Social Collapse
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
Paralyzed – What happens to a society that turns its back on justice? What is it like to live in a community where violence and strife abound? We know how that feels even if we can’t articulate the root cause. But Habakkuk provides the insight we need. The law is paralyzed. It can’t do what it is supposed to do: to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. When violence prevails, no one is safe.
Notice the choice of the word here. The verb is pûg. It only shows up in four places in the Tanakh. It is usually translated “turn cold, grow weary, stop.” Here the translators have given us a synonym with a beautiful nuance. It isn’t that the law has grown weary. No, now it’s inflexible, disabled, powerless. It’s still there. The rules, the regulations, the expectations—the courts, even the jails—are still there. They just don’t work anymore. Why? Because mādôn abounds. What is mādôn (“conflict”)? It is the opposite of dîn, “to govern, in the whole range of activities of government: legislative, executive, judicial or otherwise.”[1] Don’t think of Habakkuk’s insight as if he is decrying disagreements. That’s not the kind of “conflict” he’s witnessing. What he sees is the breakdown of law and order, the dissension that occurs when one side rejects governance and the other attempts to hold on to norms. This isn’t simple dispute. This is cultural war! And it results in violence.
Perhaps it’s worth remembering that “violence” is the Hebrew term ḥāmās. “ . . . the word ḥāmās in the ot is used almost always in connection with sinful violence. It does not refer to the violence of natural catastrophes or to violence as pictured in a police chase on modern television. It is often a name for extreme wickedness.”[2]
So, here’s the connection—and the diagnosis. The more we witness sinful wickedness, the more we will experience strife and violence. Violence is the result of throwing off the civility of law and order. When that saturates the society, the law is ineffective because the law requires a common moral ground. As a consequence, the wicked prevail, and the righteous are trapped. The moral code of the civilization is bent, twisted (ʿāqal—a hapax legomenon in Habakkuk 1:4). We’ve seen this pattern over and over in human history. We should also note that once a significant portion of the population embraces this depravity, the society is doomed. God sends the prophet, not to rescue but to warn.
Topical Index: pûg, paralyze, torn cold, mādôn, governance, ʿāqal, bent, law, Habakkuk 1:3-4
[1] Culver, R. D. (1999). 426 דִּין. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 188). Moody Press.
[2] Harris, R. L. (1999). 678 חָמַס. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 297). Moody Press.
