Habakkuk's Burden | Habakkuk 1:1-4

January 26th, 2025

In the opening verses of this book, we see that Habakkuk is burdened by the perceived silence of God to various injustices. The perceived silence of God is a problem that has existed since creation. There are two aspects to this problem: 1) an internal struggle due to our own sin, such as Paul discussed in Romans 7, and 2) an external struggle due to the injustices we see, the effects of a sinful world, moral decay, etc. We are tempted to ask God why He is not reacting to these abominations right now. We justify our question by telling ourselves that to not act is inconsistent with God’s character.

Unbelievers know that God exists (Romans 1) and they use the perceived silence of God to create doubt and disappointment in believers. Unbelievers say that the church is a mess. They ask why we would continue to worship a God who would allow things to go on the way they are. When we begin to doubt, we need to understand that we have just misunderstood the patience of God. Second Peter 3:4 addresses scoffers who see all things continuing as from the beginning. In Peter’s first letter, he addressed evil forces from outside the church, and in his second letter he addresses evil forces arising from within the church. Such scoffers believe that, other than themselves, everyone else is foolish. But Peter continues in verse seven to remind the church that, while nothing seems to change, God is storing up fire for the day of judgment.

God’s perceived silence is a burden that we also carry. We ask, why is there a need for orphanages? Why are there abortions? Why don’t people value life? These questions lead to the ultimate question: Why does evil exist? However, for the believer, this is the wrong question. We should be asking, what do we do with the perceived silence of God? Unbelievers claim to care about evil but use the presence of evil to argue against God. Believers know that evil exists to glorify God, and that was answered at the cross. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is God’s ultimate response to evil. Here He judged evil while providing salvation for the lost. The problem that unbelievers face is that they are going to be judged for their evil.

The problem that believers face is how to handle presence of evil in the midst of God’s silence. The first few verses of Habakkuk give believers the answer: lament. Lamenting should be an important part of the Christian’s life, but it has been neglected because we don’t know how to handle the tension between the perceived silence of God in the face of evil. Habakkuk teaches us how to lament.

I. A Weight of Silence (v. 1)

• The Vision (v. 1a)

Habakkuk’s name means to embrace or clasp God, for Habakkuk was called to embrace God. Verse, one gives us a further description of Habakkuk; he was a prophet, one who receives God’s words and then communicates these words to the people. When he says he beheld this oracle from God, he is saying that he has a personal investment in the of doom, a spiritual and emotional attachment to this burden. Habakkuk is experiencing the message he is called to deliver to the people. This applies even to Pastors today. Amos 3:7 teaches that God does nothing without revealing His secret counsel to His prophets. God wanted His prophet to grasp the reality of His word, the truth of His word, and the reality of His character, then deliver those words to the people using his own personality. Rather than just reading God’s word, the prophet should be passionate about his message. His desire should be to help the people see the image of God in his message.

As a paid prophet, like Jeremiah and Isaiah, Habakkuk had a role in the temple. Habakkuk’s prayer beginning in verse one of chapter three states that this prayer is according to Shigionoth, that is a wild, passionate, animated song. Habakkuk gave his prayer to the choirmaster so that he could create a song for the people to sing. As the people sang songs together, they came to understand God better. Habakkuk’s book reveals something of his personality. He was introspective, transparent, bold, vulnerable, zealous, caring, kind, empathetic, and willing to stand in the gap for his people through intercessory prayer. 

• The Burden (v. 1b)

Habakkuk’s role and personality come into play as we interpret verse one. He opens the book by saying that he beheld a burden. This means to carry or bear up or lift a heavy load. This emphasizes the heavy emotional and spiritual responsibility that Habakkuk felt in proclaiming this oracle. With his gentle, kind, empathetic personality and his own confusion by what he sees and what God is saying, he struggles with how to present this oracle to the people. He knows that he is a part of Judah, thus also a part of the problem. The oracle that he was to deliver was something so profound, so heavy, that it could be thought of as otherworldly. The experience that Habakkuk felt was an awesome, fearful knowledge that something was missing, and that missing element was God.

II. The Cry of the Righteous (v. 2)

Similar to that of a person standing before a giant mountain in absolute silence, the experience that Habakkuk felt was an awesome, fearful feeling of profound isolation. The weight of the burden and the isolation that Habakkuk felt resulted in an emotional, earnest, spontaneous crying out to God, “How long, O Yahweh, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ Yet You do not save.” This cry reveals the turmoil within Habakkuk’s heart, and he gives voice to the tension that exists whenever God is absent. As his tension comes to the surface, it helps us to see how to biblically lament.

• The Tension of Silence and Faith (v. 2a)

Lamenting begins by confessing that there is tension we feel when God is absent. Habakkuk knows that God can intervene, but God’s silence causes him to cry out “How long, O Yahweh.” As a righteous prophet of God, Habakkuk knows that God is powerful, He is good, and He is sovereign. His cry is like that of David expressed in Psalm 13. He was surrounded by his enemies, he didn’t feel God’s presence, defeat appeared imminent, so he cried out “How long, O Yahweh.” In Revelation 6:10 we read of the saints in heaven, slain for the Word of God, crying out, “How long, O Master” as they await God’s vengeance on those on the earth. These martyrs want to know how long it will be until God’s justice reigns on the earth.

Habakkuk knew that God would not give him more than he could endure (1 Corinthians 10:13), but his cry to God for help was a wailing, a shouting for God’s intervention, as he was nearing a breaking point. We can experience the same emotion if we walk with God yet endure periods of long suffering or unanswered prayer; we think there is no end to these trials. Habakkuk’s cry was not one of defeat but of pleading with God to pay attention to his cry; he had an expectation of a response and an expectation of an action. The root word for crying out is also the root for Shema, Hear. Deuteronomy 6:4 is known as the Great Shema, where Israel identifies with strict monotheism, “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!” Moses was crying out to Israel to pay attention to this important truth about God. 

Habakkuk was saying, God I have a great Shema before You and I need You to act. Why should God respond to Habakkuk’s desperate cry? The answer is that God was in a covenantal relationship with Israel. Because of this covenant, God expected Israel to act appropriately, and Habakkuk expected Yahweh to act. Habakkuk’s cry of how long is an expression of faith. Some Bibles title this section of Scripture as Habakkuk’s Complaint, but it is a lament, not a complaint. A complaint is self-centered, a lament is worship before God. Habakkuk trusted God’s covenantal faithfulness, otherwise, he would not have cried out. Habakkuk doesn’t doubt God’s ability to help but he is grieved by the delay. In biblical lament, silence and faith are intertwined with grief. God wants us to bring our pain before Him. Lamenting is not a failure of faith, it is not complaining, it is a trust in God, a trust in God’s justice, and it is a trust in God’s character. Lamenting begins with an acknowledgment that there is a tension between our faith and the silence that we experience.

• The Tension in Unanswered Prayers (v. 2b)

Habakkuk says, “I cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ Yet You do not save.” We need to remember that God’s delays are not God’s denials. The word for crying out in the second part of verse two is a call for help with a legal connotation. Habakkuk knows that God is a just judge and he calls out to God for legal help. He is speaking of actions that strategically violate God’s law. This is an intentional, egregious violation of God’s law. Habakkuk is reminding God that His people are deliberately violating His law, and that he is praying that they stop, for he knows that God is just, yet he doesn’t see God doing anything. He reminds God that His people are supposed to represent Him in the earth, yet they are misrepresenting Him. Habakkuk is frustrated because of the rampant injustice and moral collapse in Judah. Habakkuk reminds God that He has a legal obligation to respond because it is an affront to His character. 

Since God was silent, Habakkuk felt that He had abandoned His people. This is how Christ felt when abandoned by God on the cross. Christ quoted Psalm 22:1 at that time, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” Christ knew that He had not been abandoned by God but, as He took the wrath of God against sin, He cried out this great lament. Like Habakkuk, we experience a rising tension in our heart when it seems that God doesn’t respond to our prayers, especially when our prayers deal with injustice. Such delay from God tends to tear us down. It is not helpful to tell someone experiencing such tension that God’s timing is best. We need to learn how to lament, for lamenting is a biblical response to injustice and evil. 

Our lamenting should be persistent even when God seems to be silence. In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus told a parable of a persistent widow who keep coming to an unrighteous judge for justice. The judge granted her petition because of her persistence. Jesus applied the concept of persistence to the elect when He said that God will answer our prayers if we have enough faith in God’s justice to continue in prayer even when it appears that God is not listening to us. Habakkuk’s lament includes honesty in pain and persistence in prayer. The practice of biblical lamenting leads to hope that justice will prevail.

III. Hope in Justice (vv. 3-4)

• The Perception of Wickedness (v. 3a)

Habakkuk’s cry holds the underlying hope of the justice of God. One important aspect of a lament is our perception of wickedness. The oracle that Habakkuk beheld is likened to that of worldwide mass destruction. We know how sin in our life can devastate a marriage or a family; the sin of pride can rip apart an entire family. David’s sin with Bathsheba not only destroyed his family but had devastating consequences for the nation.

A component of Habakkuk’s burden was that God was forcing him to foresee the consequences of Judah’s sin. Habakkuk was standing before God saying I am weary, I don’t know how much longer I can stand up because of the emotional weight that I am carrying because of the devastation that I see ever before me. Habakkuk saw that evil was just succeeding everywhere. Asaph wrote in Psalm 73:16, “When I gave thought to know this, it was trouble in my sight.” Here he was talking about the emotional weariness he experienced from watching all the evil around him. Whenever we see injustice or wickedness in our life or whenever it is prevalent in our society, it should affect us emotionally. If not, there is a sin issue in our life. When we endure suffering, we should not try to push it away but bring it to God. To verbalize our perception of wickedness and how it affects us is not a lack of faith, yet our prideful society believes otherwise. According to Scripture, to approach God through lamenting is a manifestation of faith. 

• The Corruption of Justice (vv. 3b-4a)

Habakkuk continued his lament, “Therefore the law is ignored, and justice never comes forth.” He recognizes that the issue is that justice is compromised because there is a coldness to the law. He says the people have grown cold, like the warning in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint.” When God’s standards are ignored, there is a perversion of justice. Habakkuk sees Judah’s problem as being across the board. It appears to Habakkuk that justice is twisted in order to serve the wicked rather than protect the innocent. Habakkuk doesn’t understand why God would allow perverted justice to promote wickedness. 

Habakkuk continues, “And justice never comes forth.” This is not true in an absolute sense, for God’s justice always prevails, but this was the outburst of a weary heart. This was not a denial of God’s justice but a struggle with the length of time he had to endure injustice. While justice seems absent, hope is present. 

• The Hope of Restoration (v. 4b)

He says, “For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes forth perverted.” Habakkuk acknowledges the overwhelming power of wickedness, yet implicit in this lament, he knows that God will not allow this injustice to last forever. We know this because the very act of crying out is imbedded with hope. Habakkuk’s crying out to God demonstrates his faith in God’s sovereignty, and he knows that God will ultimately act.

These first four verses of Habakkuk introduce us to the burden that he is carrying for his people. These verses instruct us on how to deal with the evil in our own life and the evil we see around us in our everyday experience. God has given us a way to deal with our burdens; we are to bring them before Him in our lament. When we see injustice, sin, and suffering in the world we may feel overwhelmed with emotion but take that burden to God with assured hope that He will hear us. We acknowledge the heaviness of God’s silence, but we know that He is not going to let us go too far or too long outside His scope of care. Our cries are interwoven with hope and the promise of His justice, so that one day He will address all the injustices that we see.

If you are not a believer in Christ, you cannot understand the depth of lament that Habakkuk felt because you don’t know God. You need to find resolution to the evil that you see but you wrongly place that blame on God. You need to confess Christ as Lord of your life. Only then can you understand why a believer would learn of the idea of a biblical lament and feel a need to bring that burden to God. A believer recognizes that God is loving, He is good, and He is sovereign. Even though these attributes sometimes seem contradictory, this is who God is in His character. We bring that tension before God as we wonder why He interacts with the world as He does. Lamenting is uniquely a Christian experience. Unbelievers can’t lament because they lack the foundational truths. Trusting in God’s sovereignty, His goodness, and His promises in the face of evil provides the framework for lament.

Selah:

1. In the perceived silence of God, how do we demonstrate that we trust His perfect plan? 

2. What burdens you personally? What will you do about it?

3. What have you learned about lamenting from the first four verses of Habakkuk?