For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
Habakkuk 2:3
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
The Lord instructed Habakkuk to write down a vision for others to read and hear it. What will this vision be about? In this verse we see it’s about an “appointed time” and “then end”. This sounds foreboding! What did this mean for Habakkuk and his audience that we can learn from today?
An Appointment
The word “appointed time” is the Hebrew word מּוֹעֵד (mo’ed). It is a time of meeting. Imagine an appointment on your calendar. The word first appears on day four of creation: “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons (mo’adim – plural), and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14). When God told Abraham he would have a son (Isaac), he said he would be born at the appointed time the following year (Genesis 17:21, 18:14, 21:2).
When God met his people at Mount Sinai, he told Moses to build the “tent of meeting” (ohel mo’ed, Exodus 27:21, Leviticus 1:1, Numbers 1:1). This is the location of the “appointments”, or “appointed feasts” (Leviticus 23:2). These were the times (holidays, festivals) that God commanded his people to observe.
The End
God says the vision concerns the “end” (קֵץ, ketz). The end of what? Most often, this word refers to the end of a period of time. It’s first found in the story of Cain and Abel: “In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground” (Genesis 4:3). The verse literally begins, “And it was from an end of days”. In other words, at the end of some amount of time. We see it similarly describe the end of the 430 years in Egypt (Exodus 12:41) or the end of forty days of spying out the land (Numbers 13:25).
Amos uses this word in a pun. The Lord shows him “summer fruit” (ka’yitz) and then says, “The end (ketz) has come upon my people Israel” (Amos 8:1-2). Ka’yitz is also translated just “summer” like in Genesis 8:22. Jesus used a similar play on words like Amos. Just as one knows that summer is near because leaves appear on fig trees, we know that the end is near when we see certain events taking place (Matthew 24:32-33). Perhaps it’s no coincidence that both temples were destroyed in the summer.
Waiting For God’s Appointment
It’s as if God was showing Habakkuk part of his calendar. God has regular appointments on his calendar throughout the year. He also has set times when events will happen. There was a set time when Isaac was born. There would be an end for the kingdom of Judah.
That begs the question: when will this end come? Habakkuk isn’t told, except that it is not coming right away. We don’t know exactly when the Lord spoke to Habakkuk, but it seems that the destruction of Jerusalem was still a couple of decades away. Even though it wouldn’t come right away, Habakkuk should feel assured that it would come.
Jesus similarly predicted the end of current events without specifying the time (Matthew 24:36). The Apostle Peter used this same idea in one of his letters: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Just as Habakkuk was to wait for the Lord’s impending punishment, so we are to wait for Jesus’ return, when he will judge the world.
Habakkuk wasn’t to concern himself with when the end would come, but recognize that it was coming and to live accordingly. The same goes for us. Just as the Lord was giving Habakkuk’s neighbors time to repent, so, too, the Lord is waiting, giving each of us time to repent and to turn to him.
To Ponder…
What would it look like to have appointments with God? Do you spend regular times with the Lord? How do they compare to other appointments on your calendar?
Jesus promised he would come back. It’s been nearly 2,000 years. Do you believe he is still coming, even if it isn’t in your lifetime? What does it look like to live with the expectation that God will bring a final judgment on this world?