Daily Devotional | Using Evil to Judge Evil?

When I was a kid, I learned pretty quickly never to tell my mom that I was bored. “You’re bored? Oh, great! Go ahead and clean your room, fold the laundry, and dust all the shelves when you’re done with that. That should keep you busy!” Obviously, that was not the answer I wanted.

My mom giving me chores when I’m bored makes far too silly of an illustration for what Habakkuk experienced, but you get the idea—God’s response was not what he was looking for, which the prophet makes clear in his second prayer. Hearing that God is raising up the Babylonians, the prophet responds, “LORD, are you not from everlasting?...Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” (vv. 12–13). Habakkuk’s primary complaint now was that the Babylonians were even more wicked than God’s people. Surely God shouldn’t use evil to punish evil!

The prophet goes on to describe the Babylonians’ idolatry: “He sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food” (v. 16). The prophet here refers to the Babylonians’ insatiable appetite for conquering others. The net and dragnet refer to the military might by which Babylon funded its luxurious living.

Habakkuk concludes his prayer with another question: “Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?” (v. 17). You can hear the pain and longing in Habakkuk’s voice as He wrestles with God’s wisdom and sovereignty. Surely, the Lord would not, should not, cannot empower the Babylonians to continue wrecking nations and destroying lives! But it’s exactly what God has told Habakkuk He would do.