Habakkuk, a prophet of unknown origin and obscure circumstances, is often overshadowed by more familiar Israelite prophets. Isaiah’s exquisite poetry inspired Handel’s Messiah. Hosea’s painful personal history as metaphor for Israel’s relationship with God, Amos’ sharp condemnations of meaningless piety, and Jeremiah’s eloquent indictment of corruption resonate until this day.
 
Yet Habakkuk stands fully in the tradition of classical Hebrew prophecy. Pronouncing God’s judgment on a people blind to God’s justice, perhaps his greatest contribution is not his oracles against a wicked nation, but the questions he addresses to God.  Habakkuk denounces violence, greed, idolatry, and cruelty in powerful language, but his suffering is palpable when he beseeches God, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and thou wilt not hear?  Or cry to thee, ‘Violence!’ and thou wilt not save?”

Chapter one makes it clear that Habakkuk lives in a world mired in violence, and it isn’t only Israel’s enemies who are bent on destruction.  Israel itself is no better; “the wicked surround the righteous so justice goes forth perverted.”  Imagine Habakkuk’s astonishment when God announces that God will use the Chaldeans, a nation even more violent and corrupt to punish Israel. When God moves from silence to action it is even more disturbing. Why does God not simply punish the wicked and bless the righteous?  Why would God use violence to punish violence?

It is a troubling question, one we would rather not ask. Certainly Habakkuk strains against the inscrutability of God. But Habakkuk fearlessly asks the question, and we must join him in seeking the answer.  Why does God not stop the violence in our world? Habakkuk believes that God has the power and the compassion to act: “Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing; why do you look on the treacherous, and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” 

The answer comes in the form of paradox. If the Chaldeans are ready to go to war, then God will use them to show Israel that evil cannot sustain itself.  Rather than stopping the violence, God will use it to instill within Israel a fundamental truth: evil is overcome by faithfulness to God.  “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.”  God will act in God’s own time, and those who live by faith will know that divine intent cannot be thwarted by the machinations of humankind.

The wisdom of Habakkuk reminds me of  Bobby Kennedy’s favorite quotation which he received in a book given to him by Jacqueline Kennedy after John F. Kennedy was shot: ‘“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” 

By Rev. Rachel R. Smith, Chaplain, Vigils Against Violence, Raleigh; Board of Directors, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence