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HABAKKUK ADDRESSES ARAFAT
The little prophecy of Habakkuk, like all prophecy, must first be applied to the day and age in which the prophet lived.
Habakkuk lived and ministered just before Judah fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC. His primary word is thus directed against
Babylon, the dangerous enemy of Judah. But like most all prophecy there is a continuing fulfillment. Because it is the word of God it
will always be relevant, and will never pass away. We see in Habakkuk 2:3, that this prophecy also relates to the end-days: “For the
revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it…” In Habakkuk 2:4,
we see how ancient prophecy can reach across the centuries and find fulfillment in relatively modern times. The Great Reformation
led by Martin Luther virtually stood on this verse and its restatement in Romans 1:17: “… the righteous will live by his faith.”
We see in the beginning of this little book that Habakkuk was a bit upset with God. He was not pleased at the Lord’s intention
to correct and chastise disobedient Israel by using evil Babylon. After all, Babylon was a the cruel bully nation of the ancient world.
The evils and excesses of Babylon were many, with some of them being listed by the prophet. They built their kingdom by unjust
gain; they plotted the ruin of many people; they built their city with bloodshed; they did violence to nations and shed innocent blood.
Because of these things God’s judgment later fell upon them.
HABAKKUK AND OUR OWN TIMES
Since the prophet specifically states that his prophecy is also for the end time, could it apply to our day? There are multitudes
of signs today that make us think we are living in the end of the age. It is true that generations of Christians have felt this way, but
no other generation of Christians has had the one critical prophetic fulfillment that we now have. We have a largely restored Israel in
our midst. This has happened during the lifetimes of many now living. The people of Israel have come home from all the nations. It
should not surprise us that as in Habakkuk’s day, bully nations are once again threatening Israel. Also within the land, there lives
one of the greatest enemies to oppose Israel in all her long history. His name is Yasser Arafat. He surely ranks with Haman and
Hitler in his evil rage against the Jewish people. He also may rank with cruel Babylon in his oppression of the nation.
Habakkuk says “…Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go
on?” (2:6). He cries: “Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain…” (2:9). Arafat and the PLO have stolen from everyone
including their own people. For years, it has been no secret that much of the money designated for the Palestinian people has gone
directly into the pockets of Yasser Arafat. According to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, his personal fortune is now estimated
at $1.3 billion. According to writer Tal Muscal of the Post, such a vast fortune could do one of the following things for the poor
Palestinians: Arafat could build 40,625 six-family dwellings; or he could feed 3 million Palestinians for an entire year, and still have
money left to fund 1,000 mobile intensive care units and provide funding for 10 hospitals for 10 years. Even after all this there
would be $585 million left for other projects.
Before the Israeli military crackdown Arafat’s thugs stole everything that was loose in Israel. They stole beehives, farm
animals, farm machinery, and crops from the farmers. At the height of their thievery they stole Israeli vehicles at the rate of about
100 a day. This rate amounted to about one out of every six vehicles in Israel stolen each year. All this is in addition to stealing much
of the land that the Almighty God has given to Israel as an eternal possession.
Habakkuk also says, “You have plotted the ruin of many peoples…” (2:10). Arafat’s life is a long history of destruction,
bloodshed and ruin. As a child he was a cruel thug in a youth gang. After he became the leader of the Palestinians he almost
destroyed the nation of Jordan in 1970 by plotting a military takeover. He went from there to Lebanon and did his best to destroy
that nation. Bashir Jemayel, Lebanon’s president-elect, stated in 1982 that eight years of fighting had cost 100,000 lives with more
than 300,000 wounded. In addition, almost half the population had been uprooted from their homes. Arafat’s gangs routinely did
target practice on the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds that passed over the area. In fact, the birds learned to fly higher
over Lebanon in order to avoid being slaughtered. Habakkuk says: “The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and
your destruction of animals will terrify you. For you have shed man’s blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in
them” (2:17). Now, thanks to the peace process, Arafat has set out to destroy Israel from inside the land with terrorist attacks,
dreadful suicide bombers and whatever else his demonic mind can devise.
Arafat has built the whole PLO organization on bloodshed. Even in his youth he was described by his friends as brutal and
blood-crazed. Habakkuk has a word for such a one: “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!
Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for
nothing?” (Hab. 2:12-13). Arafat and his henchmen will never succeed. Unfortunately, neither will the Palestinian people as long as
they follow and support him. God says that all their labors will go up in smoke. The many nations who so desire to help Arafat and
the PLO will not succeed. God says that they “exhaust themselves for nothing.” Many member states of the European Union
continue to give to the Palestinians, although they are now aware that their funds are being misused. It is impossible to help someone
whom God has cursed. If the nations of the world all took up a tithe of their wealth and handed it to the Arafat and the PLO, it
would all be immediately squandered.
Yasser Arafat has taught a whole Palestinian generation a seething hatred for the Israelis. Now some 72% of them even
endorse suicide bombings He has taught them to rejoice at Israeli bloodshed. In the horrible bombing of Hebrew University, many
of the Arab students who attend there were said to be “smiling happily” at the tragedy. In the Palestinian cities, music blared from
speakers and Arabs of all ages danced and sang into the night as they celebrated the disaster. This same cruel lust for blood was also
seen among the Palestinians when the World Trade Center in the US was destroyed.
GOD’S PLAN WILL WIN OUT
Despite his initial misgivings, Habakkuk finally realized that God’s plan will win out in the end. God assured Habakkuk that he
himself would triumph over all those who touched his people. In Habakkuk 3:3 we read: “God came from Teman, the Holy One
from Mount Paran Selah.” This is a very strange verse that has puzzled interpreters. Somehow the Lord Jesus in his coming will
appear from ancient Edom (cf. Deut. 33:2). Edom, of course, was the abode of Esau, the brother of Jacob. Although they were
blood-relatives of Israel they nevertheless became some of the most infamous Israel-bashers in history. In Isaiah 63:1-6, we get
another picture of the Messiah’s coming from Edom. We see in this passage that the Messiah will appear with the blood of the
Edomites splashed upon his garments (Deut 33:1-2). It appears from scripture that Edom was one of the ancient hate seeds that
blossomed and affected many others in the Middle East. It is likely that the Palestinians and Arafat have inherited their bitter hatred
indirectly from Edom. It is also very likely that God has now classed them as some of Edom’s spiritual descendants.
The prophet Habakkuk says further: “I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish” (3:7). It
appears from this that other ancient desert-dwelling antagonists of Israel will be judged at the coming of the Lord. Habakkuk 3:11-13
states: “Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear. In wrath
you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one.
You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot Selah” (3:11-13). Anti-Semitic nations will be
punished on the day of God’s wrath. Also the leader of the “land of wickedness,” whoever he is, will be stripped. This could speak
of the Antichrist, but it might also speak of such an Antichrist-type as wicked Yasser Arafat.
Habakkuk then tells us how it will all end: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the
waters cover the sea” (2:14). What a thorough saturation of God’s knowledge we will then see in the world. In spite of multitudes
of lies; in spite of propaganda believed by several Palestinian generations and spread throughout the world, the truth of God will
triumph. All mouths will be shut as Habakkuk says in chapter two, verse twenty, “… the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth
be silent before him.”
-Jim Gerrish
August, 2002