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This proverb warns against slandering an employee to their employer. The key word in this is “slander”. Slander is falsely accusing someone of wrongdoing. If you falsely accuse someone to their boss, you will cause them trouble which they do not deserve. You may get away with it once or twice, but it will catch up with you eventually.
As the Jews in Babylonian Exile could not forget Jerusalem, we should never forget what Jesus has done for us. The unbelievers around us will encourage us to make light of the serious matters of faith. Let us take joy only in God and never make light of that which is serious.
When the fifth and sixth trumpets blow, those who have not been marked with God’s seal will suffer tremendously. After the fifth trumpet there will be a plague which causes such suffering that people will wish to die, but will be unable to do so. After the sixth trumpet, one third of the people on the face of the earth will die from another plague. Despite these torments, those who remain will not repent of their sins and turn to God. This right here is a lesson to us that there are those who no matter what the evidence will not repent, will not believe in God. We can, and should, mourn for them, but we must recognize that there is nothing we can do to get them to change.
When those who claim to be God’s people are corrupt and evil, refusing to live justly and righteously, God will raise up foreigners who will overthrow them. However, if those foreigners are arrogant and proud, and God tells us that they will be, He will bring them down likewise.
The message at the heart of this passage is that those who put their trust in their own strength and in wealth, those who believe that they can consume everything and everybody in the pursuit of their own pleasure will face God’s judgment. He will bring them down. God will bring disgrace upon them and make them regret their lives.
Habakkuk concludes this book by reminding us that God’s judgment against the wicked is not so much intended to punish the wicked as it is to save the righteous from the wicked.