See ye among the nations, and behold, and wonder marvellously; for [I] work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be declared [to you].
The prophet has just cried out over violence and twisted justice. God answers — but not with rescue. He points to a work of His own, so staggering that His people will not believe it when they hear of it.
The prophet had been staring at the wreckage around him. God's reply redirects his eyes.
In Habakkuk's day the people of God had fallen, and the nations were marked by violence and corruption. In the middle of these evils God calls the prophet to look at His solemn work of judgment. Behind all that was taking place among men, God was working. The man of God is to look beyond the works of men to see the work of God.
God's answer also replies to the prophet's earlier cry that God does not save.
Here we find the answer to the prophet's question. It is not aimed at him, but at the wicked ones he had complained about. They had better "see among the nations" and observe with amazement how the Lord would repay their deeds. … At the same time, the prophet received an answer to his cry: "I cry to You, 'Violence!' and You will not save." By this the Lord showed His servant that if He did not deliver the righteous from the violence of the wicked, it is because they will soon be chastised by Him.
The command to look outward has a point. The blow forming among the nations will land on Judah.
The Lord speaks and answers the complaint of His servant. He is going to raise up the Chaldeans to chastise His wayward people. The meaning is that they — the faithless ones among the Jews — should look around among the nations. They would see how the storm would gather and finally break over the head of the house of Judah. He would work a judgment work, which they would not believe. It would be an event without parallel, amazing and terrible.
The order to look "among the nations" carries a sting. God ranks His own people with the pagans. Their unbelief will prove that is where they belong.
He challenges His people as "heathen." That is what they would prove themselves to be, by refusing to believe the work He Himself planned to do among them. He counts their circumcision as uncircumcision. The apostle, quoting this word from our prophet, calls them "despisers" (Acts 13:41). So the Lord first follows the story of Israel's sins, which the prophet had been listing. Then He looks ahead to their great crowning, closing sin — the rejection of His word and work through unbelief.
The verse is not an isolated warning. It sets the theme of everything that follows.
So much the worse for the Jew if he did not believe what God made known to him beyond all the world. … We see that every chapter throughout the prophecy has for its kernel the folly of unbelief and the value of faith. The apostle Paul quoted this among the Jews, when they were in danger of letting the blessing slip because of its very greatness.
Paul draws a parallel between two works of God, both refused.
God's people were in such a low state that they would not believe God's testimony to His own work. They refused to see God's hand behind the enemies He was using to chastise them. We know that the apostle quotes this passage when preaching the gospel at Antioch. There he announced the grace of God that proclaims forgiveness through Christ, and that all who believe are justified from all things. Then at once he quotes Habakkuk. He warns them not to despise this work of grace through unbelief, as their forefathers had despised God's work of judgment through unbelief.
What God did in Paul's day was a different kind of work.
God did the work, and it was not judgment. The apostle announced the great salvation first to the Jews. If they despised it, and so proved to be despisers, he would turn to the Gentiles.
The verse reaches beyond the invasion it announced.
Paul's use of it shows that God had more in mind when He spoke these words than His dealings in judgment through the Chaldean. It is in Christ that these words find their real fulfilment. He is the One that God always has in view, whatever the work to which He puts His hand may be.
- Look up. God answers the prophet's complaint about violence with a command: look past men's works to His.
- Look out. The nations are the stage: the Chaldeans are the instrument God is raising to chastise His own people.
- Look at yourselves. God calls His own people "heathen." Unbelief erases the line between them and the pagans.
- Look forward. Paul quotes the verse in Acts 13. There the work is no longer judgment but forgiveness through Christ.
- Look to Christ. Whether the work is judgment or grace, God has Christ in view.
For behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation, which marcheth through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs.
Habakkuk had just complained to God about the wrongdoing among His own people. God's answer names the instrument He is about to use: the Chaldeans, the rising power of Babylon. The shock is not that judgment is coming. It is who will carry it — a foreign power more brutal than the people it will punish.
God claims the action as His. The Chaldeans do not rise on their own; He raises them. One writer traces what God was breaking down, and how far He would let the invaders go:
The prophet hears from the LORD that He was going to raise up the Chaldeans. Everyone knew this was the judgment then close at hand. But it is far from all that awaits the Jew in this way… They were plunderers whom God used in His providence to break down Judah's turning away from Him, and also to chastise the pride of other nations… God allowed the Chaldean scourge to prevail for a certain time. But they forgot that He was using them to deal with those who had offended His name and glory. They credited their power to their own god instead of to God's sovereign will. Then the true God would take them in hand.
God can use a nation without approving it. Nothing good in these people drew Him to them:
The Lord took care that the prophet would learn another lesson. When He raised up the Chaldeans it was not because He had discovered any spiritual or moral good in them. Rather the contrary; they were a cruel nation. How could God ever appreciate this? They were hasty, striking first in attack. They advanced over the breadth of the earth and conquered the countries of the world. They took possession of inhabited regions that were not theirs.
Seizing homes that belong to others marks a people who accept no rule but their own appetite:
This nation of the Chaldeans is described as a bitter and hasty nation, marked by cruelty and violence. With aggressive energy they marched through the earth to seize dwellings not their own. Their acts of terror spread fear and dread. In them they were a law to themselves, with no respect for the customs of the nations. They had sunk below the level of natural men. So wild and fierce animals picture the inhuman cruelty with which they would prey upon the nations.
If God will not tolerate sin in His own people, how can He hand them over to a nation whose sin is worse? One writer sums up the book's answer:
Habakkuk complains of the sin of God's people. He then develops the chastening that will fall on them. Those still more wicked than they will carry it out — the Chaldeans. Because they give free rein to their violence, they become in their turn objects of the judgment of the LORD. But God will show His glory and His righteousness in both the one and the other, pictures of the Jewish people and of the world.
With this announcement, rule itself passes out of Jewish hands into Gentile ones:
At that moment the Assyrian power had not yet fallen. The Lord would, however, raise up the Chaldean. He would put the other nations under this power, and His own people first of all… There was a still more terrible judgment. The Lord would take the kingdom from Israel and give it to Babylon, to "the golden head" of the Gentile empire.
The Chaldean invasion was not the last word. Commentators read it as a preview:
Here, as in the explanation of every prophecy, it is important to see that the near judgment by the Chaldeans foreshadowed a future judgment.
- Raised, not risen. God says, "I am raising up" — the invading army is His act, not an accident of history that caught Him off guard.
- Raised without merit. The nation He raises is cruel and grasping. Usefulness to God is never a certificate of goodness.
- Raised against His own. The rod falls first on His people for their turning away, and then on the pride of the surrounding nations.
- Raised, then judged. The Chaldeans give free rein to their violence, so they too fall under judgment. God shows His righteousness in both.
- Raised, and rule changes hands. God takes the kingdom from Israel and gives it to Babylon, the golden head. That near judgment pictures a greater one still ahead.