Study 3 From the Book of Habakkuk is: Habakkuk 3:1-15
Habakkuk prays that God will show Himself once again as long ago
(verses 1, 2), and then describes a vision of God coming to deliver His people.
Past, present and future are intermingled. God’s self-revelation in the past at
Sinai, at the Red Sea and at the entrance into Canaan are pictured under the
image of a thunderstorm rolling up from the south and breaking upon Palestine.
The same ‘Holy One’ is at work also in the present, and the tumults of the
nations are the tokens that He has come in judgment to work salvation for His
people.
1. Habakkuk
considered God’s working in the past with longing and fear (verses 1, 2). Do we
know such longing? Cf. Pss. 85:6; 143:5, 6; Is. 64: 1-3. Why was he afraid? Cf. Heb. 12:21, 28, 29.
2. The
poetry describes political upheavals. Cf. Is. 29:5-8. Yet, the poetry also is
full of God’s acts. How does this vision
teach us to regard the world-happenings of our own day? What is God’s purpose
through them? Cf. Ps. 74:12; Lk.
21:25-28.
Notes
1. Verse
3. ‘Terman’. ‘Mount Paran’: i.e., the region of Sinai.
2. Verse
4. Allusions to lightning and thick clouds.
3. Verse
8. The answer is found in verses 13-15.
