Bible Study - Book of Habakkuk - Habakkuk 1:1-4

Our new study is on the Book of the prophet Habakkuk. You can find this book near the end of the Old Testament with the other Minor (shorter) Prophets, just three books after Jonah. It is only three chapters long, and we know very little about Habakkuk himself, so this study should not take as long as some others.

I began with a little history of the time in which Habakkuk lived. If you followed the Jonah study, you may remember that Jonah did his work somewhere between 800 and 750 BC, when the Assyrians were the greatest power in the Middle East, with their capital in Nineveh, where Jonah went and preached. The Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and its capital of Samaria in 722 BC and carried many of the Jews of the 10 Northern tribes into captivity in other nations. Most of those Jews never came back to the Promised Land and have been called the “10 Lost Tribes.” Only the Southern kingdom of Judah was left. The Assyrians continued in power for a long time, twice attacking and burning Babylon, in 689 and 648 BC.

By the late 600’s, the Babylonians had become the dominant power and destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC. (They are called Chaldeans in this book. See Habakkuk 1:6.) But by the grace of God and a good king, Josiah, Judah and Jerusalem did not fall to them. Sadly, Josiah drifted away from God in his last years, and his son, Jehoiakim, has been described as “ambitious, cruel, and corrupt.” The Southern kingdom went far from God’s will during this time. Habakkuk probably served as a prophet at this time and wrote his book around 605 BC.

We know nothing about him, other than what is revealed in this book. He may have had priestly functions, as a part of the tribe of Levi. His work overlapped with prophets like Jeremiah and Zephaniah. His name may mean “one who embraces,” who gives help and comfort to others, as a prophet. (There are legends and stories about him from later times, but they have no Biblical basis. One is the apocryphal book “Bel and the Dragon,” which claims that Habakkuk was sent by God to help Daniel when he was thrown into a lion’s den for a second time. You can find this among extra writing included in Roman Catholic Bibles of the Old Testament. This and other such books were not included in Jewish Hebrew Scriptures and were not considered Scripture in the early church or, later, in Protestant Bibles.)

A unique thing about the Book of Habakkuk is that Habakkuk never preaches directly to the people of Judah. His book is a dialog between him and God, including many questions he has about what God is doing. God asks him then to write down what they had been discussing. That is how the message then gets to God’s people.

Look at Habakkuk 1:1. This book is called an “oracle” - a pronouncement or message that Habakkuk “saw,” which was revealed to him in a vision or in some other direct way from God. The King James Version translates it as a "burden” that Habakkuk saw - meaning that it was a heavy message that would challenge the people and their behavior before God, with a strong warning. In this, Habakkuk is also able to ask questions and God responds to him, too.

Habakkuk 1:2-4 is then Habakkuk’s set of questions for God. He uses the special Jewish name for God - the LORD. He wonders how long he will have to cry out to God for help, and the Lord will nor hear him. He is especially troubled by a lot of violence going on in Judah. There is much “iniquity” (sin, lawlessness, unrighteousness in the uneven, chaotic actions of people toward one another). He piles up the words to describe how bad things are - wrong, destruction, strife and contention between people. It is as if the holy law of God, given through Moses and others, is “paralyzed” and having no effect among people. There is so much “perversion” of “justice.” “The wicked surround the righteous” and it is so hard to see good and to do good in such a “violent” atmosphere.

Worst of all, Habakkuk says to God, You don’t seem to care, when I cry to You. “You will not hear….  You will not come and help and save.” I am so upset, Lord God, when I see all this evil, and you just “idly look at wrong” as if you do not care and aren’t going to do anything about how bad things are among Your own people.

Do you and I ever have the same kind of questions? Don’t we also wonder the same things, even today, when we pray and don’t seem to get answers, when we see the horrors in Ukraine and starving people in Ethiopia and other places, and the struggles in our own personal lives, and we can’t tell if God is responding or even hearing us?

Next week, we will see how God responds to the challenges thrown out to Him by Habakkuk. God says that there will be justice, but in a very surprising way that Habakkuk does not understand and we may not, either. Habakkuk only has more questions for God, as we will see, also.

Maybe you can see already how practical and relevant this short book is for us, too. God wishes to bring us to greater faith and trust in Him and His wisdom and ways, even when we do not fully understand what He is doing. We can learn from the way God works with Habakkuk.

God’s blessings on your week, as you keep talking with your Lord, even if with tough questions, and keep listening for His answers in His Word.