From Habakkuk 1-3
Habakkuk is shown a vision about what will happen to the wicked in Judah. He is afraid all of Judah will be wiped out. The LORD assures him the righteous shall live by their faith. In the New Testament the expression is applied specifically to believers in Jesus Christ.
This post is part of my bible in a year series.
Passage and Comments
Habakkuk begins complaining to the LORD about the injustice of his people (Hab 1.2-4). The LORD responds saying he will raise up the Babylonians to punish Judah and wipe them out (Hab 1.5-11). Now we consider Habakkuk’s response.
12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?
14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.
15 He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.
17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? (Hab 1.12-17)
Habakkuk believes the Babylonians are worse than his own people. He affirms the people of God will not die.
God has pure eyes and cannot look at wrong. Consequently Habakkuk questions why the LORD could use such an instrument. Will the Babylonians be allowed to destroy the nations around them forever?
Habakkuk will wait and see how the LORD responds?
2 I will take my stand at my watch post 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. (Hab 2.1)
Habakkuk waits at his watch post. He looks over the nation to see what the LORD will do. Will Judah be wiped out by the Babylonians? Will Babylon be allowed to kill the nations mercilessly without end?
2 And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.
3 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.
4 “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. (Hab 2.2-4)
Habakkuk is instructed to write down the vision he has on tablets so all can see. The vision is what Habakkuk is being shown and refers to the whole oracle (Hab 1.1).
The message will be a plain and simple, so ‘he may run who reads it’. That is, the vision will be simple and easy to read. The vision written down may not happen straight away, but it will happen without delay.
The vision as we have seen refers to the oncoming judgment of Judah and the assurance of life for some of the people.
A sharp contrast is drawn between the arrogant and those within Israel who act justly.
“At all events, the “righteous” shall live by their faith or their “faithfulness,” the marginal translation probably being the more appropriate. It refers to their own steadfastness and consistency, perhaps with overtones of their confidence in God’s ultimate purpose despite his apparent nonintervention at the time.” (Gelston, A., 2003. Habakkuk. In J. D. G. Dunn & J. W. Rogerson, eds. Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, p. 711.)
5 “Moreover, wine [wealth] 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.” (Hab 2.5)
Our passage ends with more condemnation of the wicked of Babylon. They have insatable desire.
Desire which will lead them to judgment and death. The Babylonians will not ultimately succeed.
In the meantime, the righteous must persevere through tough times and continue to remain faithful to the LORD. This is the secret for their life.
Story of Israel
The Babylonians did defeat Judah and the LORD’s justice was served. Babylon in turn soon came under the LORD’s judgment at the hands of the Perisans. Through all this the people of God, still continued to trust in the LORD, being faithful through many trials and waited for the LORD to deliver them.
Story of Jesus
‘The righteous shall live by his faith’. The Habakkuk passage in the New Testament is used of those who believe Jesus is the Christ. That he died and rose again and will come again to judge the living and the dead and deliver his people from God’s wrath.
“The last clause of 2:4 is quoted in the NT out of its context.
In Rom 1:17 and Gal 3:11 Paul quotes it in a slightly different form, where “faith” appears as an abstract principle rather than “their faith” in particular. He uses it in the different context of his message about justification by faith. Yet it may reasonably be claimed that he is penetrating to the basic principle stated in Habakkuk and drawing out its universal significance.
In Heb 10:37–38 parts of Hab 2:3–4 are quoted in a version closely similar to that of the LXX but in a slightly different order (the two halves of v. 4 are reversed) and in such a way as to stress the difference between the fidelity of the “righteous” and the “shrinking back” of others, where “who shrinks back” is the LXX’s rendering of the obscure word rendered “the proud” in the NRSV at 2:4. In its stress on the faithfulness of the “righteous” the quotation in Hebrews comes close to the meaning of the clause in Habakkuk.” (Gelston, A., 2003. Habakkuk. In J. D. G. Dunn & J. W. Rogerson, eds. Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, p. 712.)
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