Download Monday Evening Bible Reading Group: Habakkuk: Some Notes The

Monday Evening Bible Reading Group: Habakkuk: Some Notes
The prophet’s complaint. When the cry of “Murder” goes unheard I am the buffer between
man, divine. Instructions how to live must be written clear, line on chiselled line. Justice
rains on the hoydenish invader. Because of your lament, cavalry bring from disorder order
swifter than cheetahs run. Peace must combine with the death of pride. Fish in nets so
helplessly entwine themselves. So you will before t6he power of shareholder capital.
Wealthy villains shadow-box, tyrants abscond from law, abuse the weak by acts wrought out
of orgies. Against all this the lowly tremble; then take heart to see, in the dire confusion,
through the desert storm, beyond apparent conquest, by raw chaos, poets penning elegies;
a glory far-off fills the earth as waters cover sea.
A seer combines complaint to comforting: a most tender pummelling like rosemary
flavouring roast. (Abel Clerk’s “Bibel”)
Hymns from Habakkuk: All over the world (number 21); Restore, O Lord (566)
Compare Hymns associated with Malachi: From the sun’s rising (179), Angels from the
realms of glory (35), Purify my heart (557), Restore, O Lord (also Habakkuk), Abide with me
(2), Great is thy faithfulness (238), Christ, whose glory fills the skies (93), Hark the heraldangels sing (250), Judge eternal, throned in splendour (366), O come, O come, Emmanuel
(469), You are the King of Glory (750).
Habakkuk writes at the time the Babylonians have replaced or are replacing the Assyrians –
frying pan into fire! There is a promise that God’s purposes will be worked out, slowly but
eventually. Honest with God, and listening to God. Writing about 605 BC. Wait on the Lord
in trust – not easy! Treasure in particular Chapter 3 verses 17-18.
As so often, we don’t know much about Habakkuk or for certain whether “his” book is what
he wrote, or an edited version with perhaps section one, the dialogue with God, extended
to se4ction two a condemnation of evildoers, and section three a psalm. What we do know
is that the three part book has had a long history of developments into honest thinking
about later times. After Babylonians had replaced Assyrians, Greeks/Seleucids replaced
Babylonians, Hasmoneans/Maccabees replaced the Greeks, and Idumeans and Romans
played their part, the Qumran Community retreated into the desert and one of their
number wrote a commentary on Habakkuk – taking up his concern with why evil seems so
strong and God seems so inactive. Then St Paul developed these same themes.
Out of all this we have: 1) the honest recognition that bad things and bad people do
sometimes seem to have the field to themselves; 2) It is actually seldom true that “we” are
good and there is another group that is bad – we are all capable of and indeed inclined
towards badness. 3) God can be trusted to put things right in the end. 4) in the meantime,
we can work with God in our own humble way to make things better than they would
otherwise have been.
Chapter One and Chapter Two: The prophet complains to God about violence and injustice,
specifically violence and injustice in Judea. The King and the top people were exploiting
their position – building a splendid life-style on the backs of the poor. God’s answer is an
odd one: The Babylonians are coming! That is a bit like a house being threatened by
fracking, with the “re-assurance” that an earthquake is coming! How can a God se wicked
people to eradicate wickedness – why not just make wickedness a no-brainer? As Habakkuk
says. The Babylonians did the equivalent of drag-net conquering. Everybody suffered –
good and bad alike. (Indeed in war the successful wicked have a better chance of escaping
than the unsuccessful poor.) The Babylonians may have been invoked by God, but they
attributed their success to their own gods, or indeed their own soldiers and weapons.
Taking a stand on a watchtower is a common picture of looking at what is happening, and
looking up to God to see what He is doing about things. I like the concept of a message that
the runner can read: our St George’s notice board posters have to address the needs of
passing car and bus passengers. (Maybe not the drivers!) In Woldingham village, they do
the poster thing rather well for the motorist – with a series of few words messages making
up the total message. In Habakkuk, God promises satisfactory answers in due course. “The
just shall live by faith”. In timer, Babylon as well as Assyria will get its come-uppance.
The woes list is still relevant: house-building by displacing others [road building?1]; building
by exploitation (blood-building); covetousness;
(I’m thinking of Scotland’s Highland
Clearances when “peasant” houses were bunt and families evicted into the snow, not for b
building houses but for building flocks of sheep. Mind you, the pyramids were built by slave
labour, and they are still standing! Treasure verse 14 of Chapter 2– that will outlive the
buildings!
Getting the neighbour drunk in the interests of sexual exploitation hasn’t died out, either;
though it tends to be drugs rather than alcohol these days.
(Greeks rather celebrated
nudity, Jews didn’t.) The condemnation of idols is familiar. Today’s idols??
Chapter Three: A rather special psalm-like chapter, including the Selah (praise be?)
interjections. God is the God of history, but not just the God of history: present and future
are in His hands. Interestingly, God is linked to some of the landmarks of the Exodus rather
than to Jerusalem: He can’t be tied down to time and place. Nor can God be spoken for in
terms of the various aspects of his Creation> He is Lord of all, and overcomes human and
natural chaos. At the end, from fear to faith. Something to savour here. It seems to be
agreed that Chapter 3 was actually written to be sung in worship. (If you look through the
Prayer Book Canticles, you will find how much OT and NT text has been appropriated for
singing.