Habakkuk opens by pointing out that injustice runs rampant in Israel, and calling on God to faithfully enforce God's law and end unrighteousness. God responds by saying God will punish Israel by letting the Chaldeans conquer Israel. A baffled Habakkuk questions God, noting that the Chaldeans are a wicked people. The Chaldeans build their nation by conquering and dominating other peoples. They do not worship God. In fact,
[T]heir justice and authority originate with themselves (1:7)...[and their] strength is their god (1:11) [The Chaldeans] bring all of them [other nations and people groups] up with a hook...and gather them in their fishing net. Therefore, they [Chaldeans] rejoice and are glad. They offer a sacrifice to their net Because through these things their catch is large, and their food is plentiful. Will they therefore empty their net and continually slay nations without sparing?" (Hab. 1:15-17).In other words, the Chaldeans are unworthy of God's blessing because they built their nation on conquering other peoples. In modern language, the reference to Chaldeans "offering a sacrifice to their net" means they set up a military-industrial complex, devoting public funds to an ever-expanding and dominant weapons and war-dependent industry. Questioning God's supposed commitment to justice, Habakkuk asks, "will they empty their net and continually spare nations without sparing?" In other words, "how long will you let them get away with this, God?!"
This parallels the United States in obvious ways. White colonists and Americans built this nation on the conquest of other peoples and theft of their resources. A quick rundown: genocide of Native Americans and theft of their land. Every inch of the U.S. is stolen land. Then, the theft of African peoples and theft of their labor and humanity of their lives (i.e. American slavery). Later, the violent conquering of Mexicans (remember what happened after the Alamo?) and theft of Mexican land (from which I write this blog). Finally, the coercive domination of Asian immigrants (initially limiting Asian immigration to men, which denied immigrants access to their families and the opportunity to make families here; Europe's global reach made Asian immigration to the U.S. barely semi-voluntary).
Like Babylon, the U.S. "offers sacrifices to its net" in the form of the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about. If you haven't already, please watch the movie, Why We Fight. You will learn that weapons-producing companies placed parts of their businesses in every congressional district so that they can strong-arm Congress into steadily increasing military spending by claiming that any cut in spending is a "threat to jobs." No congressperson is safe from that critique. You might also notice that the most authoritative news programs (e.g. "Meet the Press") are sponsored by Boeing, which makes military planes. You cannot give news that challenges the need for war if weapons-producers are your primary sponsors. The people of the United States cannot make informed decisions about wars if they only hear from the weapons-producing industry.
God responds to Habakkuk's complaint by assuring him that God is just and will punish nations who behave like the Chaldeans. Consider God's answer in Habakkuk Chapter 2:
Write down the vision and make it plain...For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end, and will not prove false (2:2-3)....Because he [arrogant nations like the Chaldeans] is as greedy as the grave and is never satisfied, he gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples. Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying "Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on? Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim. Because you have plundered many nations, the people who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man's blood, you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
This is a stark warning to Americans. Even the child molester and slaver, Thomas Jefferson, understood this point:
For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference for that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as it depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his miserable condition on the generations preceding from him....And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed from their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference (Notes on the State of Virginia Query XIV).
Jefferson, like Nebuchadnezzar, had brief moments of sanity in which he recognized God's justice and his own condemnation. In his only book, Jefferson both advocates for slavery and anticipates God's wrath on the country for this (and I would add more) injustice. Americans must learn these lessons and engage in social justice now before God is required to honor God's word and exact justice. I am afraid that Americans will follow their founding father's example. Habakkuk and Jefferson call to us from the grave, telling us to pursue justice. Hopefully, we will not be like the brothers of the tortured rich man. The rich man, a former oppressor suffering in hell, was denied even temporary work-release from his jail because Abraham realized that no message would convince his fellow oppressors to abandon oppression. As Abraham said, "They have the law and the prophets...If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."
We, the church and body of the living God, are those who are supposedly convinced by one who rose from the dead. We must demonstrate our faith by turning from oppression to social justice, and pray God and those we have oppressed grant us mercy. Let us heed and make true the words that another prophet, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached 45 years ago this week: "How long will prejudice bind the vision of men....How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?....It will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sew."
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