The Wonder of Habakkuk 3:17 - When God Does Not Provide

This is the Truth Network. Bible Wonders of Habakkuk. Oh, I love to wonder, and I love to wonder about this, the 17th verse of Habakkuk chapter 3, which is the pay verse.

And oh, there's much to wonder about here as we'll just read it in English and begin to wonder. So, although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines. The labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat.

The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. So, it sounds like, wow, you know, God, or in this case, you know, it's almost like it's the opposite of Psalm 145 16, like the Lord will open his hand, you know, to every desire. So, you know, it's like Habakkuk is saying, though he realizes that when judgment comes, that these things that God has been providing, he's going to withhold as actually to an extent for us to grow in our faith, right? It's neat to me that this is the pay verse because the pay is so significant in this idea because the word blossom, you know, we're talking about fig trees, which are all over. You know, when you think about the fig tree, it's very much always involved in prophecy. You know, it was the tree that Jesus cursed to bring back some memories there, and it's mentioned much in the Song of Solomon as we did that study, and you'll see time and time again that through the prophets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, they all talk about the fig tree. And so it's not a shocker, I guess, that here in this prophecy, Habakkuk is going to talk about the fig tree first. And the neat thing about the word fig tree in Hebrew is that it has that asset or it has the aspect of the end from the beginning. And, you know, and if you think about what happened at the beginning is Adam and Eve made their aprons out of fig leaves, right? And so it was there at the beginning, and it's certainly going to be there at the end, and the very first letter in the word fig tree is a tav, which is that God's signature, that idea of truth, but is also the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet.

Well, the second letter is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet, which is an aleph. And so you can see the connection to, obviously, the beginning and the end here, and then a nun, which would have to do with faith, and obviously the idea that it's a plant, and it's expressed. And so it's like, wow, the end from the beginning expressed in so many different ways to think about the fig tree. And of course, Jesus talked about when the fig tree sprouted, that's when we're going to, you know, when that becomes green, you know, that whole prophecy there, again, connected to the fig tree. And so we come here to see that this particular fig tree is not going to blossom. Well, that word blossom begins with a pay, and the idea of God opening his hand or this flower opening its hand to tell you that there's going to be fruit, specifically figs.