For the true story, see the book of Habakkuk.
I stood on the wall of Lachish this morning and watched the sunrise. It was a beautiful sight: the star-filled sky gradually lightening from black to grey and the wispy clouds becoming fingers of pink, spreading across the sky, slowly turning to orange and then gold. Finally, the sun rose as a ball of fire, surging above the horizon and beginning its steady march across the sky.
Yet all the beauty of the sight could not distract me from the horror of last night. It was the culmination of all that I have been seeing is wrong with our nation. Josiah is a good king, yet the nation he rules is infested with evil. Maybe if he lived here in Lachish, the scenes that occur on a daily basis would not be seen – but he is in Jerusalem, and there is much that goes on behind his back, away from the capital, that he knows nothing about.
When he began his well-known attempts to lead his nation back to the worship of Yahweh, there was support for his aims. People joined him in his efforts. The eighteenth year of his reign was a time of joyful reform. Many from all over Judah and even the desolated places in Israel attended his reading of the Book of the Law. Even more attended that great Passover feast and I’m sure that Josiah considered it a watershed moment. Surely the direction of the nation had
changed!
But it wasn’t long before the enthusiasm of the people for godliness began to wane, and as a nation, we soon drifted back to our old ways. Maybe things are even worse. Josiah can enforce some things all over the country, and often appearances are kept up to satisfy him, but his influence outside of Jerusalem is limited. So we have a good king, but an evil nation.
I have been praying fervently about this, but nothing improves.
Last night was just another example of how bad things are. I work as a watchman for the city[1] and had just come on duty when the first incident happened.
There were three men sitting in the market area who were obviously drunk. Another man went to walk past nearby and the three drunken men began to abuse him. From what they all said, I guessed that the fourth man was a neighbour of one of the three and that there was no love lost between them. Sneers and curses began to flow freely, and soon the three drunks attacked the lone man and beat him up. Before long he was lying senseless on the ground and the three were back to
their drinking. It had all happened too quickly for me to go and interfere, and I wasn’t sure that I should be leaving my post anyway.
As darkness fell I kept a bit of an eye on the group and noticed that they kept kicking their victim from time to time and that he didn’t seem to be recovering consciousness. After a while, I told one of my mates who was on duty with me that I was going to check on something, and climbed down the steps into the market area. Crossing to the drunken trio, I asked them about the man they had attacked. One laughingly told me that he was still asleep and that maybe the sleep would
teach him some manners. The others laughed uproariously as if he had told a hilarious joke, and one took the opportunity to kick the fallen man once more.
“Stop it!” I said, angrily.
They looked at me in surprise and even anger, but drew back when they saw that I was a member of the watch, and armed.
I knelt down beside the victim in the gloom and saw that the back of his head had been crushed and a rock lay near his head. Presumably as he lay unconscious, one of them had found the rock nearby and idly dropped it on his head, killing him.
“You’ve murdered him,” I said, a little shocked.
“Oh, it was just what he deserved,” one answered.
“Everyone has to die sometime,” laughed another.
“Better him than me,” mumbled the third.
There was nothing I could do, so I climbed back to the top of the wall and found the captain of the guard. I reported what had happened and that I was willing to be a witness against these men for what I had seen of the attack.
“Don’t worry about it, Habakkuk. I’ll organise for the body to be collected, but it’s not likely to come to court. Drunken brawls take people off every day, and as often as not, the people who die deserve it.”
“But sir,” I protested, “these men verbally abused a man, then attacked him, three against one. And while he was unconscious, one of them killed him. That’s not a drunken brawl, it’s most likely to be murder!”
“Look, we don’t have time to settle every dispute in the city, or to protect fools who get themselves in trouble. This isn’t Jerusalem, you know.”
I argued unsuccessfully for a while before being told to shut up and get back to my post.
I might not have been so upset if this had been an isolated incident, but I had witnessed or heard of many such over the past two or three years. It had become quite common, and nobody was willing to do anything about it. Whenever I complained to my captain or to the judges, I was either ignored or shouted down.
As it turned out, that was just the first incident for the night. It wasn’t much later that I heard screams from below. They were muffled and sounded as if they came from inside one of the houses next to the market. A man’s shouts mingled with the screams – probably one of the domestic arguments that are common in that area. Once again I wondered: what should I do? I had a job to do and I couldn’t be constantly leaving the wall to settle minor disputes. As I
hesitated, the shouting and screaming continued, growing even louder.
Suddenly, a door opened and a woman burst out into the square, followed at a run by a man carrying a heavy stick. I won’t report their words; suffice it to say that they were threatening, blasphemous and altogether vile. There wasn’t much light down there in the square, but I hurried down to see if I could help. After the earlier death, I didn’t want another on my watch. I drew my sword and quickly grabbed a torch that hung against the wall before running towards the
sounds. By the time I arrived, the man had caught the woman and thrown her to the ground where she lay helpless as he hit at her with his stick. The darkness probably saved her, but I also shouted to distract him and struck at his stick with my sword as he raised it again to strike.
“Stop it!” I commanded once more.
I won’t go into all the details of that encounter either. My attack made the man drop his cudgel and he was very angry about that. He was also angry that I had interrupted him in the middle of his legitimate business: beating his wife.
The long and the short of it was that, when I helped his wife to her feet and asked her if she needed any help or protection, she spat in my face.
What could I do? They walked off together and I left them to settle their dispute in their own way – but how could that ever be right? That incident I didn’t bother reporting to my boss.
The night wore on and I was left to watch over the wall in the moonless blackness that makes the job of a watchmen particularly stressful. During such nights, you avoid turning to look back into the city because the slightest light of a fire will steal away your hard-earned night vision, leaving you completely blind.
In those conditions, even with night vision, a horde of heavily armed warriors could easily skulk in the shadows without ever being seen. And last night there was a gentle breeze blowing that made enough noise to mask any muffled sounds that a careful horde might make. Yes, on those nights you see shadows moving, and imagine all sorts of terrifying threats.
At times like that, it is my faith in God that keeps me strong, but my faith has been shaken a little by the senseless evil that I see so much of in the city. My prayers have long been full of entreaties to God asking him to deal with the iniquity and violence that are so prevalent.
Last night, I was edgy and worried.
By the end of the second watch of the night I was longing for my replacement to come, as I was due to have a rest during the third watch. I waited and waited, then finally made my way to the command room. As I entered, the captain looked up at me and snarled, “What do you want?”
Now the captain and I generally get on alright, although he doesn’t like my attitudes or my beliefs, but at that point he was obviously angry.
“Where is my replacement?” I asked.
“There,” he said, pointing to a huddled pile of clothes that lay behind a table a small distance from him.
“What happened?”
“He tried to blackmail me. Me! The captain of the guard!”
“And what did you do?”
“I ran him through with my sword.”
“Was that necessary? Did he attack you?”
“No. But he deserved what he got. Threatening me!”
So I didn’t get my break. Instead, I had to explain to my boss why I didn’t like what he had done. I kept very alert while I did so and didn’t turn my back on him for an instant. Then I went back on watch.
And there you have it. Three incidents of unjustified violence in a night, and an undercurrent of evil that filled me with horror.
By the time sunrise came, I was tired and very upset, desperate to find somewhere to hide so that I could complain to God. As soon as I was relieved, I went home and began to pray:
“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law is paralysed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.”[2]
I’m afraid that all of my worry and discontent forced their way into the prayer and it ended up nothing more than a complaint about how God runs the world. After all, he told us in the Book of the Law that evil people would be punished, yet here the city was filled with evil – evil people who prospered.
I didn’t really expect God to answer me when I complained to him, but he did.
“Look among the nations, and see;” he said,
“wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”[3]
His words left me speechless. I couldn’t believe that I was really understanding them. Was God really saying that he was going to send the Chaldeans to attack and punish his people for the evils I was complaining about? Surely that was like sending an assassin to punish a petty thief or using a sledgehammer to squash a moth!
I decided that I would not be hasty, but must consider God’s answer carefully to make sure that I really understood it. I even began to wonder whether perhaps I don’t understand God as well as I’ve always thought I do.
Notes
[1] We do not know for sure what Habakkuk did as a job, however, after his second complaint, he talks about going to stand on his watch post on the tower (Habakkuk 2:1).
[2] Habakkuk 1:2-4
[3] Habakkuk 1:5-11
