Mark's Daily Reading Journal

Background and context…

 The Prophet Habakkuk lived in Judah and ministered there, probably during the reign of Josiah (639–609 b.c.). Josiah, a godly king, called for revival. But despite a superficial veneer of religion, that society was marred by injustice.

Many earlier prophets had seen injustice in Judah’s society and sternly condemned it. But under Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, Hebrew society became committed to idolatry and associated social evils. Josiah, who came to the throne as an eight–year–old, called his nation back to God. After finding a lost book of God’s Law, he rooted out idolatry, reestablished temple worship, and attempted to administer God’s ancient Law. But he could not root out the corruption now deeply rooted in the people and institutions of his nation.

When Habakkuk begged God for an explanation of why he permitted the wicked to sin and the innocent to suffer, the prophet was given an answer. God, even then, was shaping the Babylonians into a world power. The Lord would use these pagan armies to punish His own people. Habakkuk understood, for the use of enemy nations to discipline Israel and Judah was a well–established precedent. But there was still a moral issue that troubled the prophet. How could God use a less righteous people to discipline the more righteous? How could God permit the Babylonians to succeed?

This problem has troubled believers in one form or another from the beginning. Why does God permit the wicked to succeed in this world? Why doesn’t He act, so that the good rather than the wicked prosper? The answers we find in Habakkuk show us that the wicked do not succeed—and that no one, good or bad, can avoid the disciplining hand of God.

There are moral and theological questions raised by sin’s presence, in our own lives and in the ways of the wicked. Perhaps the best and most satisfying answers to be found in Scripture are revealed here in this small, but vital, Old Testament book.

Richards, L. O. (1991; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996). The Bible readers companion (electronic ed.) (560). Wheaton: Victor Books.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will triumph in the Lord; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!  Yahweh my Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights!