Arguing with the Rock
Introduction: The Covenantal Lawsuit
We live in a soft age that has forgotten how to pray like a man. Our prayers are often sentimental, timid, and vague, as though we are approaching a distant and easily offended deity. We think piety means never asking hard questions. But the Bible is filled with saints who bring their complaints, their confusion, and their arguments directly into the throne room of God. Job did it. David did it. Jeremiah did it. And here, the prophet Habakkuk does it with breathtaking force.
Habakkuk is not whining. He is not shaking his fist in faithless rebellion. He is filing a covenantal lawsuit. He is taking God at His word and, on the basis of God's own revealed character, demanding to know how His present actions align with His perfect justice. This is not the prayer of a skeptic who stands outside the faith and lobs rocks at it. This is the prayer of a true believer who is standing on the Rock of God's character and finds that the ground is shaking. He is bewildered by God's providence, and so he argues with God from God's own nature.
The prophet's first complaint, earlier in the chapter, was that God was doing nothing about the wickedness in Judah. God's answer was terrifying. He was indeed doing something; He was raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation, to be His instrument of judgment. This answer, far from satisfying the prophet, plunged him into an even deeper theological crisis. It is one thing for God to discipline His people. It is quite another for Him to use a pack of bloodthirsty, idolatrous pagans to do it, a nation far more wicked than the people they were sent to judge. And so Habakkuk prays again, and this prayer is the foundation of our text today. It teaches us how to wrestle with God when His ways are inscrutable, not by abandoning our faith, but by driving our questions deeper into the very heart of who He has revealed Himself to be.
The Text
Are You not from everlasting, O Yahweh, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Yahweh, have placed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to reprove. Your eyes are too pure to see evil, And You cannot look on trouble. Why do You look On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they? And You have made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them. The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they are glad and rejoice. Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net And burn incense to their fishing net Because through these things their portion is rich And their food is fat. Will they therefore empty their net And continually kill nations without sparing?
(Habakkuk 1:12-17 LSB)
The Unshakable Premise (v. 12)
Habakkuk begins his argument not with his confusion, but with his convictions. He lays down the axioms, the non-negotiables of his faith.
"Are You not from everlasting, O Yahweh, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. You, O Yahweh, have placed them to judge; And You, O Rock, have established them to reprove." (Habakkuk 1:12)
This is how you argue with God. You start by agreeing with Him. You establish the common ground, which is God's own self-revelation. First, God is eternal. "Are you not from everlasting?" This God did not just show up. He is not a tribal deity who came into being. He is the Ancient of Days, the one who is, and was, and is to come. His plan is not improvised. Second, He is Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God. He is "my God," a personal relationship. He is "my Holy One," utterly separate from sin and morally perfect.
From this foundation, Habakkuk draws a crucial conclusion: "We will not die." This is a magnificent statement of faith in the midst of terror. He knows the Chaldeans are coming. He knows there will be bloodshed and exile. But he knows that God's covenant purpose for His people will not be ultimately thwarted. Judgment is coming, but not annihilation. This is chastisement, not destruction. God's promises are more durable than Babylon's armies.
Furthermore, he acknowledges God's absolute sovereignty over the situation. "You, O Yahweh, have placed them to judge." He doesn't see the Chaldeans as a random geopolitical event. He sees the hand of God. God ordained this. God established them. He calls God "O Rock," the foundation of Israel's stability and salvation. The paradox is that this Rock is now using this wicked nation to shake everything. Habakkuk's faith is not in his ability to understand the plan, but in the character of the Planner.
The Staggering Contradiction (v. 13)
Having established the premises, Habakkuk now presents the apparent contradiction. This is the heart of his lament.
"Your eyes are too pure to see evil, And You cannot look on trouble. Why do You look On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?" (Habakkuk 1:13)
He states another truth about God's character: "Your eyes are too pure to see evil." This is not a statement about God's omniscience, as though He is unaware of evil. Of course He sees it all. It means that God cannot look upon evil with any sense of approval, complicity, or indifference. His very nature is antithetical to sin. He is holy, holy, holy. To "look on trouble" or wickedness would be to endorse it, which is impossible for Him.
And here is the problem. "Why do You look on those who deal treacherously?" God seems to be doing the very thing His nature forbids. He is watching the treacherous Babylonians, and not just watching, but using them. He is silent while the wicked swallow up the "more righteous." Notice the careful language. Habakkuk is not claiming that Judah is righteous in any absolute sense. He knows they deserve judgment. His complaint is one of relative justice. How can a perfectly just God use a 20-pound sledgehammer of wickedness to discipline a 5-pound infraction of covenant unfaithfulness? How can the Holy One use the profane as His chosen instrument? This is a profound theological problem, and Habakkuk has the courage to ask it plainly.
The Idolatry of the Net (v. 14-16)
The prophet then describes the brutal reality of the Chaldean invasion and the blasphemous conclusion they draw from their success.
"And You have made men like the fish of the sea, Like creeping things without a ruler over them. The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook, Drag them away with their net, And gather them together in their fishing net. Therefore they are glad and rejoice." (Habakkuk 1:14-15)
When God uses a wicked instrument, the world is turned upside down. Men, who were made in God's image to have dominion, are reduced to fish. They are treated like a school of mindless creatures, indiscriminately hauled out of the sea. They are "without a ruler," meaning their true king, Yahweh, seems to have abandoned them to this chaos. The Chaldeans are ruthlessly efficient. They use hooks for individuals and nets for entire populations. And their success makes them happy. They are not reluctant instruments of justice; they are gleeful predators.
But their glee leads them directly into idolatry. This is the spiritual endpoint of all godless human success.
"Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net And burn incense to their fishing net Because through these things their portion is rich And their food is fat." (Habakkuk 1:16)
This is one of the most insightful critiques of paganism in all of Scripture. The Chaldeans do not worship God. They do not even worship false gods in this instance. They worship their own power. They worship the instruments of their success. The "net" represents their military might, their strategic brilliance, their economic power. Because their might makes them rich, their might becomes their god. This is the essence of secular humanism. Man worships the work of his own hands. We see this everywhere today. A nation trusts in its military hardware. A corporation trusts in its quarterly reports. An individual trusts in his portfolio or his intellect. We sacrifice our children, our time, and our integrity to the "net" that makes our portion rich and our food fat. It is the oldest idolatry, and it is the official religion of the modern world.
The Final Question (v. 17)
Habakkuk concludes his complaint with one final, urgent question for God.
"Will they therefore empty their net And continually kill nations without sparing?" (Habakkuk 1:17)
This is the question of limits. Will this go on forever? Will this instrument of judgment, this idolatrous net, be allowed to continue its rampage indefinitely? Is there no check on this evil? The prophet is asking God to vindicate His own holiness. A just God cannot allow His instrument of temporary judgment to become a permanent and unjudged evil. The rod of discipline must itself eventually be broken and thrown into the fire. Habakkuk is appealing to God's justice to be consistent. If Judah is judged for her sin, then surely Babylon must eventually be judged for hers, which is far greater.
Conclusion: Waiting for the Answer
Habakkuk does not receive an immediate answer. The chapter ends with his question hanging in the air. He resolves in the next verse to go up to his watchtower and wait to see what God will say. And the answer God gives him is the central theme of the book, and indeed the gospel itself: "the just shall live by his faith" (Hab. 2:4).
The ultimate answer to Habakkuk's agonizing question, "Why do you look on?" is found at the cross of Jesus Christ. At Golgotha, the perfectly pure eyes of God the Father looked upon the greatest evil the world has ever known. He watched as treacherous men, His instruments, tortured and murdered His only beloved Son. He was silent as the wicked swallowed up the only truly Righteous One.
Why did He look? Why was He silent? He did it so that the net of our sin and death could be torn to shreds. He used the ultimate act of treacherous evil to bring about the ultimate good of our salvation. The Chaldeans sacrificed to their net, the instrument of their power. At the cross, God sacrificed His Son so that we would stop trusting in our nets and trust only in Him.
Habakkuk's Rock, the Lord Jesus Christ, allowed Himself to be caught in the net, to be dragged away by the hook, for our sake. And because He was, we have the absolute assurance that every other wicked net, every arrogant empire, every idolatrous system that trusts in its own power, will one day be emptied for the last time and burned with unquenchable fire. Therefore, we do not trust the net. We trust the one who broke it.