Lesson 20

The Prophet Habakkuk

Book of Habakkuk

• Cp1 Habakkuk’s first question and God’s answer

• Cp2 Second question and God’s answer

• Cp3 Habakkuk’s response of praise to God

• Date of the book is around 610 to 605 B.C.

• Babylon made their first invasion during the last years of Josiah

• There was violence and wickedness all around

Book of Habakkuk

• At the death of Josiah the people made his son Jehoahaz king.

• The people along with the king turned back to their previous wicked ways

• Habakkuk goes before God with his first question

• How long shall I cry, and you will not hear? v2

• How can God be indifferent to the sin in Judah?

• It is full of violence, strife, and perverseness.

Book of Habakkuk

• Does not the righteous God rule in the heavens?• God answers…I am not indifferent; I am working

a work that you would not believe v5• Isa 55:9 my ways higher than your ways, and my

thoughts than your thoughts • I am raising up the Caldeans to punish Judah• The Caldeans are a cruel nation• They will march through the land and possess

houses that do not belong to them v6• The army is powerful and swift v7

Book of Habakkuk

• They shall come with violence v9

• Those in authority, (kings and princes) will mean nothing to them v10

• They have made power their god

• Another question arises in Habakkuk’s mind after God answers the first one

• He is glad to know that God knows about the wickedness of Judah

Book of Habakkuk

• How can Jehovah allow those as wicked as the Chaldeans to swallow up those who are more righteous than they?

• The prophet knew that Judah was also wicked but not like Babylon

• Will Babylon not be stopped?

• Will they continue to slay nations?

• Habakkuk says, “I will stand and watch to see if the Lord will answer.”

Book of Habakkuk

• The Lord tells Habakkuk to write a vision

• Make it plain so all will see it and be warned to run

• Yes judgment will come to that wicked nation of Babylon

• It will come in the time God completes His purpose for Babylon

• God is just in His dealings with the righteous and unrighteous

Book of Habakkuk

• Hab 2:3For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.  4Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

Book of Habakkuk

• They were an arrogant and greedy nation

• They were planting the seed for their own destruction

• Judah had made judgment inevitable by her own sins

• How God uses judgment and to what extent is left up to Him

Book of Habakkuk

• God pronounces 5 woes upon the wicked

• 6Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay! 

Book of Habakkuk

• 9Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

• 12Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! 

• 15Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! 

Book of Habakkuk

• 19Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach!

• 20But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

• Habakkuk now has his answer.• God is aware of Judah’s wickedness and will

chastise them as He would other nations• He will use the violence, aggression and greed of

the Babylonians to fulfill His judgment on Judah• God will judge all wickedness then and now

Book of Habakkuk• 3:1A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon

Shigionoth. (possibly sung by Habakkuk)• The plural form, shigionoth, is found in 

Hab. 3:1. The word denotes a lyrical poem composed under strong mental emotion; a song of impassioned imagination accompanied with suitable music

• Shiggaion, and its plural, Shigionoth, are supposed to have been musical terms to guide in rendering the song. The term may suggest the movement in interpreting the music set to it

Book of Habakkuk• The powerful, poetic descsription of the power of

God who came from Teman, and Mt. Paran to meet His people

• v3God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah

• His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.  4And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power.  5Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet.  6He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting

Possible meaning

• SELAH (see' luh) Term of unknown meaning appearing in psalms, outside Psalms only in Habakkuk 3. Scholars have advanced various unproveable theories: a pause either for silence or musical interlude, a signal for the congregation to sing, recite, or fall prostrate on the ground, a cue for the cymbals to crash, a word to be shouted by the congregation, a sign to the choir to sing a higher pitch or louder. The earliest Jewish traditions thought it meant “for ever.”

Book of Habakkuk

• God drove the nations out of the land and planted His people in the promised land

• The Lord marched through the land and threshed the nations

• You came to deliver your people and save your anointed one

• God always did what was best for His people

Book of Habakkuk

• Habakkuk knew judgment was coming, so he prayed that God would remember mercy in His wrath.

• Habakkuk hated to see the day of judgment coming

• “I heard what the Lord said, and I trembled”

• I must wait for the invasion and calamity

• I can not avoid it or turn it away

Habakkuk chapter 3• Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. 

10The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.  11The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear.  12Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.  13Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck.

• Selah

• 14Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly.  15Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.

• 16When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.  17Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:  18Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  19The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

• This is the faith we all must imitate

Jehoiakim2 K 23:36-24:6; 2 Chr 36:5-8

• Pharaoh Necho had removed Jehoahaz from the throne and placed Jehoiakim the son of Josiah in his place.

• Enormous tribute was required so Jehoiakim taxed the people heavily

• This all happened in about 609 B.C.

• At the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, Jeremiah was commanded to go preach to the court of the Lord’s house to those who came to worship (Jer 26)

Jehoiakim2 K 23:36-24:6; 2 Chr 36:5-8

• God’s hope was that the people would listen and turn from their evil ways

• He would then relent and not bring this disaster upon them

• Jeremiah said, “If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, or listen to the words of my servants, then I will make this house like Shiloh, and a curse to all nations of the earth.”

Jehoiakim2 K 23:36-24:6; 2 Chr 36:5-8

• The priest and false prophets seized Jeremiah and said, “ you are going to die.”

• The princes of Judah came to hear the accusations made against Jeremiah and his defense

• “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city. All things I said are true.”

Jehoiakim2 K 23:36-24:6; 2 Chr 36:5-8

• Jer 26:16Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to the prophets; This man is not worthy to die: for he hath spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God.  17Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spake to all the assembly of the people, saying,  18Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. 

• Another prophet named Uriah had to flee to Egypt for his life. He also prophesyed against Jerusalem and was brought back by Jehoiakim and killed

• Jeremiah was spared