Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Dec 1952

The prayer of Habakkuk the prophet has ever and anon been re-echoed down through the years which have intervened since his day from the hearts of godly men and women:

"0 LORD, revive Thy work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known" (3.2).

This prophet's thoughts stretched back to the time of Israel's deliverance from Egypt. He recalls the work of God then in words which excite the imagination:

"Thou wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people,

For the salvation of Thine anointed" (verse 18).

He threshed, wounded and pierced those that oppressed His enslaved people, and Habakkuk, as he sees the on-coming, rushing forces of the Chaldeans, which were soon to enter the land of Israel in devastating severity, longs for God to re-enact the deliverance of His people from Gentile power, as when He smote Pharaoh and his people.

The prophet is sorely perplexed. Will God's work die or live? "Revive Thy work," he cries. Revive means to preserve alive, to quicken-Hebrew chayah, to live. A form of this word (Hebrew chayeh) is found in Exodus 1.18 used of the Hebrew women when the midwives said to Pharaoh, "The Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; 'for they are lively (chayeh)", which -meant, they were vigorous, robust, full of life. Such were the mothers of a race, who, when they were delivered from Egypt, were a strong, vigorous people:

"He brought them forth with silver and gold:

And there was not one feeble person among His tribes" (Psalm 105.87).

The word "feeble" (Hebrew kashal) means to totter or stumble through weakness of the legs. It is found again in Isaiah 35.3:

"Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees."

The word "feeble" in Deuteronomy 25.18, where we are told that Amalek smote the hindmost of the Israelites, "all that were feeble behind thee", is a different Hebrew word (chashal), which means to be faint or weak. This verse explains its meaning when it says that Amalek smote Israel when they were "faint and weary".

When the Israeites were delivered from Egypt they were a strong, virile race, which is traceable back to their vigorous mothers. Such a mother was Jochebed, the mother of Moses. Think of the vigour and ingenuity of that woman, after bearing her son, hiding him from the Egyptian authorities in strong faith in God; then when to hide him longer at home was impossible, she sought still to find a shelter for him amongst the flags by the river Nile. There was no wood or forest in Egypt where she might shield him from Pharaoh's cruel law. The only apparent shelter was amongst the reeds by the Nile's brink. In such hearts

as these, hearts torn and tried, was seen the beginning of a movement and a deliverance the like of which the world had never' seen. Well might the prophet long for an evidence of divine power as in those days of old!

What was wrong in Habakkuk's days? The answer is-the state of the people. For long years they had been bent on back-sliding from God. The voices of the prophets were unheeded. The lack of revival did not lie with God, but with His people and many weary days of captivity lay ahead for them.

Revival is a pleasant experience, but it does not come about without exercise, and often it is with trial and labour. Those who expect revival to come while they sit complacent with folded arms will be doomed to disappointment.

The heart-cry of Habakkuk the prophet, "0 LORD, revive Thy work," at length found an echo in hearts to far-away Babylon. The faithful Daniel is found confessing his sin and the sin of his people Israel, and praying for God's holy mountain where the house of God lay a desolate ruin (Daniel 9.). In many hearts of the captives in Babylon there was deep and real sorrow for Zion, and they turned to neither mirth nor song to assuage their grief (Psalm 137.). At length proud and haughty Babylon, the lady of earth's kingdoms, lay conquered by the Medes and Persians, and Cyrus issued his decree for the liberation and return of all Jews whose hearts were stirred up by God to return and build the temple at Jerusalem. Tears of sorrow became tears of joy as the captives passed along the road that led to Zion, along which Abraham had travelled some hundreds of years before, as he too went towards the promised land.

"Then was our mouth filled with laughter,

And our tongue with singing:

Then said they among the nations,

The LORD hath done great things for them.

The LORD hath done great things for us;

Whereof we are glad" (Psalm 126.2, 3).

At a later time, Ezra recounted the goodness of God to them when serious back-sliding was manifest in the returned remnant:

"Now for a little moment grace hath been shewed from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in His holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving ... a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the ruins thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem" (Ezra 9.8, 9).

The word for reviving here is michyah, which is derived from chayah-to live, the word used for "revive" by Habakkuk. There had been a reviving, a quickening to vital life in the small remnant that had returned and had built the temple in Jerusalem. They had also now "a nail in God's holy place", which, I judge, figuratively refers to the high priest through whom it was possible for them to give to God the glory which was due to His name (Psalm 27.). see Isaiah 22.15-25, where Eliakim the son of Hilkiah is described as a nail,

"I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a throne of glory to his father's house. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons."

We know by a comparison of this passage with Revelation 3.21 that Eliakim is a shadow of our blessed Lord on whose shoulder will rest the government, and who will never give way as was prophesied of Eliakim.

The reproachful words of Sanballat in Nehemiah 4.1, 2 have often surged up in the minds of those who have sought to revive the truth of God relative to separation and divine government amongst God's remnant people to-day.

"What do these feeble (amelal=languid, drooping, mourning) Jews...

will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish?"

These stones of the wall lived again after being buried for many years. Such was the work of a people whom God was pleased to quicken.

J. Miller | Dec 1952
Jottings