Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour. – Habakkuk 1:8

Today's Scripture Reading (July 2, 2026): Habakkuk 1

"Do humans have mothers and fathers?"

"Yes, but human mothers and fathers don't love their children as we do. They're not the same as we are" (Star Trek: The Next Generation; Chain of Command Part II).

The dialogue is between a Cardassian adult and his child. The Cardassians are one of the many enemies of Earth and her allies in the fictional Star Trek Universe. And one of the themes that Star Trek readily explores is the idea that our enemies are often a lot more like us than we might want to admit. It is often advantageous for us to portray the enemy as monsters. In this case, the enemy is projecting, and the particular human in question is Jon-Luc Picard, the esteemed fictional captain of the Starship Enterprise.

It makes sense to make the enemy into something that they are not. It is a lot harder to kill your next-door neighbor than someone from across the world, unless, of course, your neighbor is a bad person. And it is something that happens in real life, not just in a fictional science fiction universe. We often make our enemies into something quite different from us.

During World War I, this universal sameness was part of the problem of the "Christmas Truce." We still argue how widespread the truce really was, but in the places where the truce did happen, when the soldiers emerged from their trenches to sing carols, exchange gifts, and, in some tellings of the story, play soccer with the enemy, one of the discoveries was that the soldier in the trench across from you wasn't a monster, but just another person very much like you. And it proved very hard to share food with the enemy one day and shoot at them the next. Thus, the Christmas Truce occurred on the first Christmas of the war, but not on any subsequent Christmases. By then, the enemy had become something else; they were monsters who deserved to be killed, not people who shared the same hopes and fears as those who fought beside you.

Politics follows a similar storyline. The opposition is crazy; the people of a different political stripe are enemies of the nation and don't want the same things that you do. They don't love their children the way we do. It is us vs them, and they are different from who we are.

There is no evidence that Habakkuk has ever had any contact with the enemy. But he has a stereotypical idea of who they are. They are different from us. Even their horses are different. They are faster than the leopards, and they are fiercer than wolves. When you go up against them, you won't have a chance to win.

Was any of this true? No. Habakkuk's description of the enemy was likely propaganda straight from the enemy. After all, hadn't they rolled through the land up until now? Had anyone been able to stand up against their power? But the propaganda served the purposes of God, who had turned this stubborn people over to their enemies because of their disobedience. The battle was already over, because God had decided it, and he allowed the propaganda to take root among the people of Judah.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 2