So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.
Habakkuk looks at his own nation and sees justice jammed. The law has no grip, and verdicts come out backwards. His complaint raises a question many believers ask: why does God let evil run wild among the people who bear His name?
Evil inside the house of God
The prophet's pain is not that the world is wicked. It is that the wickedness is at home.
Hamilton SmithIn the opening verses we learn the prophet's anguish of soul as he confesses to the LORD the low condition of the people of God. His spirit is troubled, not simply by the wickedness of the nations, but because of the evil among the people of God. That circle should have shown gentleness and righteousness, peace and harmony. Instead he sees violence and corruption, strife and contention.
The place of the sin, not the sin itself, was the sting.
William KellyThere was iniquity in the very place where righteousness might have been looked for. It was among the people of God, and this weighed on him all the more. That the Gentiles should be wicked was no wonder; that the Jews should be so was a deep trouble to his soul.
A law with no power
The law is "paralyzed" — older translations read "powerless." God gave it for a purpose, and that purpose is now blocked.
H. L. Rossier"Therefore the law is powerless." The purpose of the law, earlier given by the Lord Himself, was to break the will of man. Man should have learned to apply "justice" under the protection of the law. But it "never goes forth." On the contrary, "the wicked surround the righteous." Take special note of that phrase, "the righteous." We meet it again in chapter 2.
The failure is not in the standard but in those who hold it. They still have God's word. They will not use it.
Hamilton SmithHe also sees that there is no power among the people of God to deal with the evil. They fail to use the word of God. He has to admit that "the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth." The wicked have the upper hand, so any judgments they reach are wrong or perverted.
Judgment that comes out crooked
The verse ends worse than it began. Justice is not just delayed. When it speaks at last, it says the opposite of what it should.
H. L. RossierHow can it be that "justice never goes forth"? And when judgment does come, why is it "perverted" — the opposite of what a God-fearing, righteous soul would expect? No matter where the faithful believer turns, everywhere he meets injustice and ungodliness.
Rossier follows that crooked verdict to its worst point: the nation's trial of its own Messiah.
H. L. RossierThe nation had neither known the Lord Jesus nor understood the voice of the prophets who had announced Him. Worse: it had condemned its Messiah and in doing so had fulfilled what Habakkuk had said of them: "justice goes forth perverted" (1:4).
Who the "righteous" are
The verse names the group being hemmed in: "the righteous." So who counts?
H. L. RossierThe Lord would soon answer. Meanwhile, the righteous one can only conclude what God has seen ever since sin entered the world. Apart from those who have been justified through faith, there is not one righteous person in this world.
The New Testament reaches back to this same prophet to prove that no one is put right with God by keeping the law.
A. Pridham"Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" This quotation is taken from a prophet who was no lawgiver like Moses. In his day he mourned to see the law utterly disgraced, as all his fellow prophets did in theirs. He turned for salvation to his holy One, whose word of gracious promise would not always delay (Hab. 1:3-4; 2:1-4).
From complaint to vision
Habakkuk does not swallow his confusion or broadcast it. He carries it to God, and that is what changes everything.
H. P. BarkerHabakkuk's confusion led him to cry to the LORD. He came into His presence to ask Him about the things he mourned over. As a result, he got a wonderful view of the day of Christ. He learned what God's path was for His people until that day should come. In this way he learned the secret of how to overcome. To sight and sense his age was dark indeed. But to faith it was bright with the golden light of promises that fixed heart and hope on One who was yet to come.
Summary
- Where — the grief is not the world's wickedness. It is violence and strife inside the circle that should have shown peace and righteousness.
- Why — the law has not failed. God's people refuse to use His word, so they have no power to deal with the evil.
- How far — justice does not just stall. It reverses. That same perverted judgment reached its peak when the nation condemned its own Messiah.
- Who — "the righteous" surrounded here are those justified through faith. Apart from them, no one on earth is righteous.
- What next — the confusion is not the end. Habakkuk carried it into God's presence, and it opened a view of the day of Christ and taught him how to overcome in a dark age.