Very little, well virtually nothing is known about Habakkuk. In terms of the Biblical scene, he appears by personal proclamation and introduction, he’s with us for 3 chapters, and then he is gone. We don’t know who he is, where he is from, when he lived or where he lived. We can however draw some loose conclusions based on the content of his book. For example, the last sentence in this book is interesting. Sounds almost like a Psalm. Habakkuk writes, “To the Chief Musician. With my stringed instruments.” Most commentators speculate that he could have been a priest as many of the priests provided music in the temple.

Most agree that he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Zephaniah because he talks about the moral and righteous decline of Israel and God speaks of the coming invasion of the Babylonians…that would put this book sometime shortly after 600 BC…but the exact time, we just can’t be sure.

What we can be sure of is what we have and that is a conversation of sorts between Habakkuk and God where Habakkuk is essentially crying to God because of the violence and wickedness that had become his people. He really doesn’t hold back either…in some places he is so blunt with God that after he says his piece he outright expects correction…knows he is a mess…but at the same time…he’s just real with God.

And I like that. We have got to be real with God BUT we also cannot lose sight of the fact that in every situation, God is right and we are not. Make sense? God is never .01% wrong, ever. He is holy, righteous, worthy and all mighty and yes we are to make our issues known and the out-pouring of our hearts He desires to hear, but just remember in all of that…He is good. We get into trouble sometimes as we lay everything out in front of Him in all of its carnal glory and forget that He is holy…in the name of being real…

Habakkuk gets real with God but at the same time, he expects and in a way, is asking for correction. He’s not storming the throne room of heaven to get his own way…he’s banging on the door of the Father’s house to discover God’s heart…there’s a major difference in those two situational scenes…they look the same but the question is, where is your heart…and who is the One who is understood to be right from the get-go?

Habakkuk literally means, “Wrestler,” or, “Embracer.” That is the literal interpretation of his name and what we see is that he begins wrestling with God and he ends by worshipping God. A good indication that his approach of God, (although very real and very blunt), was cast correctly in his heart. That he embraced the truth about who God is…and trusted Him for who He is well before what He does. He wrestled for sure but all the while he embraced in his heart that God is good, and even in a time of desperation (as we will see) it was him that was confused and conflicted and he knew it…

Habakkuk Chapter 1 Verses 1 – 4

• Habakkuk opens the conversation with God and it’s heavy from the start. He calls it his, “burden.” What do you do with a burden? You lift it! He’s not accusing God of perpetual inaction. He trusts God. He knows that God will act. The key is in his first four words…, “O Lord, how long…” He is lifting this up to God and very interesting, his main issue seems to be the justice system.
• Chuck talked about this a lot in his teaching on this chapter. The fact that when a nation turns it back on God, one of the first things to go is the judicial system. Laws that enable wickedness and Habakkuk cries out to the Lord that it’s gotten so bad that the the law of God is regarded as powerless and the wicked greatly out-number the righteous in terms of leadership such that perverse judgment is across the land. Sounds quite familiar.

Habakkuk Chapter 1 Verse 5

• (How many times are we told by God to watch?) Now this is cool because what we’re walking into now is God’s reply. Habakkuk has lifted his heart to God and now God will reply to him. And I want you to know that God will speak to you whenever you pick up your smartphone and dial Him up. He can be found right in that Bible app. He speaks every day to us through His Word if we would allow Him to…and when we are diligent and orderly and disciplined in calling Him, that’s when He speaks the clearest…
• And I love what He says here…He is so comforting. He could have just said, “I’ma get to it, bro!” But what He says is so much more…something that you and I can hold onto in our tough seasons and tough days and tough weeks…that as we do not allow the judicial system of our own hearts to become perverse that God’s promise is that He will work it out and it will be so good, that if He told us today what He’s gonna do, we would scarcely believe Him!

Habakkuk Chapter 1 Verses 6 – 11

• Habakkuk wanted to know when judgment would come against what Israel had become. And so God tells him, there’s a nation out there that can utterly wipe out Israel. And I’m not going to stop them…and many use this response from God to place Habakkuk as a survivor of King Josiah’s reign. During his reign between 640 and 609 BC, there was a great revival in Israel…they found the law while renovating the temple and read it and Josiah turned the nation back to God (Josiah was the last of the Davidic line until Jesus)…but then after him arose Johoahaz who reigned for 3 months, Jehoiakim who reigned for 11 years and Johoiachin who reigned for 3 months and they were all wicked…turning the nation away from God and it was during the reign of Johoiachin that Babylon conquered Israel…And God says here, “I will work a work in your days…”

• This is no doubt hard for Habakkuk to hear or understand so I love this, he falls back on what he does understand…

Habakkuk Chapter 1 Verses 12 – 17

• It’s a great response and continuance to the conversation…Habakkuk is confused and yet he will not turn from what he knows to be true of God…rather he searches…and his heart is so right as we consider the beginning of the next chapter in preparation for our next study…