Wrestling with God’s justice
Too long, please open your Bible Habakkuk 1: 5-17
How long?
Too long, please open your Bible Habakkuk 1: 1-4
Habakkuk, cries out that God seems to do nothing in the face of violence, injustice, and corruption in Judah. His lament tacitly raises the unsettling possibility that God, in allowing injustice to persist, appears at best negligent and at worst unjust.
Just as it is for many people today, it is the prophet’s honest perception from the midst of crisis, not a settled verdict on God’s character.
Look!
Too long, please open your Bible Habakkuk 1: 5-11
In response to the prophet’s prayer, God gives an unexpected response. It is important to note that God doesn’t present a solution — rather, He gives perspective.
God does not outline a tidy plan or offer a step-by-step remedy. Instead, He a glimpse of His sovereign work that defies the prophet’s categories.
God announces that He is already at work in a way Habakkuk “would not believe if told”: He is raising up the Chaldeans/Babylonians as instruments of judgment. This is not a solution Habakkuk would have chosen; in fact, it complicates his anguish. But it re-centers the conversation: the world is not spinning out of control, nor is God passive. His justice operates on a scale and timetable far beyond human calculation.
Raising Babylon
Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger— the staff in their hands is my wrath. I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him to go against a people destined for my rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets. Isaiah 10: 5-6 (CSB)
I am going to send for all the families of the north’—this is the LORD’s declaration—‘and send for my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will bring them against this land, against its residents, and against all these surrounding nations, and I will completely destroy them and make them an example of horror and scorn, and ruins forever. Jeremiah 25:9 (CSB)
God’s use of Babylon is proof that He rules over all human affairs. In Habakkuk 1:6 God takes responsibility for the very empire that will devastate Judah. These passages insist that even the rise of violent nations lies within the counsel of God’s sovereign will. Babylon thinks it conquers by its own strength, but Scripture unmasks the deeper reality: empires are instruments in the hand of the Lord who directs history for His just and wise purposes.
Job
Just like Habakkuk calls God’s justice into question. God’s reply to Habakkuk follows the same pattern we see in Job.
There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil. Then Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you set your heart upon My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Job 1: 1,8
At its core, the book of Job probes the justice of God. The narrative opens with “ blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil” as descriptors for Job — these words set the tone for the rest of the narrative. The opening scene raises the question: will a righteous man serve God only for reward, or is God’s moral order bigger than a simple formula of “good people prosper, bad people suffer”?
Job’s friends insist on a mechanical justice—if Job suffers, he must have sinned—but Job maintains his integrity and presses his case that his suffering does not fit their calculus.
Too long, please open your Bible Job 38-39, 40: 7-14
When God finally speaks , He does not explain the reason for Job’s pain; instead He reveals the vast, ordered complexity of creation, showing that His justice operates on a scale too deep for human accounting. The verdict is not that God is unjust, but that His justice is wiser, broader, and more mysterious than the tidy retribution schemes we prefer.
Like Job, Habakkuk is invited to abandon the comfort of a simple retribution formula and to trust the God whose justice is real but too vast to fit into human calculations.
He is in control
If God can raise up and restrain empires, He is certainly not absent from the details of our lives. The same Lord who calls Babylon “My servant” rules over elections, economies, family crises, and private heartaches.
His sovereignty does not erase our pain or confusion, but it means that nothing—no diagnosis, no delay, no injustice—is outside His wise purpose.
“Are not two sparrows sold for an assarion? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. “So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. Matthew 10: 29-31
The heart of man plans his way, But Yahweh directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9
What feels chaotic to us is never random to Him. The God who directs kings and nations also orders the steps of His children, promising that all things work together for the good of those who love Him. Therefore we can wait, pray, and trust, even when His plans surprise or unsettle us, knowing that His rule extends from the rise of Babylon to the quiet struggles of every believer.
Sovereign & Just
Habakkuk and Job show that God’s sovereignty and justice always belong together. Job suffers and wonders if God is truly fair; Habakkuk sees violence and wonders if God is truly in control. Yet both come to the same conclusion: the Lord who rules the universe also does what is right. Their stories remind us that God’s power is never random and His justice will surely stand, even when we cannot see how.
If the God who rules the nations is also perfectly just, then you can entrust every unanswered question to Him. The trial you cannot explain, the delay you cannot shorten, the wrong you cannot right—none of these are outside the care of the God who both reigns and does right.
His sovereignty means nothing escapes His plan; His justice means nothing will finally escape His verdict. You may not receive the “why” you long for, but you can rest in the “Who” you know: the Lord who governs history and keeps His promises to His children. So wait on Him, pray your honest laments, and hold fast in faith—because the God who raised up Babylon and silenced the storm for Job will also bring perfect justice in His perfect time.