Habakkuk on the Watchtower

High on a city wall, a man stands alone in the dark. He has asked God a question, and he will not leave until he hears an answer. The wind tugs at his cloak. He keeps watching.

Habakkuk lived in Judah, probably not long before the Babylonian armies swept in from the east. We know almost nothing about him except this: he was honest with God. His little book is not a sermon to the people. It is a conversation, a prophet arguing, listening and praying. And it begins with a complaint.

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Why do you make me look at wrongdoing?” Everywhere Habakkuk looks he sees violence and quarrels. The law is ignored. Justice never wins. And God answers, but not in the way Habakkuk expects. “Look among the nations, and be amazed. I am doing something in your days you would not believe if you were told.” God is raising up the Chaldeans, the Babylonians. A fierce, fast nation, their horses swifter than leopards, their riders swooping like eagles. They will be the instrument of God's judgment.

Now Habakkuk is even more troubled. “Lord, aren't you from everlasting? Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. So why are you silent while the wicked swallow up people more righteous than they are?” He pictures the Babylonians as fishermen, dragging whole nations in their nets and then worshipping the nets that made them rich. How can that be fair? And then Habakkuk does something wise. He doesn't walk away. He says, “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me.”

And the Lord answers. “Write the vision. Make it plain on tablets, so that a runner can read it. The vision is for an appointed time. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come.” Then God says this: the proud are not upright, “but the just shall live by his faith.” Babylon will not get away with its greed. God names its wrongs one by one: plunder, cruelty, building cities with bloodshed, trusting idols that cannot speak. And above all of it, a promise. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.”

Habakkuk's last chapter is a song. He remembers how God came to rescue his people long ago, with mountains trembling and the sun and moon standing still. And then he sings the bravest words in his book. “Though the fig tree does not blossom, and there is no fruit on the vines. Though the olive crop fails, and the fields give no food. Though there are no sheep in the fold, and no cattle in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.” Nothing has changed outside yet. The armies are still coming. But something has changed inside Habakkuk. “The Lord God is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and lets me walk on the high places.”

Habakkuk's fear was well founded. In 605 BC, the Babylonian prince Nebuchadnezzar defeated the army of Egypt at Carchemish, by the river Euphrates. The book of Jeremiah records the battle. After that, nobody could stop Babylon's advance through the region. Within a few years Judah was paying tribute, and within two decades Jerusalem itself had fallen. Habakkuk's song of trust was sung by people who knew exactly what kind of storm was coming.

Habakkuk on the watchtower. You'll find it in the book of Habakkuk, chapters 1 to 3. He began with a complaint, waited for God's answer, and ended with a song. God did not answer every question, but he gave Habakkuk himself. So here's the question to carry with you. What question would you bring to God, and are you willing to wait and watch for his answer?