He’s able to live in the assurance that he will be able to overcome. Go ahead and pick back up there. Wherever you left off.

Brent: All right. Verse 3. God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth. His splendor was like the sunrise, rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden. Plague went before him, pestilence followed his steps. He stood and shook the earth. He looked and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed, but he marches on forever. I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish. Were you angry with the rivers, Lord? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory?

You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers, the mountains saw you and writhed. Torrents of water swept by, the deep roared and lifted its waves on high. Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear.

Marty: Man, my goodness. There’s a lot of Genesis in here. I’m realizing that as you read this, there’s a lot of bow and the deep and wrath, the rivers…

Brent: Sun and moon in heavens…

Marty: …sun and moon in the heavens. Boy, my goodness. I wonder what’s going on there. Anyway, go ahead and keep going. I just had to—good stuff.

Brent: In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. You came out to deliver your people to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. With his own spear you pierced his head. When his warriors stormed out to scatter us—that’s David and Goliath right there, I feel like, with his own spear.

Marty: I wonder if he is walking through their history. I’m calling back at least to their history. That’s interesting.

Brent: What was that right before—“you came out to deliver your people,” that’s Exodus language. David and Goliath. Let’s see, “with his own spirit, you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters.” I feel like that’s Exodus again. “I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound, decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.”

Marty: Yes, I love that last statement. I will wait patiently for the day of calamity. Habakkuk gets it. Just take a walk through one last time this roadmap of Habakkuk. Habakkuk starts this with a complaint and God answers. Habakkuk says that answer isn’t good enough. I’m going to sit in my watchtower and I’m going to wait. Then God really gives him an answer. Habakkuk goes, “Oh my goodness,” and he totally gets it.

He has this poetic response to what God says. At the end here, you realize he understands the weight of what’s coming. He knows that Babylon is going to come and destroy. He understands what’s coming and sits on the doorstep. He stands in the face of that opposition and he says, “I’m going to wait patiently for the day of calamity.” Now I’m processing what we were noticing about all these callbacks to his future.

Kind of like Micah, when we were looking at earlier. I wonder if this is a callback to, I know where we’ve been, I know that God’s always taken care of us. I’m going to wait for this day of calamity. He closes with what, for me, has been my own life verse. You don’t need all the backstory, who cares about how this became Marty’s life verse, but I’ve had a lot of prayer times with God where he’s brought me to this book.

The closing verses of Habakkuk have always been the thing that I want to take with me. Whatever it is that the future holds for me personally, whatever the future holds for my ministry or my family, whatever the future holds for our country, whatever the future holds, I have always loved the word, because Habakkuk knows. Habakkuk is staring at a dismal future when he utters these words. This isn’t happy, prosperity gospel, pie in the sky. This is: Babylon is coming. The world as I understand it is going to be destroyed and laid waste. These words come out of Habakkuk’s mouth. Some of my favorites.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and enables me to tread upon the heights. I’ve always loved that verse. Whatever comes, even if there’s no grapes on the vines, no figs on the trees, no cattle in the stalls, might I be willing to trust in the Lord.

Brent: I feel like you didn’t quite finish it.

Marty: Well, I mean, we got the whole little, for the director of music. On stringed instruments.

Brent: I feel like that’s because the songs are what get them through these hard times, right?

Marty: Yes, absolutely. This wasn’t just words and ideas communicated. This is art.

Brent: This is what they sing in a group like, “This sucks, but we’re going to make it.”

Marty: Right. Absolutely. Good stuff.

Brent: All right. Is that it for Habakkuk?

Marty: That’s it for Habakkuk.

Brent: For now.

Marty: For now. Come to Israel with us. [The latest information on trips is available at https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/news and by signing up for the BEMA Messenger on that page.]

Brent: All right. Otherwise, yes, bemadiscipleship.com. That gets you everything you need to know.

Marty: There you go.

Brent: Connect with us on the Facebook page. We’ve got groups on the Palouse. Moscow on Tuesday, Pullman on Wednesday. We’ve got groups around the country. I know Marty’s been working on visiting some of those groups, and if you’re out there and you’ve got a group of people talking through the podcast, let us know about it. We’d love to get you on the map. Thanks for joining us on the BEMA Podcast, we’ll talk to you again soon.