When we complain about God’s response to our complaint

We complain to God. God actually responds! But are we happy? No! We complain about God’s response to our complaint. Does God smite us? Well, no. But maybe it does help when we complain with respect.

When we complain about God's response to our complaint is article #3 in the series: God where are you. Click button to view titles for the entire series

One thing we can learn from the adjacent image is that when we complain to God, we should do it from the heart.

And why not? God already knows how we feel. Let it out.

One other thing to think about is respect.

Have you heard the phrase, with all due respect?

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that when it was actually showing respect. Most of the time when we hear, or use, those words, we’re letting the recipient know we think they deserve very little respect. Maybe even no respect at all.

In this series, we began with complaining to God that He’s not around when we need Him. That’s He’s got work to do, and it’s not getting done.

When we complain about God’s response to our complaint

However, in this segment, when we complain about God’s response to our complaint, we have much to learn from our Old Testament poster child on how to complain to God.

The template for when we complain to God about God

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

Hopefully, you read the earlier segments of the series. If so, you remember Habakkuk’s first complaint. The extremely short version is: Where the heck are you God? Your creation needs you. This place is a mess.

God responded, But Habakkuk thought the response was, in a word, overkill. Literally. Too many deaths and too much destruction. Worse yet, at the hands of a hated enemy.

But now, Habakkuk is calming down. Realizing that God has the right to do exactly what He proposed as a solution to the first complaint. Also that the people deserve, and need, that kind of response.

In today’s terms, Habakkuk is now throwing himself, and his fellow citizens, at the mercy of the court. How? By showing God the respect He truly is due. And by “reminding” God, ever so nicely, about who God has said He is.

Finally, he closes with the always popular, waiting patiently for the pleasure of your reply.

However, after all that niceness, Habakkuk also leaves himself open to give yet another reply to God’s reply to this second complaint.

Got it? Let’s take a look.

The opening salvo: a complaint about God’s response? Or an acknowledgment?

Here’s the opening to what’s subtitled Habakkuk’s second complaint. Let’s try to get a sense of the tone, especially as compared with his first complaint.

Hab 1:12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, we will not die.
O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

Everlasting

We start with a question:

O LORD, are you not from everlasting?

Is it a challenging type of question? Is it, hey God, I thought you were eternal, and I thought you loved us? If so, then why are you doing this?

Or, is it more like, I thought you were eternal? Did I get that wrong?

Maybe it was a reminder to God, as if that was needed. And yet, we do see that in the Bible more than once. When we do that, is it a challenge, or is it more along the lines of, this doesn’t make sense, help me understand?

As you can see, some of those are respectful. Some, not so much. However, we can’t judge from just one line. So let’s keep going. Asking questions. Piling up evidence. And then, in the end, try to determine Habakkuk’s frame of mind in his second complaint.

We will not die

We go from a question to a statement:

My God, my Holy One, we will not die.

There’s no exclamation point at the end. And yet, it does sound like an exclamation, doesn’t it? A challenge to God/ Bring it on, you can’t kill all of us!

But, there is another option. It could be another reminder. A reminder that God will never again kill off His people, dating all the way back to Noah. Almost. We may “remember” it that way, but it was actually more specific.

God’s Covenant With Noah

…

Ge 9:8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Ge 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

Ge 9:17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Notice, it was one specific type of destruction that God promised wouldn’t happen again.

11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

God won’t bring a flood to destroy the earth and everything/everyone on it. A flood. Not an attack. Besides which, even if the attack killed all of God’s people that were attacked, it still wouldn’t be a destruction of the earth or of all the people on the earth.

But, what about this next passage? Is there any hope here? The passage goes back to when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, who wanted to kill him but instead sold him off to some Midianites who sold him into slavery in Egypt.

Joseph Makes Himself Known

Ge 45:1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

Ge 45:3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

Ge 45:4 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5 And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6 For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. 7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

Ge 45:8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. 9 Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. 10 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. 11 I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’

Ge 45:12 “You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. 13 Tell my father about all the honor accorded me in Egypt and about everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.”
…

A lot of that is for context. The key point is about the remnant of God’s people.

7 But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

The concept of a remnant of God’s people being saved runs throughout the Bible. In fact, it goes all the way to The End. Check out this passage from Revelation.

144,000 Sealed

Rev 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea: 3 “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” 4 Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

Rev 7:5 From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed,
from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,
from the tribe of Gad 12,000

Rev 7:6,
from the tribe of Asher 12,000,
from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,
from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000

Rev 7:7,
from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,
from the tribe of Levi 12,000,
from the tribe of Issachar 12,000

Rev 7:8,
from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,
from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,
from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

Of course, Habakkuk had no way to know about the 144,000 in Revelation. But he did know about various references to remnants of God’s chosen people throughout the scriptures in his time.

Therefore, if that’s what he had in mind when he said to God, My God, my Holy One, we will not die, then he’s right on target. Further, if it was meant as a confirmation of what God said, then he’s also “complaining” with respect.

Judgment and punishment

Now we add a couple lines that could be acknowledgment of what God said was going to happen.

O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

It could be meant as a harsh reply to what God has planned.

However, that view is hard to maintain when we read the word “Rock” in the last line of the verse.

Why is Rock such a big deal? Because of the usage of the word, not its strict interpretation. By the way, some translations include the word “my”, making it “my Rock”. Just so you know, there’s no Hebrew word corresponding to the word “my”. It’s implied by the context.

So, what’s the big deal with rock? How do we know it’s a good thing, and Habakkuk’s not thinking God’s a big rock that’s going to crush him? It’s because of the way the word is used in the Bible, again in this context.

צוּר (ṣûr). n. masc. rock, boulder, cliff. Literally indicates a rock or cliff; used figuratively to describe God as protector.

Over half of the time, this noun refers to literal rock or rocks. With regard to protection, rocks and cliffs served as natural shelters or refuges (Exod 33:22; Job 24:8) or as hiding places (Isa 2:10, 19). Rocks played a number of significant theological roles for Israel, one of the most significant being their use by God to preserve Israel in the wilderness, as he split rocks to provide water to his people (Psa 78:15). Moreover, rock (ṣûr) is used as a description of God in the OT (e.g., Psa 28:1), in part because of the protection and refuge he offered to Israel. In the Septuagint, the use of “rock” as a description for God was avoided (probably out of sensitivity to confusion with pagan idolatry) and translated according to sense rather than strict wording.  ¹Smith, W. A. (2014). Protection. In D. Mangum, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, & R. Hurst (Eds.), Lexham Theological Wordbook. Lexham Press.

And there you have it: rock (ṣûr) is used as a description of God in the OT (e.g., Psa 28:1), in part because of the protection and refuge he offered to Israel.

Since this word is used to talk about God as a protector, then Habakkuk is using it in this sense if he views God’s acts as somehow protecting His people.

However, if Habakkuk is using it in the literal sense, then we’re looking at a challenge to God, or at least still a string complaint against God’s plan.

Which is the more likely intent? It’s using the Hebrew word for rock as a reference to God as a protector. There’s a reference way back in Exodus. It’s at a time when God led His people through the desert, the journey is over, the Promised Land is in sight, but they haven’t yet crossed over to it.

The Song of Moses

Dt 31:30 And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:

Dt 32:1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Dt 32:2 Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.

Dt 32:3 I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
Dt 32:4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he.
…

There we see the usage of the word Rock, from the same Hebrew word that Habakkuk used in his second complaint. We also see what Moses said about God, that He is perfect in His ways, just, and does no wrong.

This is pretty strong evidence that Habakkuk using the Rock reference is similar, since that’s the traditional precedent in the Old Testament.

Adding to that is the next portion of the passage from The Song of Moses:

Dt 32:5 They have acted corruptly toward him;
to their shame they are no longer his children,
but a warped and crooked generation.
Dt 32:6 Is this the way you repay the LORD,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,
who made you and formed you?

Moses’ comment was about the people who wandered through the desert with him. None of them, Moses included, made it to the Promised Land. Only the remnant.

The only question is whether Habakkuk sees the parallels in the situation of the people in his time. And that question is brought up in the next verse of Habakkuk’s second complaint.

Hab 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrong.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

Sure, there’s lots of evil going on. But God’s own people are also involved in it. It’s hard to imagine that Habakkuk isn’t aware of that. But then, even as I’m typing that last sentence, I also realize all too well that many Christians today either don’t see, or just choose to deny, that they do many of the same things we complain about when other people do them.

That shouldn’t be a surprise though. Jesus warned us about that blindness when it comes to judging ourselves as opposed to others.

Judging Others – Matthew

Mt 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Mt 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Habakkuk’s second complaint continues

Hab 1:14 You have made men like fish in the sea,
like sea creatures that have no ruler.

Hab 1:15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,
he catches them in his net,
he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad.

Hab 1:16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury
and enjoys the choicest food.

Hab 1:17 Is he to keep on emptying his net,
destroying nations without mercy?

Habakkuk’s theme kind of continues.

When we complain, we tend to do the same thing. Go on and on, example after example, essentially repeating our complaints. Or is it just rambling?

Either way, it’s hard to tell what’s in Habakkuk’s heart when we read this.

It reminds me of watching a movie or reading a book. If we’ve seen/read it before, we have one view of the characters involved. We decide whether they’re good or bad. If we like them, hate them, or don’t care.

But if we haven’t read the book or seen the movie, our viewpoint of various characters may change as the story progresses. We might start off hating the hero/heroine. And loving the most vile person.

Having faith when we complain to God

What does this have to do with anything?

If we have faith in God, it’s like we already read the book.

We know God’s the good guy in the end. We know, as Moses wrote, that God is good, just, and perfect. We realize that justice is essential, and sometimes we’re on the wrong side of justice.

We also know God is merciful, and that if we truly love God, that mercy will be given to us.

But if we haven’t read the book, we don’t know any of that. If we haven’t read the book, we’d never believe it was even possible.

And even if we’ve read the book, it’s impossible to believe and really get it, without the Holy Spirit.

And so, we’re back to faith.

But then for Habisrakkuk, he was a prophet. Yes, he’s known as a minor prophet. But that’s because what he wrote was short, not because his message was minor.

So Habakkuk complained with faith, with the knowledge of the end, as far as people knew at that time. As a result, I think we should be leaning towards this second complaint as a confirmation, doublechecking, or something like that. But not as an outright challenge over what God’s doing.

While Habakkuk was complaining, did he really have faith that God was right?

Now that I wrote all that, let’s check in with a scholarly view of Habakkuk’s second complaint to be sure we’re on the right track here.

One thing I want to point out, my goal was to show various feelings we might have when we complain, if we’d been in Habakkuk’s type of situation. Then, we can carry that over to the times in our lives, with things happening to us, when we complain to God.

I added emphasis to some words and phrases to show where we are.

Hab. 1:12. On this threatening announcement of the judgment by God, the prophet turns to the Lord in the name of believing Israel, and expresses the confident hope that He as the Holy One will not suffer His people to perish. V. 12. “Art Thou not from olden time, O Jehovah, my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. Jehovah, for judgment hast Thou appointed it; and, O Rock, founded it for chastisement.”

However terrible and prostrating the divine threatening may sound, the prophet draws consolation and hope from the holiness of the faithful covenant God, that Israel will not perish, but that the judgment will be only a severe chastisement.

…

This hope rests upon two foundations: viz., (1) from time immemorial Jehovah is Israel’s God; and (2) He is the Holy One of Israel, who cannot leave wickedness unpunished either in Israel or in the foe. This leads to the further conclusion, that Jehovah has simply appointed the Chaldaean nation to execute the judgment, to chastise Israel, and not to destroy His people.

…

The God to whom the prophet prays is Jehovah, the absolutely constant One, who is always the same in word and work (see at Gen. 2:4); He is also Elohai, my, i.e., Israel’s, God, who from time immemorial has proved to the people whom He had chosen as His possession that He is their God; and קְדֹשִׁי, the Holy One of Israel, the absolutely Pure One, who cannot look upon evil, and therefore cannot endure that the wicked should devour the righteous (v. 13). לֹא נָמוּת is not a supplicatory wish: Let us not die therefore; but a confident assertion: “We shall not die.” In the second half of the verse, Yehōvâh and tsūr (rock) are vocatives. Tsūr, as an epithet applied to God, is taken from Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, and 37, where God is first called the Rock of Israel, as the unchangeable refuge of His people’s trust. Lammishpât, i.e., to accomplish the judgment: comp. Isa. 10:5, 6, where Asshur is called the rod of Jehovah’s wrath. In the parallel clause we have לְהֹוכִיחַ instead: “to chastise.  ²Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (1996). Commentary on the Old Testament (Vol. 10, pp. 395–397). Hendrickson.

I think we’re good here.

How to end our talk with God when we complain

After all that, Habakkuk closes with:

 

Hab 2:1 I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

Conclusion – When we complain about God’s response to our complaint

Ultimately, what have we learned from Habakkuk’s second complaint?

When we complain to God, it’s OK, in fact it’s good, to be honest with Him.

Assuming we’re coming from a position of being a believer, a Christian who’s truly trying to follow Him, there are things we should acknowledge. Of course, our knowledge and our faith will grow over time. Therefore, the things we acknowledge about God will also change.

No matter what though, as Christians, we have some knowledge about God. That is, unless we just said what we think are some magic words, and don’t really understand even a little bit about what we claim to believe in and count on for our salvation.

Even that concept goes back to the Old Testament. Check out the very beginning of Proverbs below.

Proverbs – Prologue – Purpose and Theme

Prologue: Purpose and Theme

Pr 1:1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

Pr 1:2 for attaining wisdom and discipline;
for understanding words of insight;

Pr 1:3 for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life,
doing what is right and just and fair;

Pr 1:4 for giving prudence to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the young—

Pr 1:5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,
and let the discerning get guidance—

Pr 1:6 for understanding proverbs and parables,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.

Pr 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

Habakkuk knew this. Do we? And if we do, is it something we apply when we complain to God?

Or, are we in the position of Adam and Eve, to go back to the beginning.

The Fall of Man

Ge 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Ge 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

Ge 3:4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Ge 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
…

And of course, it’s all downhill from there.

But the key here for us is:

Ge 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

Notice: desirable for gaining wisdom. But, going back to Proverbs 1:7, it was fools’ wisdom, not the wisdom that comes from listening to God. Instead it was knowledge that comes from not believing/trusting/caring about what God said.

So, with that kind of knowledge now, how does that affect the way we complain to God?

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Footnotes

• 1
  Smith, W. A. (2014). Protection. In D. Mangum, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, & R. Hurst (Eds.), Lexham Theological Wordbook. Lexham Press.
• 2
  Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (1996). Commentary on the Old Testament (Vol. 10, pp. 395–397). Hendrickson.