Bible Commentaries
James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
Habakkuk 1
BOLDNESS WITH GOD
‘O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear?’
Habakkuk 1:2
These are strong words to be spoken by saint to God. They are part of a whole context of similar strong words.
I. So strange a phenomenon has presented to many pious readers a distressing problem.—Hooker has elaborately vindicated Habakkuk from the charge of having committed the great sin of despair. But Habakkuk is not alone in the Bible with this startling appeal and protest. See Asaph’s similar problem in Psalms 73
II. What shall we say? That the God of the saints and prophets is a patient and generous God.—How notable is His long-suffering sympathy?
He respects man’s inability to see the whole meaning of a complex case, and to forecast its end.
III. So it is an encouragement to speak out to Him all that is in our burthened souls.—We are to come to the throne of grace with parrhesia, ‘boldness,’ telling out the very thought, unrelieved, exactly as it is. Habakkuk showed this parrhesia, and told out all his feelings. In our revealed nearness to God in Christ we can do the same. Feeling the bewilderment, yet ‘knowing Whom we have trusted.’
—Bishop H. C. G. Moule.
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