Wednesday 19th July
Read Habakkuk 1:1-4
“The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.
2 How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’
but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralysed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.” (NIVUK)
Many believe that sensible and just laws result in order in the world. Habakkuk, familiar with Yahweh’s Torah (or laws), certainly thought so. But the evidence of his eyes and ears tells him that the mere presence of laws does not ensure they will be followed. When times are good it seems, from the outside, that laws are effective and order exists. However, when times are bad, order breaks down. During troubled times the presence of good and just laws is irrelevant – chaos reigns. ‘The law is paralysed’ (v4a).
What Habakkuk has realised, what he lays down in prayer before Yahweh, is the realisation that human hearts are unfit and unresponsive to His ways. Yahweh’s Torah cannot compel compliance. When order breaks down it is only violence and strength that are recognised. It is fear that quells human hearts and puts down rebellion. If the Torah is powerless against such violence and rebellion where will the force required to impose order come from? What should we pray for?
We will read Habakkuk’s stunning answer later. An answer that forms the basis of Paul’s letter to the Roman church 600 years later. At least part of that answer involves the recognition that part of the judgement God brings down on those who violently rebel is to hand them over to the consequences of their rebellion. God’s silence and inaction is deliberate and deserved (cf Romans 1:18-32).
Hope is only found by trusting in the One who took all the violence the world threw at Him. All the violence we deserved. The One who was hemmed in by the wicked and surrounded. Who suffered a mockery of a trial that perverted justice (v4b). Only by clinging to that One and walking in His steps is hope found…
