Habakkuk 3:6-7 - Homiletics

An ideal theophany: 2. The wonderful acts of the Deity.

I. MEASURING THE EARTH , AND DRIVING ASUNDER THE NATIONS .

1 . Measuring the earth ; i.e. either surveying it with his all-seeing glance whereat there is universal consternation (Fausset), or measuring it out among the peoples on its surface, as Joshua partitioned the Holy Land after its conquest among the tribes (Pusey). Both ideas are historically true, no Divine interposition of any magnitude occurring among earth's inhabitants without bringing with it to thoughtful minds a conviction that the hand and eye of God are at work, and leaving after it, as a result, a rearrangement of the map of the globe. The marginal reading, "shaking the earth," causing it to reel (Delitzsch, Keil), as David says it trembled on the occasion of Jehovah's coming down on Mount Sinai ( Psalms 68:8 ), presents also a valuable truth that the Divine providential government of the world, especially when it takes to deal with long established iniquity for the purpose of punishing and destroying the same, is calculated to inspire awe among earth's inhabitants ( Psalms 99:1 ), as it did when it broke the pride of Egypt ( Exodus 15:14 ), as it was to do when it overthrew the Chaldean power, and as it will do when it hurls the mystical Babylon to the abyss ( Revelation 18:19 ). This the thought contained in the parallel clause.

2 . Driving asunder the nations. "He beheld and drove asunder [or, 'made to tremble'] the nations." He so paralyzed them with fear that he drove them asunder, rendering combination amongst them impossible.

II. SCATTERING THE MOUNTAINS AND BOWING THE HILLS . Not the lesser heights of comparatively recent formation, but the primeval altitudes, whose hoary peaks have witnessed the passing by of millenniums, and whose roots go down amid the granite bars of the earth ( Psalms 90:2 ). These by his encampment on their summits he causes to crumble, resolve themselves into dust, and vanish into nought ( Nahum 1:5 ; Micah 1:4 ). The image may point to "the convulsions on Mount Sinai and to the earthquake which announced the descent of the Most High" (Adam Clarke), but it signifies the utter impossibility of even the strongest forces of nature, whether in matter or in man, resisting the advance of God, and that because his ways are older than even the everlasting hills ( Psalms 90:2 ) are the only things on earth to which everlastingness belongs. "The everlasting ways of the everlasting God are mercy and truth" (St. Bernard, quoted by Pusey).

III. TERRIFYING THE HEATHEN AND PUNISHING THE ADVERSARIES OF HIS PEOPLE .

In prophetic vision Habakkuk beheld the impression made upon the neighbouring nations through which Jehovah passed on his march from Teman to the Red Sea—the Cushites or African Ethiopians on the west "in affliction;" and the Midianites towards the east, "trembling." A different interpretation makes Cushan the Mesopotamian king, Chushan-Rishathaim, who oppressed Israel eight years in the time of the Judges ( 3:8-10 ), and Midian the last enemy who seduced Israel into sin when on the borders of the promised land ( Numbers 25:17 ), and came up against them after they had settled in it ( 6:4-11 ). In this case the prophet selects the judgments executed upon these—upon the first by Othniel, upon the second by Gideon—as typical of the inflictions that would fall upon Jehovah's enemies at his future coming.

Learn:

1. The sovereignty of God over men and kings.

2 . The duty and wisdom of recognizing God's hand in the movements of nations and in the phenomena of nature.

3 . The impossibility of defeating the ultimate realization of God's purposes, whether of judgment or of mercy.