Change of Subject

Why do you make me look at injustice?  Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?  Destruction and violence are before me;  there is strife, and conflict abounds.  Therefore the law is paralyzed,  and justice never prevails.  The wicked hem in the righteous,  so that justice is perverted.  Habakkuk 1:3-4  NIV

Tolerate – What is the subject of the second question in the NIV translation?  “You.”  That pronoun stands in the place of “God.”  If the subject of the English text is God, then the question is, “Why does God tolerate wrongdoing.”  But notice the NASB translation: “Why do You make me see disaster, and make me look at destitution?”  Now the subject isn’t God; it’s the prophet.  How can such a radical change be justified?

The verb used in the second question is the same form, a Hif’il imperfect, as found in the first question.  It’s causative.  If God were actually the subject, then the sense would be that God causes Himself to tolerate wrongdoing.  But that would not only be quite strange, it would also require a reflexive verb (an action upon the subject), and that’s not the case here.  So the question in the NIV translation is not the question Habakkuk asks.  The verb, nābaṭ, really repeats the first question with a nuance.  “Why, God, do you force me to see injustice and make me look at wrongdoing?”  It’s the same question in two forms.  Habakkuk is the subject of both.  You might ask yourself why the NIV chose to change the subject?  What did this change mean for the theology?  The NASB (and proper verbal translation) focuses the statement on what is happening to the prophet.  The question is not about God’s attitude toward evil but rather why God would allow the prophet to see all this evil.  That’s a very different question.  It has nothing to do with whether or not God “tolerates” evil.

This leads us to ask, “Why two questions rolled into one?”  The answer, of course, is in the two-pronged vision—the difference between injustice (ʾāwen) and wrongdoing (ʿāmāl).

(ʾāwen). Trouble, sorrow, idolatry, wickedness, iniquity, emptiness. (RSV and neb prefer “evil,” and “mischief” over KJV’s favorite, “iniquity.”) The primary meaning of the word seems to have two facets: a stress on trouble which moves on to wickedness, and an emphasis on emptiness which moves on to idolatry. . . ʾāwen designates mourning in association with death. ʾāwen is sometimes in proximity to ʾāmal “toil, labor.”^[1]

The verb ʿāmal is one of several Hebrew verbs for “labor, work, toil.” Other major terms include ʿābad “to work, serve,” and ʿāśâ “to make, do, work” (both of which see). ʿāmal is used less often than those two verbs, and is employed often with the nuance of the drudgery of toil rather than the nobility of labor. . . The root ʿāmal relates to the dark side of labor, the grievous and unfulfilling aspect of work.^[2]

Now you see why Habakkuk needs two words—and why the question has two contexts.  As Livingston notes, “ʾāwen is sometimes in proximity to ʾāmal,” and for good reason.  Trouble, sorrow, and emptiness that accompany iniquity often produce kinetic results, that is, they complicate life, they make things harder, they take the joy out of labor, they produce drudgery.  What Habakkuk sees is not just injustice in the legal and social system.  He sees the tragedy that happens as a result.  All of this leads to “destruction and violence.”

Now we can guess why God would cause the prophet to witness this tribulation.  If he is to speak to the people of God’s impending judgment, he must also feel what is happening that brings about this judgment.  He must empathize before he can prophesy.  His words need to be full of passion and emotional connection if the people are going to listen.  He has to know what it’s like to hurt.  For the biblical prophet, God’s word is never justice without agony.

Topical Index: ʾāwen, iniquity, ʿāmal, toil, Habakkuk 1:3-4