You stripped the sheath from your bow,
Habakkuk 3:9-10
calling for many arrows. Selah
You split the earth with rivers.
The mountains saw you and writhed;
the raging waters swept on;
the deep gave forth its voice;
it lifted its hands on high.
Water is a powerful force on this planet, shaping rivers and wearing down mountains. Only God is in control of these overwhelming forces.
Rivers and Rain
Habakkuk says God “split” (בקע, baka) the earth with rivers. My first instinct upon reading this is geological. Rivers erode the land, carving out paths to the ocean. However, is this how ancient people viewed these things? When it rains hard, it gushes into deep canyons, sweeping away anything in its path.
In line with this, he goes on to describe a raging storm (zerem mayim, storm of water). As a verb, “The clouds poured out (zaram) water” (Psalm 77:17). However, even in the raging storm, God is “a refuge and a shelter from the storm (zerem) and rain” (Isaiah 4:6).
Water of the Deep
The idea of “the deep” (Hebrew תְּהוֹם, tehom) appears throughout the Bible, beginning first in Genesis 1:2, when “darkness was over the face of the deep (tehom)”. The world began as watery chaos and God spoke order into the chaos. Tehom describes the waters below the earth. In the ancient mindset, the earth was basically in a bubble with waters above held back by a large dome above and waters also deep below the ground.
When God sent the flood, “the fountains of the great deep (tehom) burst forth (baka), and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Genesis 7:11). Here we see the unleashing of the waters from below and from above. That space that God had carved out in Genesis 1 was returning to its original watery chaos – decreation.
The Lord showed Amos: “behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep (tehom) and was eating up the land” (Amos 7:4). Springs were thought to come up from tehom. Destroying the deep meant the springs would run dry, which were a vital source for water in Israel.
When Israel arrived at the Red Sea, Pharaoh’s army pursued them. God “divided (baka) the sea” (Psalm 78:13); “the floods (tehomot, plural of tehom) stood up in a heap” (Exodus 15:8). God “led them through the depths (tehomot)” (Isaiah 63:13). When Pharoah’s army pursued, “[t]he floods (tehomot) covered them”.
To Ponder…
Is there anything in your life that feels too deep to handle, something out of your control? Do you believe that God is bigger than our deepest problems and our worst storms? What if the most powerful forces on this planet were as simple to him as turning a faucet on or off?
Do you run to him as a shelter from the storm?