Habakkuk 1:1-11
The violence of the wicked around Habakkuk permeated Judah. Not only this, but the organs of justice had also become tainted. “Violence” means general ethical wrong-doing of which physical attack is only one meaning. The word is used six times in Habakkuk, fourteen times in the Psalms, and seven times in the Proverbs to mean all kinds of wrong-doing. In Habakkuk’s complaint is the tension of unanswered prayer.
How long? Why? Three pairs of descriptors are used in the text to paint the wickedness that Habakkuk witnessed in Judah: Injustice/Wrong, Destruction/Violence, and Strife/Conflict. Each pair commonly appears together throughout the Old Testament. The first is sometimes translated as Evil/Trouble and is used most frequently in situations of perverted justice and social oppression, the dual focus of Habakkuk’s complaint to God. The second pair, Destruction/Violence, is also associated with injustice toward the oppressed. The third pair, Strife/Conflict, refers to the anger that boils over due to conflicting wills and factionalism. In contrast to all these are “law” and “justice.”
Law is more than a legal list of proscriptions; the word also means instruction, guidance. The knowledge of God’s truth is what Habakkuk longs to see around him. Justice is the application of that knowledge.
Habakkuk wrestles in the chasm between past blessings and current trials, just as we often do.
God’s response, 1:5-11, is that the Babylonians will be the rod of correction against the wickedness of Judah. Habakkuk was to be amazed because God’s using the wicked Babylonians in this way contradicted all the beliefs, convictions, and expectations of Judah. To destroy Jerusalem was simply unimaginable. But it happened.
The Babylonian empire was defeated by the Persians in 539 BC, just a generation after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem.