Habakkuk: Dispersed in the Diaspora

You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors,
who came like a whirlwind to scatter me,
rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret.

Habakkuk 3:14

Israel’s enemies came to disperse them, but God would fight for them. How do we respond when enemies and storms come?

Scattered

Habakkuk describes what their enemies have done. They came “to scatter me.” How can the Babylonians scatter Habakkuk? How can an individual be scattered in battle? The “me” seems to refer to the nation (Israel) that Habakkuk is a part of. Some translate it “us”. While diverging from the literal Hebrew, that seems to capture the sense of the phrase.

The Hebrew word פּוּץ (putz) means to scatter, disperse, or overflow. A farmer scatters seed (Isaiah 28:25). God scatters lightning in a storm (Job 37:11). Poor shepherds scatter their sheep (Jeremiah 23:1-2). After God confused the languages of the people who were building the tower of Babel, he “dispersed (putz) them from there over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:8). An army can be scattered (routed) in battle. Moses called upon God, “Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered (putz), and let those who hate you flee before you” (Numbers 10:35).

Scattered People

Most important theologically, God promised to scatter his people if they did not obey him. “And the LORD will scatter (putz) you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other” (Deuteronomy 28:64). This threat is promised time and again from Moses to the prophets until the people of Israel were carried into exile. However, this is not the end: “the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered (putz) you” (Deuteronomy 30:3).

When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek (called the Septuagint), one of the common words to translate putz is the Greek word διασπειρω (diaspeiro). For instance, when persecution broke out against the early church, they were “scattered” to different places (Acts 8:1, 4, 11:19). The noun form of this verb is διασπορά (diaspora), which refers to the Jewish people scattered outside the land (see John 7:35, James 1:1).

Interestingly, Peter also uses the word in the introduction to his epistle (1 Peter 1:1), which appears to be addressed to Jews and Gentiles. How can Gentiles be in exile? By being grafted into Israel, Gentiles share in some way the idea of being scattered. We are separated from how things are supposed to be, waiting for God’s redemption.

While some of the people returned from exile, settled in the land, and rebuilt the Temple, that was only a fraction of them. The people of Israel, the Jews, largely remain in exile to this day. The establishment of the modern state of Israel appears to be a partial fulfillment of God’s promise to bring his people back. God’s promises still ring true.

To Ponder…

God predicted his people would be scattered among the nations. Bad things would happen. It’s easy to question where God is when in the midst of turmoil. We should take comfort in this: he promised it would happen. If his promise of persecution is true, how much more his promise of redemption? He who scattered will also gather. He who destroyed will also rebuild. We may or may not see the fullness of the ingathering in our lifetimes, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming.

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