They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. – Habakkuk 1:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 6, 2014): Habakkuk 1

During the early days of the 4^th Century B.C.E., Plato dominated the world of Greek philosophy. It sometimes seemed that Plato had an opinion concerning just about everything. But where the philosopher spent a lot his time was in the area of political philosophy. The ancient Greeks regarded the best form of government to be one where the best man of the culture (or men of the culture) were the ones that ruled. Unfortunately, because this form of government was not based on any kind of rule by heritage or by family (where the throne is passed from father to son), it often left an open question as to how we can know which men are the best. Plato agreed with this line of thought, but he postulated that the absolute best kind of government would be one led by a benevolent monarch – especially one led by a philosopher king. The philosopher king would be a student of wisdom and be able to discern the most beneficial actions that need to be taken on the behalf of the people. The philosopher king would be above the law (like any other monarch of the time), but he would be wise enough to limit his action to only those things that would benefit the community as a whole.

But Plato had a student named Aristotle, and although Aristotle was heavily influenced by Plato’s ideas, in this area he vehemently disagrees with his teacher. In Aristotle’s mind, the best ruler was not a wise philosopher king that stood above the law, but rather a king that lived and ruled within the boundaries of the law – a king that lived and worked under the rule of law. Aristotle postulated that the best government was one where the main responsibility of the sovereign was to defend the law of the land instead of being the one who created the law of land.

Aristotle’s model was essentially the way that the Israel had always been designed to operate. The law was given to Moses by God. But the original idea was that the Israel would be a theocracy ruled by God who would occupy the position of the benevolent monarch, but unlike the philosopher kings of Plato’s imagination, God was a wise king who has always been bound to work within the limits of the law. (One of the explanations for Jesus sacrifice was that it fulfilled the requirements of the law – something that God had to do in order to finally set us free.) When the times of earthly kings came for Israel, these kings were also bound by the rule of law – God’s law. They had no standing and no right to be agents of change for the law. And that got more than one sovereign in Israel into deep trouble – instead of being the protectors of the law, they began to want to make changes in the law - always, of course, in their favor.

So as Habakkuk begins to consider the coming reign of the Babylonians, one of the things that bothers him is that these people are a “law to themselves” – essentially that they make up the law as they go along. There is no canon or ruler of the law against which they can measure themselves. Another way of saying this is that they were a lawless people, and that their definition of what was honorable was also defined by their own actions. There was no objective requirements. And this thought terrified the prophet.

And yet, for Habakkuk, part of the mystery was that God was going to use these people to help Israel on their journey. The Babylonians may act without the rule of law, but he knew that his God did not – and that in the end, even the action of this lawless people would somehow keep the people of Israel within the law of God. He was not sure how this was going to happen, but he trusted his God enough to know that this would come to pass.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 2