Having just seen a rather cursory screed prophesying the downfall of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, in the Book of Nahum, we jump a few years into the future, in the 7th century BCE, to Habakkuk. I swear I’ve never heard of Habakkuk before. Then again, I haven’t really heard of most of these minor prophets. Twelve of them. Most of their “books” are only a couple of pages long. That’s not a book. It’s barely a short story. Back to Habakkuk. Other than this short, three page book, there is no evidence he ever existed. He’s not mentioned anywhere else, there’s no biographical data, and, I gather, although this is the oldest “book” found detailing his argument with God, apparently the same argument, just held by a different person, will show up in numerous places in the future – in the Dead Sea Scrolls a few hundred years later, and in a trio of Epistles in Christian writings (Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews). The overarching message, apparently, is that one can and should live by faith, alone.
- Look God, says Habakkuk, you keep threatening doom and destruction, you keep going on and on about the wicked ways of one or another people or nation. You rail and rant, and then you end up crying into your beer about overreacting, and you forgive everyone. And they know it’s going to happen, you can see it as they keep doing all the things you object to, laughing about it, because they know you’re not going to do shit, to put it bluntly. What gives?
- God appears to Habakkuk and says, look dude, write this down. He then launches into a litany of how he’s going to punish a nation for all their wicked ways, and he rants and rails, and then gradually winds down, with a did you get all that? I guess all Habakkuk has to do now is wait for him to repent his overreaction and forgive everyone. Job done, without having to even announce his prophecy. Also of note, this is the first prophet who God tells to write stuff down rather than memorize it.
- This third and last chapter/page is a psalm, including musical notations for how it is to be sung/played, that biblical scholars have concluded is copied from a later book of psalms and simply tacked on here to Habakkuk’s writings. It is attributed as a historical prayer by Habakkuk in the opening line. Basically, it’s a paean to a warrior god who will always come to protect the Jewish people, crushing their enemies, when they need it the most.