Book of Habakkuk
Dialogue with God about evil, ending with trust in His sovereignty.
About the Book of Habakkuk
Habakkuk is unlike most prophetic books — instead of delivering God's message to Israel, the prophet delivers Israel's complaint to God. It opens with Habakkuk asking a question that resonates in every age: "How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, 'Violence!' but you do not save?" Why does God seem indifferent to the evil and injustice he sees all around him?
God's answer is more troubling, not less: He is raising up the Babylonians — a nation even more brutal than the wicked Judah — as His instrument of judgment. This sends Habakkuk into a second, deeper crisis of faith: How can a holy God use an even more wicked nation to punish a less wicked one? The prophet climbs his watchtower and waits for God's response. God's answer introduces one of the New Testament's key texts: "The righteous person will live by his faithfulness" — quoted three times by Paul in Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews.
The book ends with one of the most remarkable passages in all of Scripture: Habakkuk's prayer of trust in chapter 3. Despite everything, he declares: "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food... yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior." This is faith at its most muscular — not faith based on circumstances, but faith maintained in the face of their complete absence.