HABAKKUK

Habakkuk 1

Habakkuk 2

Habakkuk 3

Habakkuk 1

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

 ² O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

 ³ Why do you make me see wrongdoing

and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

 ⁴ So the law becomes slack

and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous—

therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

 ⁵ Look at the nations, and see!

Be astonished! Be astounded!

For a work is being done in your days

that you would not believe if you were told.

 ⁶ For I am rousing the Chaldeans,

that fierce and impetuous nation,

who march through the breadth of the earth

to seize dwellings not their own.

 ⁷ Dread and fearsome are they;

their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.

 ⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,

more menacing than wolves at dusk;

their horses charge.

Their horsemen come from far away;

they fly like an eagle swift to devour.

 ⁹ They all come for violence,

with faces pressing[1] forward;

they gather captives like sand.

¹⁰ At kings they scoff,

and of rulers they make sport.

They laugh at every fortress,

and heap up earth to take it.

¹¹ Then they sweep by like the wind;

they transgress and become guilty;

their own might is their god!

¹² Are you not from of old,

O LORD my God, my Holy One?

You[2] shall not die.

O LORD, you have marked them for judgment;

and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.

¹³ Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,

and you cannot look on wrongdoing;

why do you look on the treacherous,

and are silent when the wicked swallow

those more righteous than they?

¹⁴ You have made people like the fish of the sea,

like crawling things that have no ruler.

¹⁵ The enemy[3] brings all of them up with a hook;

he drags them out with his net,

he gathers them in his seine;

so he rejoices and exults.

¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and makes offerings to his seine;

for by them his portion is lavish,

and his food is rich.

¹⁷ Is he then to keep on emptying his net,

and destroying nations without mercy?

For reflection: Habakkuk 1:1–17

Believe in God and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality; disbelieve in Him and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all.

—from “Religion: Reality or Substitute?” Christian Reflections

Habakkuk 2

I will stand at my watchpost,

and station myself on the rampart;

I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,

and what he[4] will answer concerning my complaint.

 ² Then the LORD answered me and said:

Write the vision;

make it plain on tablets,

so that a runner may read it.

 ³ For there is still a vision for the appointed time;

it speaks of the end, and does not lie.

If it seems to tarry, wait for it;

it will surely come, it will not delay.

 ⁴ Look at the proud!

Their spirit is not right in them,

but the righteous live by their faith.[5]

 ⁵ Moreover, wealth[6] is treacherous;

the arrogant do not endure.

They open their throats wide as Sheol;

like Death they never have enough.

They gather all nations for themselves,

and collect all peoples as their own.

6 Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,

“Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!”

How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?

 ⁷ Will not your own creditors suddenly rise,

and those who make you tremble wake up?

Then you will be booty for them.

 ⁸ Because you have plundered many nations,

all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you—

because of human bloodshed, and violence to the earth,

to cities and all who live in them.

 ⁹ “Alas for you who get evil gain for your house,

setting your nest on high

to be safe from the reach of harm!”

¹⁰ You have devised shame for your house

by cutting off many peoples;

you have forfeited your life.

¹¹ The very stones will cry out from the wall,

and the plaster[7] will respond from the woodwork.

¹² “Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed,

and found a city on iniquity!”

¹³ Is it not from the LORD of hosts

that peoples labor only to feed the flames,

and nations weary themselves for nothing?

¹⁴ But the earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,

as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁵ “Alas for you who make your neighbors drink,

pouring out your wrath[8] until they are drunk,

in order to gaze on their nakedness!”

¹⁶ You will be sated with contempt instead of glory.

Drink, you yourself, and stagger![9]

The cup in the LORD’s right hand

will come around to you,

and shame will come upon your glory!

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you;

the destruction of the animals will terrify you—[10]

because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,

to cities and all who live in them.

¹⁸ What use is an idol

once its maker has shaped it—

a cast image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in what has been made,

though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!

¹⁹ Alas for you who say to the wood, “Wake up!”

to silent stone, “Rouse yourself!”

Can it teach?

See, it is gold and silver plated,

and there is no breath in it at all.

²⁰ But the LORD is in his holy temple;

let all the earth keep silence before him!

Habakkuk 3

A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk according to Shigionoth.

 ² O LORD, I have heard of your renown,

and I stand in awe, O LORD, of your work.

In our own time revive it;

in our own time make it known;

in wrath may you remember mercy.

 ³ God came from Teman,

the Holy One from Mount Paran.

Selah

His glory covered the heavens,

and the earth was full of his praise.

 ⁴ The brightness was like the sun;

rays came forth from his hand,

where his power lay hidden.

 ⁵ Before him went pestilence,

TURNING TOWARDS GOD

Where the real God is present the shadows of that God do not appear; that which the shadows resembled does. The Hebrews throughout their history were being constantly headed off from the worship of Nature-gods; not because the Nature-gods were in all respects unlike the God of Nature but because, at best, they were merely like, and it was the destiny of that nation to be turned away from likenesses to the thing itself.

—from Miracles

For reflection Habakkuk 2:18–20

YET I WILL REJOICE IN THE LORD

SCREWTAPE REVEALS HIS ENEMY’S INTENTIONS:

You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

—from The Screwtape Letters

For reflection Habakkuk 3:16–19

and plague followed close behind.

 ⁶ He stopped and shook the earth;

he looked and made the nations tremble.

The eternal mountains were shattered;

along his ancient pathways

the everlasting hills sank low.

 ⁷ I saw the tents of Cushan under affliction;

the tent-curtains of the land of Midian trembled.

 ⁸ Was your wrath against the rivers,[11] O LORD?

Or your anger against the rivers,[11]

or your rage against the sea,[12]

when you drove your horses,

your chariots to victory?

 ⁹ You brandished your naked bow,

sated[13] were the arrows at your command.[14]

Selah

You split the earth with rivers.

¹⁰ The mountains saw you, and writhed;

a torrent of water swept by;

the deep gave forth its voice.

The sun[15] raised high its hands;

¹¹ the moon[16] stood still in its exalted place,

at the light of your arrows speeding by,

at the gleam of your flashing spear.

¹² In fury you trod the earth,

in anger you trampled nations.

¹³ You came forth to save your people,

to save your anointed.

You crushed the head of the wicked house,

laying it bare from foundation to roof.[14]

Selah

¹⁴ You pierced with their[17] own arrows the head[18] of his warriors,[19]

who came like a whirlwind to scatter us,[20]

gloating as if ready to devour the poor who were in hiding.

¹⁵ You trampled the sea with your horses,

churning the mighty waters.

¹⁶ I hear, and I tremble within;

my lips quiver at the sound.

Rottenness enters into my bones,

and my steps tremble[21] beneath me.

I wait quietly for the day of calamity

to come upon the people who attack us.

¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not blossom,

and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails,

and the fields yield no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold,

and there is no herd in the stalls,

¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will exult in the God of my salvation.

¹⁹ GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

and makes me tread upon the heights.[22]

To the leader: with stringed[23] instruments.

[1]  Meaning of Heb uncertain

[2]  Ancient Heb tradition: MT We

[3]  Heb He

[4]  Syr: Heb I

[5]  Or faithfulness

[6]  Other Heb Mss read wine

[7]  Or beam

[8]  Or poison

[9]  Q Ms Gk: MT be uncircumcised

[10]  Gk Syr: Meaning of Heb uncertain

[11]  Or against River

[12]  Or against Sea

[13]  Cn: Heb oaths

[14]  Meaning of Heb uncertain

[15]  Heb It

[16]  Heb sun, moon

[17]  Heb his

[18]  Or leader

[19]  Vg Compare Gk Syr: Meaning of Heb uncertain

[20]  Heb me

[21]  Cn Compare Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain

[22]  Heb my heights

[23]  Heb my stringed