As our study begins today, the prophet Habakkuk has realized that God is serious about bringing judgment and reproof upon the evil people of Judah, through the Chaldean/Babylonian Empire. He cannot understand this plan, though. God’s own chosen people are very evil and sinful, but the Babylonians are even worse, with their false gods and cruel treatment of the nations they conquer. How can God work through such terrible people? Habakkuk is waiting for an answer to his complaint and seems ready t...
As our study begins today, the prophet Habakkuk has realized that God is serious about bringing judgment and reproof upon the evil people of Judah, through the Chaldean/Babylonian Empire. He cannot understand this plan, though. God’s own chosen people are very evil and sinful, but the Babylonians are even worse, with their false gods and cruel treatment of the nations they conquer. How can God work through such terrible people? Habakkuk is waiting for an answer to his complaint and seems ready to complain to God even more (Habakkuk 2:1).
God did not immediately answer Habakkuk’s question, but asked him to write down this conversation they were having. Habakkuk did what God asked, and that is why we have this prophecy, this “vision,” preserved in dialog form, in a way that one could read it and then “run” it on to deliver it to others (Habakkuk 2:2).
God also told Habakkuk that what he was revealing would not immediately happen. “The vision was awaiting its appointed time.” The plan of God was “hastening to the end.” It would happen. It would not be a “lie.” But this would be in God’s hands and in His timetable, not that of Habakkuk or anyone else. If what God said seemed “slow” in coming, just “wait for it.” “It will surely come; it will not delay,” according to God’s will and planning (Habakkuk 2:3).
The problem is, God said, that we human beings are often “puffed up” and are not “upright” (straight) in our “souls” toward God. We want to do things our way, according to our own desires, rather than trusting God and His ways and timing (Habakkuk 2:4). Even God’s people often acted this self-centered way.
Read the little story in Deuteronomy 1:41-44, when the people thought they could easily go into the “hill country” and defeat their enemy, even though God had told them not to go. They “would not listen” and “presumptuously” went ahead and were routed and chased away by the Amorites. The Hebrew text has the idea of their being “swollen, puffed up, proud,” and they were acting “haughtily,” and were very sorry for doing so, when they did not wait for the Lord’s plan, when He would have been with them and given them victory.
See how this passage from Habakkuk is referred to in the New Testament in Hebrews 10:35-39. In a time of suffering and persecution, believers were to “endure” and wait for “the coming One” - God’s help and rescue. “It will not delay,” but may seem like that, because it is God’s timing, not theirs. They are called to “live by faith” in God in the meantime. (We will talk much more about this phrase, in a few moments.) See also the discussion in 2 Peter 3:1-9, when “scoffers” are predicted as asking, “Where is the promise of God’s coming?“ Time goes on and God seems to do nothing. Peter reminded the people that God’s time was different from theirs or the “scoffers,” and that they needed to wait patiently for the Lord to act. He would “fulfill His promises.”
Go back now to Habakkuk 2:5. God began to talk again about the character and ways of the Babylonians. They were truly “arrogant men, never at rest” and puffed up in their own ways. Their greed was never ending, like “death” and “Sheol” (the place of the dead, and sometimes a reference to death in hell). These Chaldeans would keep conquering “nations” and “peoples” and bringing sorrow and death to so many. (If we would use a contemporary image, it would be like talking about the waves of Covid and how many people were swept up and died. It was as if death and the grave never had enough people.)
However, the Babylonian empire had its own weaknesses, which would eventually lead to its fall and destruction. God introduced here the problem of too much alcohol and its dangers. “Wine is a traitor.” When abused, it can bring great sorrow and trouble to individuals or cultures (Habakkuk 2:5). Read warnings about wine and strong drink in Proverbs 23:29-35. See the true story of King Belshazzar in Daniel 5, happening later in Babylon, when in a wild, drunken party of a thousand people, the king used vessels of gold and silver, stolen from the temple in Jerusalem. “They drank wine” and “praised” their own “idols” and “gods.” A human hand then appeared and wrote a message on the wall of the palace. Only the prophet Daniel could interpret the message, which predicted that Belshazzar would soon die and the Babylonian empire would collapse. See also Proverbs 30:15-16, warning of the dangers of greed, when there is never enough, and only trouble comes.
God was preparing in verse 5 for what He would talk about next, the “woes” that would eventually come to the Babylonians. They would prosper, but only for a time, and then they would receive their own time of judgment, as Judah did; and then hope and restoration would come again for God’s people from Judah. (We will talk about this next week, as we look at Habakkuk 2:6ff.)
In the meantime, what are God’s faithful people to do? Here, the words from the second half of Habakkuk 2:4 are so important. Bad times are coming for God’s people because of their sins. They will suffer at the hands of the Babylonians. The fall and judgment of Babylon will come, but “it awaits its appointed time,” and God does not tell when that will happen. (Historically, it did not happen until 539 BC. They did not know it, but that meant that the people of Judah would suffer being vassals of the Babylonian empire, then have Jerusalem and the temple destroyed and then be carried away into captivity in Babylon for many years. About 60 years of trouble were coming. How were God’s people to live and survive? God simply says, “But the righteous shall live by his faith)” (Habakkuk 2:4).
This is a key message of the whole of the Scriptures and introduced already in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, with Abraham. Abraham was promised that he would be the father of a great nation and his descendant would be a blessing to all nations, but he had to wait and wait for even the promise of a child to be fulfilled. Abraham was far from perfect, yet we read in Genesis 15:6. “He believed the Lord, and He (the Lord) counted it (his faith) to him as righteousness.” He was counted a righteous man by his faith in the Lord and His promises.
See also Isaiah 26:2-4. Israel is called a righteous nation because it “kept faith” and its people trusted in the Lord. Even then people realized that their faith was also a gift from God. Isaiah 26:12 says, “O Lord, You will ordain peace for us, for You have indeed done for us all our works.” God was revealing the same thing to Habakkuk in Habakkuk 2:4. He was considered righteous as he lived by faith in the Lord, even though he was struggling with God’s ways and plans.
See how often this passage is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament, in relation to the key doctrine that we, too, are saved by God’s grace, simply by faith, by trust in Jesus and what He has done for us, and not by our efforts or works. Read Romans 1:16-17, Romans 3:20-28, Romans 4:1-9, Romans 4:16-25, Romans 5:1-2, Galatians 3:7-14 Galatians 3:24-29, 2 Corinthians 4:13-18, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Hebrews 10:37-39, for example.
God is telling Habakkuk and us and all believers to live by faith in God and His promises, even though we do not understand all that God is doing and sometimes have to wait a long time for our prayers to be answered and may not ever see the answers we wish for, in this life. As New Testament Christians, we also have the great comfort of having God’s central promises already fulfilled for us in Jesus and how Jesus lived perfectly in our place and we are now credited with His righteous, through faith in His life, death, and resurrection for us. Our eternal future is secure in Him, no matter what happens to us in this life.
May the Lord bless us, as we continue to hear with Habakkuk how God is just in His judgments, even for Israel and how strongly Habakkuk came to live by faith in His loving Lord, no matter what was going on around him.
