From Silence to Singing | Habakkuk 2:20

April 6th, 2025

What we see in today’s Scripture is the eternal truth that God, who sits in heaven on His throne, is just and good.  If you are a believer, it is so because this God interrupted your life with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by His divine will.  You have seen His justice and His goodness and your heart has been silenced.

We see that kind of divine interruption in the conclusion of this “taunt song” found in Habakkuk 2:20.  Here, we move from fearful reverence to faithful surrender, from a noisy soul that holds God in contempt for everything to a quiet, stilled heart for a just, sovereign Creator.  The crescendo of judgment is here brought to a hush, a silence in keeping with that found in a courtroom when the judge enters.  It is a powerful silence filled with awe.  Someone with ultimate authority has just entered the room.

In all of Scripture, we here find one of the most thunderous silences. The Judge of the universe has just walked into His courtroom.  Seated on His throne, in His Holy temple, everyone is commanded to be silent before Him.  Today, we walk through this dramatic redirection to see how God uses a single sentence to reorient the heart of the congregation and the entire earth, to see Him for who He truly is.  With trembling hearts, may God teach us how to approach Him in the right way and to reflect on the love and mercy that comes from Him, to trust and rest in Him, as we are called to do.  May He increase our faith to walk in this manner.            

I. The Contrast (v.20a)

A. The Shift

This simple conjunction “But”, which begins this verse, introduces a cosmic contrast, a dramatic shift in the song.  As we think back through this book, we remember that Habakkuk has cried out to God to address the wickedness of Judah that surrounds him. God answers his cry, his lament, not with indifference or excuse or grand explanation but, with a declaration of coming judgement.  God assures him that His justice is not delayed.  Wait for it because it is certain to come, it is  unstoppable and it is right on time!  Although God is allowing the Chaldeans to rise in power for a season, to be used by God to bring the justice Habbakuk seeks, God assures Habbakuk that He is just and that the Chaldeans, as is true for all people, will be judged for their wickedness.

Then, God, not stopping with a declaration of judgment, lovingly leads Habbakuk from despair to dependence, anchoring him (and us!) in the truth that, ”the righteous will live by his faith” (2:4).  We know this same truth is expounded by Paul throughout the book of Romans.  God’s justice finds its resolve in faith, in dependence upon God.

Quoting Martin Luther, “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by faith’.  Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith.  Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.  The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning and whereas before ‘the justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love.  This passage became to me a gate of heaven….”  God is not only just, He is trustworthy.  We can rest in His sovereign justice during times of uncertainty, when we do not understand what is happening around us.  He invites us to wait on Him.

In 2:6-19, the scene dramatically changes from restful trust to loud, poetic confrontation.  God wants the people of Judah to voice to the Chaldeans His coming justice, through this taunt song, a song that is to be both a warning to those who refuse to trust in the Lord and an encouragement and an assurance for God’s people!   The foolishness of man is to be set on a pedestal.  Saturated with sarcasm and irony, God highlights the futility of life without (apart from!) Him, issuing woes to the Chaldeans, the foolish, against their greed, self-exhaltation, violence and idolatry.

Then comes another dramatic shift…”But Yahweh” (2:20).  This is a divine, decisive interruption, a dramatic reversal, a redirection in the flow of thought…a God-centered pivot!  Man is going in one direction towards despair, sin and injustice…”But Yahweh” gives a sudden intentional jarring, a slamming of the brakes.  Why this interruption following the taunt song of woes?  What are we to observe, to see?  Where is God leading us?

God is walking us into awe and wonder, leading us to worship.      

B. The Seat of God

We must see that this introduction in 2:20 first magnifies God’s justice, placing Him on His throne.  We are to clearly see God for who He is!  The first iteration of this phrase in Scripture is found in Genesis 8:1.  Following the execution of His judgment executed against the earth, we find God’s divine intervention, a shift, similar to what we have in Habakkuk 2:20, where we find, “But God remembered Noah”.  Throughout Scripture, the phrase, “But God”, always occurs with a backdrop of God’s divine judgement then comes the dramatic shift that causes us to reflect on who God is.  Human and angelic sin brought divine judgment on the earth but, God’s justice is never arbitrary, always intertwined with His sovereign faithfulness (Psalm 36:6).  God, in His faithfulness, brings forth justice because of who He is but, always with His justice He brings forth mercy (Genesis 8:1).  God is calling for a solemn remembrance of His justice, which should then invoke and awaken in us a deep sense of awe because we realize that God does not merely fix what evil has broken: God ordains and uses even the darkest injustices to accomplish His good.

Perhaps, we see this more clearly in Genesis 50:20, where Joseph, after the death of his father, declares to his brothers, who fear the revenge of Joseph, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…..”  Joseph’s words reflect an understanding of God’s providence and His redemptive justice.  God’s justice did not eliminate the consequences of sin…Joseph suffered but, it did direct the outcome towards mercy.  These words of Joseph become the lens through which we interpret human suffering.

Through this, God invokes in us this reverential fear, this awe, summoned out of us when we begin to behold His justice and mercy in perfect harmony.  It should leave us speechless before His majesty.  It is a realization He is not like us and we are not Him!  This is to understand the providence of God.  The awe of God emerges when we realize God governs all things, including evil, for His redemptive purposes.  Awe is a reverent recognition that God has been present all along in your life, never absent in your suffering, active in His sovereignty.  “But God” reveals the hand of God lovingly overrides human intention!  God’s purposes are rooted in mercy, justice and covenant faithfulness.

What evokes awe is not just that things turned out okay (for Joseph): it is that God ordained the suffering for salvation.  What evokes awe is that His justice against sin did not eliminate His mercy toward sinners. What evokes awe is that God was orchestrating not just Joseph’s deliverance but, the preservation of an entire nation.  Here in this statement, “...but God meant it for good”, awe arises from the heart, summoned out like smoke that lifts from the altar of incense, offered by a soul humbled before the sovereign goodness of God.

He is always doing more than we can see, and it is always good, even when it comes through what we perceive as evil.  This is the truth that silences our complaints, steadies our doubts, calms the heart; but, it also naturally produces a great wonder.  “But God” shifts the soul from reflecting on divine justice to beholding goodness, to awakening in us a wonder of His sovereign grace.  In these two words, we find the answer to the (so called) “problem of evil”, found in the wonder that emanates from this awe.

In the biblical sense, wonder is not a superficial amazement, curiosity or emotional surprise but, a spiritual stillness of the soul, invoked by awe, when confronted with the beauty of God’s purposes when His majesty is on display.  This awe causes us to fall silent in the presence of the divine majesty who orchestrates things in a way we could never comprehend.  Wonder is the melody in the heart to which silence gives birth.  It is a spiritual response, an internal, trembling joy that rises when we recognize God’s justice and mercy have embraced at the cross, and in that embrace, we have been preserved in the presence of this God. Wonder is miraculous, divinely extraordinary, other worldly, having no explanation (Exodus 15:11, Psalm 77:14). 

“But God” (in His works) ignites this holy wonder.  Think of this phrase in Ephesians 2:4, where it reveals something even more staggering: God breathes life into the spiritually dead.  “But God being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us….”  This is NO small turning point but, rather a complete upheaval, an eternal cosmic shift, equal in significance to the cosmic shift in Habakkuk 2:20.  As we read Ephesians 2:1-3, we find that we were not weak, we were dead.  We were not misguided, we were condemned.  We were not innocently wrong, we were actively working for the prince of the power of the air.  We were actively against God!  Then comes the divine reversal, God’s slamming on the brakes of human evil and swings ALL of universal history on the hinge of His justice…”But, God”.  How can anything but wonder be awakened at this moment - not just from what God does – but because of who God is?  He is rich in mercy, great in love and abounding in grace.  It is the wonder of a holy God deciding to save, not because of us but, in spite of us.

Wonder is not only the soul’s response to the magnitude of mercy.  It is also the response of all of creation eagerly awaiting for the sons of men to be redeemed so that it can be made anew, set free from the slavery of corruption (Romans 8:19-21).  We find in 1 Peter 1:12 that even the angels, constantly in the presence of God, wonder at the mercy of God shown to fallen humanity.

While the cosmos stands in wonder, the heart rightly stands stunned.  God is good and God is just.  In this realization, we are captivated by wonder but, the heart does not yet sing out in praise: it stands breathless at the threshold – stunned, silenced, stirred.  This is what should be understood when we read, “But Yahweh”.  We reflect on His justice, we stand in awe of His goodness, we wonder at His mercy.  These two words stand in stark contrast to everything God has just stated about the gods of the Chaldeans, who are man-made, silent, lifeless, deceptive, dependent, powerless and mocked by God.  Yahweh is infinitely more glorious!  He is self-existent, speaks, is living, truthful, sovereign, all-powerful, feared and revered, just, good, merciful.  

II. The Coronation (v.20b)

A. His Holy Temple

He is the great I AM and He is in His holy temple.  God is on His throne!  The temple refers to God’s heavenly sanctuary, not an earthly tabernacle or temple.  A place set apart for Him.  It is the symbolic seat of divine rule.  It is heaven itself.  

B. His Holy rule

From heaven, God rules (Psalm 11:4).  From here, God sees the heart and the intentions of man.  We are always in His divine presence, governed by His sovereignty and His judgments.  From His heavenly throne, He actively governs the history of all mankind.  His holiness both comforts the righteous and terrifies the wicked.  He is with us every moment of our lives (Psalm 29:10, Daniel 7:9-10).  From this temple, God has been speaking to Habakkuk, giving vision from His throne.  Habakkuk moves us from the courtroom of the false gods to the temple of the Living God.  Now, we are ready to hear the command, a call for something, God’s decree.    

III. The Call (v.20c)

A. The Scope of the Call

Enthroned on His holy temple, God now issues a universal call for a reverent silence, a silence not empty but, awestruck, submissive and filled with expectation.  It is a global imperative…all the land and all the peoples.  No one is exempt!  God’s reign is not regional, it is cosmic (Zechariah 2).  Why does God address the entire earth?  He is preparing the heart, drawing attention to Himself and His position.  God is enthroned, exalted and unchallenged.  He is reorienting our hearts and minds to who He is and where God he sits, stirring us to humility.  As the heart ascends into the throne room of heaven, the heart takes in the weight of His holiness, it becomes cloaked in humility, stripped of pride.  Now, the heart is ready to worship.  But, before worship, God decrees silence.  Hush!  Stop!  Be still!  The Judge is in the courtroom.  “But God” prepares the earth for this command.  The proper response is an awe-filled silence, not in ignorance or fear but, in reverence and submission.

Why the command to be silent?  He is about to speak and when God speaks, He wants everyone to listen to His judgment (Revelation 8:1).          

B. The Significance of the Silence

The silence reveals hearts humbled before God’s throne, reverence before Majesty.  As we read Isaiah 6:1-5, we find Isaiah undone, overwhelmed with reverential fear, silent.  As we read Ezekiel 1:28, as Ezekiel sees the throne and the radiance of God’s glory, he responds with immediate silence and prostration.  God wants us to be silent because He wants to speak.  In this silence, songs of praise are being ready to be born, emanating from a heart of surrender.       

C. True Worship

True worship begins when we stop striving and stand still in awe of who God is.  It is readiness to receive what God has for us.  It begins with stillness.  It reflects the posture of creation before the Creator.  “My soul waits in silence for God only” (Psalm 62:1).  This is where we find the congregation in Habakkuk’s taunt song.  The Judge has entered the room and the noise must stop: silence is commanded.  A holy hush is required; the heart bows.  It is the threshold because in Habakkuk 3, the silence will break forth into a song of praise.  But, not yet.  Wait for it!  We end Habakkuk in silence.   

Selah

• Beyond the shadow of any doubt, are you certain God has interrupted your life with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by His divine will?

• Is your heart ready to be still, silent before the sovereign Creator, Him alone who is just and good, ready to hear what He wants to say to you?

• God calls us to truly worship Him, offering our silent hearts at the throne of His majesty, ready to hear what He wants to tell us and to do what He commands.  Are you ready to stop striving and to stand in awe of God, and live in this true worship?

• Is your heart sufficiently reoriented and ready to praise Him?