He had spoken out his doubt and his distress, and therefore he had not to wait long for an answer. As one who stands upon a watch-tower, straining his eyes for the first gleam of the spears
HABAKKUK n. 4 379
and helmets of a hostile or a friendly army, so he watched, as from the fenced place whence the vision of the truth was seen, to see what the Lord would say to him, what answer he should give when men mocked and taunted him. Then, as the sunlight rises upon the watchman who all night long has looked out through the darkness, the Lord answered him and said, " Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." Not on the papyrus roll, but on tables of wood or stone ; not in the cursive hand of scribes, but in the large characters employed by the sculptor of a graven monument, legible to the distant traveller as he passed at full speed, he was to make known, as Isaiah had done before him, the words that were to be the stay and comfort of his own soul, and of the souls of his people. He was assured, by that word of the Lord which came to his inward spirit, that the vision of a Divine order in the midst of the world's confusions would come at the appointed time in the fulness of its truth. " At the end it shall speak, and not lie : though it tarry, wait for it." The attitude of patient, trustful expectation was the truest and the best for him. That expectation should not always be disappointed. " It will surely come ; it will not tarry." So prefaced and so proclaimed, the words were sown on the wide fields of the world's history. " Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him : but the just by his faith shall live."
TJ Faith means vision. The constant sense of things unseen and eternal. Faith means trust. Daily confidence in the faith- ful Creator, the loving Kedeemer. Faith means expectation. The anticipation of the recompense of the reward. Faith is the root, hope is the blossom, charity is the flower of true religion. Let me beware of the technical, the tangible, the formal in my religious life ; let me keep intact the ethereal cords which bind me to the upper universe, and which bring into my life the spiritual electricity on which everything depends. I live by trust, love, admiration, fellowship, revealing themselves and justifying themselves in obedience.1
2. The terms used by the prophet need to be accurately defined. He says, " The just " or " righteous " shall endure in his faithfulness.
(1) The word "just" means exactly what is meant by the
1 W. L. Watkinson, The Gates of Daum, 34.
380 LIFE BY FAITH
word " righteous." The just are the righteous, and the righteous are the just. Now " the just," or " the righteous " are such as are in the right. The idea is rather forensic, and belongs to a court of law. In a trial in court, the righteous man was the one who had the right on his side. In its primitive sense it was merely a juridical right, with no idea of ethical righteousness. Gradually this idea gathered to itself a moral and religious character, and extended to and included right conduct toward God, and toward His creatures. " The just " or " righteous " of the Old Testament is scarcely more than what we call " the sincere," or what the New Testament calls a true heart, even when estimated at its highest. The " righteous " man, then, is the true, sincere one, whose words and works are in full harmony with the laws of right and so of God.
(2) The term rendered " faith " meant to the prophet simple " faithfulness." The Old Testament has no word for faith as an active principle, but has two passages in which the word amun or amunah is translated " faith." One of these is Deut. xxxii. 20, in which the children of Israel are spoken of as " children who have no faith," or steadfastness. " Unfaithful children " would better express the thought. The other instance is the text. These are not the only examples of faith in the Old Testament, as the eleventh chapter of Hebrews abundantly testifies, but they are the only uses of the word, and in each case the real meaning is " faithful- ness." Naturally the one speaking of the absence of faithfulness is little used and relatively unimportant; but the one which speaks of it as a saving principle or consideration is one of the chief stones in the mosaic of Old Testament quotations in the New Testament. In the New Testament the Apostle quotes this passage more than once, but reduces faithfulness in conduct to its root in the heart, and calls it " faith." It is well that he does so. " Faithfulness " is the Old Testament word. " Faith " is the word of the New Testament. This same word which in the text is trans- lated " faith" is translated "faithfulness" ten times, which along with other derivatives from the same root translated " faithful," " faith- fully," etc., make over fifty passages in which this rendering pre- vails. These two passages are the only ones in which it is trans- lated " faith," and it would not have been so translated here except to make it conform to the New Testament rendering. The