Habakkuk 1:5-11
GOD’S PREPARED AN ANSWER
Though the prophet was asking questions as complaining man so often does, and maybe not even expecting an answer, God responds. The Lord is not indifferent or insensitive. He is concerned about the affairs of earth and especially the conduct of His people. The answer to Judah’s ungodliness though was not one that was expected and will give Habakkuk even greater problems.
The Lord had not been idle while all this violence was occurring among His people. He had been at work bringing about a specific discipline for corrupt Judah. Here God reveals those plans to His distressed prophet. These plans would utterly amaze the people for God was raising up the ruthless, proud Babylonians to judge the people for their lawlessness. God is the Lord over nations and history (CIT).
I. God’s Amazing Handiwork, 5.
II. God is Raising Up the Babylonians, 6.
III. The Babylonian’s Character, 7-10.
IV. The Babylonian’s Accountability, 11.
God is not indifferent or inactivity concerning what is going on. In verse 5 God tells Habakkuk that He is doing something, something unimaginable. Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days--You would not believe if you were told.
God addresses Habakkuk and the people of Judah, directing them to look out on the scene of world history among the nations. The Lord asks them to observe the events that are transpiring among the surrounding nations. Habakkuk had complained about being made to look at injustice and thought God was doing nothing. But the prophet and the people were suffering from myopia. They were too near sighted. God’s judgment for Israel’s injustice was not coming from within, but from without. God instructs them to get their eyes off the surrounding violence and look on the international horizons. They need to enlarge their world view and include the nations.
If they would look and observe what was occurring in the nations they would be utterly amazed. To be amazed is man’s response to an event that utterly confounds all previous expectations (Gen. 43:33; Ps. 48:5, Isa. 13:8; 29:9; Jer. 4:9). The political developments about to be revealed would stun them (the verb tâmah means to be astonished, bewildered or dumbfounded). The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by ruthless heathens were such stunning events which created both a national and theological crisis among God’s people.
God was going to do something in their days that they would not believe. To the people of Judah it would seem unbelievable that God would give them over to the godless, arrogant Babylonians. There are two lessons to be learned here. History (regardless to how it seems to us) is under God’s control. History too follows a divine time table. We may wonder when circumstances are confusing and contrary to God’s nature and think that He has forgotten us. But remember God has a plan and He will judge evildoers in His time and in His way. We must be willing to wait and look for God’s answers and His timing.
YAHWEH is the God of detailed circumstances. Nothing happens that does not flow in the channel God dug for it. No event has ever flamed up in spite of God or left Him astonished, bewildered, or confused. He is our God. The sin of man has reduced the world to an arena of passion and fury. Like wild beasts, men tear at each other’s throats. Yet in the midst of the history of which Jesus Christ is Lord, each individual who has believed in Him as the Savior and as the Lord of Life and knows the power of His resurrection will learn that events, however terrible, cannot separate us from the love of God.
This is the lesson that God taught Habakkuk: God is Lord of history, He controls history, and He accomplishes His purposes in history for those who are His own.
II. GOD IS RAISING UP THE BABYLONIANS, 6.
Beginning in verse 6 God tells Habakkuk what’s happening. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous people who march throughout the earth to seize dwelling places which are not theirs.
God dropped a bombshell. I am raising up the Babylonians. The apostate nation of Judah is to be punished by a Babylonian invasion. Granted sin had abounded all too long in Judah. But the sinners of Judah were but soiled saints compared to the barbaric Chaldeans. Babylon was a nation known for its violent impulses. Its people readily committed atrocities without forethought or remorse. History presents the Babylonians as a fierce and pitilessly cruel people. God calls them ruthless (mar-bitter in temper or fierce) and impetuous (mabar- swift, hasty). Worse was that their conduct matched their character.
These words describe an army that would rapidly change the political structure of the earth. The phrase the whole earth suggests unrestricted scope for their behavior which indicates Judah also. Palestine was just a speck of loose dirt before this gigantic vacuum cleaner that conquered Assyria and Egypt. The verse concludes with seizing dwelling places not their own illustrating that their conduct and achievements had no moral basis. [The Chaldeans were raised up during the reign of Josiah or Jehoiakim. The Babylonians regained their independence form Assyria in 626 BC, destroying Assyria completely. They continued to flourish until 539.] Since God foretold in 1:5 that it was "in your days", or in the lifetime of the persons addressed, the date for Habakkuk is around 615-600 BC.
III. THE BABYLONIAN’S CHARACTER, 7-10.
Verses 7-10 describe the character of the oppressors. Reasons for their ruthlessness are given in verse 7. They are dreaded and feared. Their justice and authority originate with themselves.
The Babylonians, also known as the Chaldeans, lived in southern Mesopotamia modern day Iraq, Ne Syria & SE Iran. They were called an ancient nation (Jer. 5:15), a primitive people, and a savage populace. This nation had burst out of the Tigris-Euphrates valley and like some awesome lava flow it spilled across the world. Soon Judah would lie smoldering in its wake.
Babylon was without military rival. They strike terror (fear -âyôm) and dread (norâ) into the heart.
The Chaldeans character was rooted in a self-sufficiency and arrogance that acknowledged no superior authority or dependency. Fulfilling their desire was this dreadful people only law and standard of judgment. Their rules of conduct originate in themselves. They follow no external or international code of justice or right and wrong. They promoted their prestige by lifting themselves up. Their justice and authority was established by their fierce might, by their ruthless conquests.
Their nature and actions are compared to wild animals in verse 8. Their horses are swifter than leopards and keener (more eager to attack) than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping, their horsemen come from afar; they fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.
In vivid imagery the Lord compares the Babylonian calvary to those predators whose speed and power brought violent death to their prey. Their horses exceed leopards in swiftness and surpass feeding wolves in ferocity. Both leopards and wolves are fierce, fast and excellent hunters. Wolves, hungry from lack of food during the day, prey on the flock at night (Jer. 5:6, Zep. 3:3). The consuming speed of Chaldean horsemen swoop down in conquest like an eagle, irresistibly intent in their attack on their prey. Certainly the Babylonians, likened to beasts of prey, were a terrible enemy.
Verse 9 declares the purpose and motivation of the Chaldeans hordes. All of them come for violence, their horde of faces moves forward. They collect captives like sand.
Verse 9 is the fulfillment of the warning of Moses in Deuteronomy 28:49f. The purpose of the invaders is to perpetrate violence in the land. Israel will reap what it has sown.
Babylonians were coming and there was no hope of stopping them. The motivation of the whole horde is violence. Like locusts or the fierce scorching desert wind they consume all in their path. They were coming like a whirlwind and gather prisoners like the sand, a metaphor expressing too numerous to count. Like their Assyrian predecessors, the Babylonians deported conquered people as a matter of deliberate policy.
Their mocking pride because of their military might is indicated in verse 10. They mock at kings, and rulers are a laughing matter to them. They laugh at every fortress, and heap up rubble to capture it.
The Chaldean is fearless and confident of his power as he scoffs at kings and their helplessness in the face of his attacks. It was their custom to exhibit capture rulers for public spectacles. Their brutality is seen in the way they treated Zedekiah after Jerusalem fell. They killed his sons before his eyes and then with that terrible sight in his memory they put his eyes out, bound him in shackles, and took him prisoner to Babylon (2 Kings 25:7).
Not only did the Babylonians scoff at their foes, they also laughed at their fortified cities (lit. every fortress). They poured derision on the strongholds which their victims considered impregnable. They simply built earthen ramps (lit. heaped up earth) against the walls of cities, raced up the siege ramps, attacked (2 Kings 19:32; Ezek. 4:2) and took them captive.
IV. THE BABYLONIAN’S ACCOUNTABILITY, 11.
No one could stop them but that did not mean no one held them accountable for their action. Verse 11; Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, they whose strength is their god.
The onrushing calvary having delayed for the siege now releases its penned up energy and sweeps over the land carrying all before them. They continue on with ungodly ambitions and subjugate helpless people, and they give God no glory but praise their own strength.
Here in God’s closing responds there is an abrupt shift that holds the Babylonians accountable for what they do. They may sweep up the nations but the final outcome of the verdict that has just been pronounced upon them has not yet been balanced in God’s scales for God holds them guilty.
The reason for their guilt is clearly recorded with the following words stating that their god is their strength. Not only do they have power, they worshiped their own strength. For them might was not only right, but might became divine. They became so proud and confident of their military might and power that it became their god. For one to make his own strength his god is to commit suicide of the soul.
Listen to Daniel’s description of God humbling their king. Daniel 4:28-33 reads: “All this happened to Nebuchadnezzar the king. (29) Twelve months later he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. (30) The king reflected and said, ’Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?’ (31) "While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven, saying, ’King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you, (32) and you will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whomever He wishes.’ (33) Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws” Ruthless arrogance unchecked becomes a form of self-deification. Such people acknowledge no accountability, seek no repentance and offer no reparations while violating the most fundamental order of created life. For such the verdict of guilty can only mean the sentence of radical humbling. Though they may seem victors, the final battle has not yet been fought.
CONCLUSION
This section of the prophecy painted a remarkable portrait of the Chaldean invader, including, his nature, manner of operation, purpose, weapons, attitude toward others and the basic cause of his ultimate downfall. Their character was rooted in self-sufficiency that acknowledged no superior authority and no dependency which was the same as self-deification. It is little wonder that God held them guilty for such sacrilege.
Yet in spite of what the Chaldeans would do and how they would do it God raised them up to punish His rebellious people. He swings them as a sword to chastise His corrupt people. In spite of how out of control Judah and the Chaldeans seemed God was in control, of nations and of history. No matter how uncertain life may seem to you tonight, remember, ultimate control of all events remains with God.
