Habakkuk, a Minor Prophet

   How would you like being considered as "a minor prophet"?  Habakkuk was.  We concluded his short three chapter book this Monday.
   Minor means small or short, as are the last dozen books of the Old Testament.  Each is attributed to a different individual.  The longest is fourteen chapters, the shortest is just one, but most, like Habakkuk, are between three and four. 
   A prophet is someone who foretells, or proclaims the meaning of past, present and future events, as revealed by God.  The world is full of people hoping to tell us about the future, like economists.   Even ancient Israel had its schools of prophets, hopeful wannabees, who often believed it was better to tell people what they wanted to hear, rather than what God wanted them to hear.  In the Old Testament, however, these last twelve books are small time tellers of big time truths.


   Habakkuk is a good example.  We know next to nothing about him, except that he wrote during the height of Babylonian power, the decade between 608 and 598 B.C.  He speaks on behalf of the people of Israel who are crying out for deliverance:
   "O Lord, how long shall I cry to for help,
        and thou wilt not hear,
    Or cry to Thee 'Violence!',
       and Thou wilt not save?"
He also speaks on behalf of God, reminding them that these cruel invaders are nevertheless His instruments, surely not a welcome piece of information:
   "For lo, I am arousing the Chaldeans,
       that bitter and hasty nation,
   Who march through the breadth of the earth,
       to seize habitations not their own."


Habakkuk speaks also for himself, as a watchman waiting for news.
He has a word of warning:  "Behold, he whose soul is not upright shall fail;" 
And he has also a word of comfort: "But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness."
Was that a word worth waiting for?
   Paul thought so. 
In his letter to the Romans it is the gospel in a nutshell. (Ch. vs. 17)
In his letter to the Galatians it sounds the note of spiritual freedom. (Ch. 3, vs. 11)
In the epistle to the Hebrews it is a word of encouragement to persevere to the end. (Ch. 10, vs. 39)


Habakkuk finishes with a  hymn, addressed "to the Choirmaster with stringed instruments":
    "God the Lord, is my strength;
      He makes my feet like hinds feet,
      He makes me tread upon my high places."  Ch. 3, vs. 19
Are your feet secure on your high places?  This Hebrew prophet has scaled some pretty dizzying heights to give us a perspective, a glimpse, into the working of God's hand.  With him, we are like tightrope walkers, conscious of the awful abyss of destruction all around us, seemingly one misstep away, yet with our eyes on the hope set before us.  Habakkuk reminds us that the righteous shall live by his vision of God, if we can keep still enough to see it.
   "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge for the glory of the Lord,
        as the waters cover the sea."


Habakkuk's is a big message for a small book.
Some prophet!