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And cause me to behold grievance - עמל amal, labor, toil, distress, misery, etc., the common fruits of sin.
Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, and cause me to behold - , or rather, “Why beholdest Thou grievance?” God seemed to reverse what He had said by Balaam Numbers 23:21, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, and hath not seen grievousness in Israel”; and in the Psalms Psalm 10:14, “Thou hast seen, for thou (emphatic) beholdest grievousness and wrong, to put it in Thy hand,” i. e., Thou layest it up in Thy hand, to cast it back on the head of the evildoer. Now He seemed to behold it and leave it unpunished, which yet Habakkuk says to God below, He could not do Habakkuk 1:13; “Thou canst not look upon iniquity.” What then did this mean? What was the solution?
All forms and shapes of sin are multiplied; oppressive “violence”, such as “covered the earth” before the flood, and brought it down; which Nineveh had to put away Jonah 3:8, and it was spared; “iniquity,” i. e., what is unequal and contrary to truth, falsehood.
Grievance - literally, burdensome wearisome “toil”; “spoiling,” or open robbery; “strife and contention,” both through perversion of the law and, without it, through endless jarrings of man with man. Sin recoils on the sinner. So what he beholds is not “iniquity” only, but (in the same word) “vanity”; “grievance”; which is a burden both to him who suffers, and yet more to him who inflicts it. For nothing is so burdensome as sin, nothing so empty as wickedness. And while to him who suffers, the suffering is temporal, to him who inflicts it, it is eternal. And yet the prophet and whose prays against ungodliness, “must commiserate him who doth wrong yet more, since they hurt what is most precious, their own soul, and that eternally”. All then is full of evil. Wherever the prophet looks, some fresh violence is before him; it confronts him on every side; “strife hath arisen”, come up, exists where it was not before; “contention lifteth itself” on high, bowing down all beside.
These anxious questionings were voiced by the prophet Habakkuk. Viewing the situation of the faithful in his day, he expressed the burden of his heart in the inquiry: “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto Thee of violence, and Thou wilt not save! Why dost Thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? for spoiling and violence are before me: and there are that raise up strife and contention. Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment doth never go forth: for the wicked doth compass about the righteous; therefore wrong judgment proceedeth.” Habakkuk 1:2-4. PK 385.1
God answered the cry of His loyal children. Through His chosen mouthpiece He revealed His determination to bring chastisement upon the nation that had turned from Him to serve the gods of the heathen. Within the lifetime of some who were even then making inquiry regarding the future, He would miraculously shape the affairs of the ruling nations of earth and bring the Babylonians into the ascendancy. These Chaldeans, “terrible and dreadful,” were to fall suddenly upon the land of Judah as a divinely appointed scourge. Verse 7. The princes of Judah and the fairest of the people were to be carried captive to Babylon; the Judean cities and villages and the cultivated fields were to be laid waste; nothing was to be spared. PK 385.2
Confident that even in this terrible judgment the purpose of God for His people would in some way be fulfilled, Habakkuk bowed in submission to the revealed will of Jehovah. “Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?” he exclaimed. And then, his faith reaching out beyond the forbidding prospect of the immediate future, and laying fast hold on the precious promises that reveal God's love for His trusting children, the prophet added, “We shall not die.” Verse 12. With this declaration of faith he rested his case, and that of every believing Israelite, in the hands of a compassionate God. PK 386.1
Read in context »As the work advances, our publications in all languages should increase in circulation. Our presses are now at work in many lands, sending forth the truth in French, Danish, German, and many foreign languages. Let a spirit of harmony and unity prevail as the work is carried forward; we have no time for contention and strife. In every clime the truth is to go forth as a lamp that burneth. Let every reasoning mind have the privilege of hearing the truth for this time.—Manuscript 61, 1909. PM 395.3
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