John Bytheway: 00:00:03 Welcome to Part II of Dr. Josh Matson. Josh, what have you got for us for Habakkuk?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:00:10 I think it would be appropriate to start with my story of Habakkuk. I actually ran into Habakkuk as a 19-year-old pre-missionary, getting ready to leave on my mission. I was attending a temple session in the Idaho Falls Temple for the first time. And as you walk past the recommend desk into the temple, the doorway that goes into the chapel above it is a reference to Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 20. And I remember as a 19-year-old looking up and reading the words of Habakkuk 2:20, “But the Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him,” and asking, “Who is Habakkuk?”

Hank Smith: 00:00:52 Yeah, who is that?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:00:54 “And why was he so important that we’re putting his name up on the wall of the temple in Idaho Falls?” That was my introduction to Habakkuk. I actually have loved the book ever since. We’ll talk about the context of 2:20 because it’s going to make a lot of sense of why that verse is there and also why it’s really impactful for a temple.

  00:01:13 But the name Habakkuk is the first thing that catches my eye. The root for Habakkuk is somewhat unknown, but it’s really close to a word that’s used frequently in Genesis to unfold, clasp or embrace. Habakkuk has something to do with this idea of embracing or clasping or unfolding. And I found it used in two different ways in Genesis. The first way is embracing clasping or embracing in kinship. And so we see this between particularly Jacob and Esau, Jacob and his wife, and Jacob and his grandchildren, Ephraim and Manasseh. When Genesis 29:13, Genesis 33:4, and Genesis 48:10, the same root for the name Habakkuk is used to describe how Israel interacts with his relationships of others. And for me, I get excited about the idea of viewing God as one who embraces us in an embrace of kinship and love.

John Bytheway: 00:02:19 Absolutely.

Hank Smith: 00:02:20 Yeah, that’s beautiful.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:02:22 And the fact that each of these references reference Jacob or Israel, I also love the idea of the people of Israel, us, the covenant people of Israel, that we do the same thing with everybody who’s in our community, that we have a clasp and embrace or we unfold any member in a clasp of kinship. That’s the first take that we can take from Habakkuk and it’s very instructive and I love it.

  00:02:50 The other one I think actually fits the text a little bit better, and that’s from Genesis chapter 32, verse 24, when we get a reference to a clasp in regards to wrestling, when we get Jacob wrestling with the angel and he’s going to clasp or embrace or unfold in wrestling the angel. Habakkuk is amazingly fit for this idea of a wrestle because the entire book… Well at least chapters 1 and 2 are a back and forth between Habakkuk and Jehovah, between God, as Habakkuk prays and Jehovah responds.

Hank Smith: 00:03:33 He’s wrestling with a question, right?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:03:35 With two questions that God is going to bring to him. I love this idea that our relationship with God is a wrestle. Sometimes we approach heaven too obliquely. We say, “Oh, I can’t get upset with God, I can’t argue with God, I can’t wrestle with God.” And one thing that I like to tell my students all the time is, “Friends, I think God can handle it.” If we’re frustrated with God or if we don’t understand something, I think God can handle it if we shake our fists sometimes and say, “God, why can’t I understand this? Or why are you doing this?” And that’s what Habakkuk is doing, is he’s coming to God and he’s saying, “Let’s wrestle. Let’s wrestle with what I’m struggling with.” So I think the name fits perfectly for what we’re about to read in the text of Habakkuk.

John Bytheway: 00:04:26 Awesome. I love looking at Old Testament names because so often they do seem to indicate something of their mission. I kept thinking of a clasp or embrace as also kaphar, isn’t that a similar…

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:04:39 Yeah. And that we’re looking more is directly with a hand clasp because you’ve got kuf or kaph in the Hebrew, which actually means hand or fist. Interestingly enough, that word is going to be used here in Habakkuk and is going to give us another level of understanding as we read through it. But yeah, I love this idea of a wrestle. And we can draw the obvious parallels between Jacob and Genesis or Enos in the Book of Mormon and this idea of, do we wrestle with God? Do we really want to engage in that wrestle so that we can truly learn truth directly from the source of truth, our Heavenly Father?

John Bytheway: 00:05:17 You just used the phrase engage in the wrestle. Sheri Dew gave a talk up at BYU-Idaho. You can go to BYU-Idaho’s website, I think it’s called Will You Engage in The Wrestle? She later wrote a book called Worth the Wrestle, just about that very idea. If you want to get your answer you can, but are you willing to engage in the wrestle?

Hank Smith: 00:05:37 Yeah. She says, “Questions are not just good, they are vital because the ensuing spiritual wrestle leads to answers to knowledge and to revelation and also leads to greater faith.” We can link this talk in our show notes, John. Just go to followhim.co. We’ll put Sheri’s talk there in the show notes because it’s a great reference to what Josh has been talking about.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:06:00 And it’s endorsed by Elder Holland’s who was at BYU Idaho the next week and actually said, “You should listen to everything Sister Dew just taught you.”

Hank Smith: 00:06:08 Oh, that’s great.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:06:09 I love that prophetic endorsement.

John Bytheway: 00:06:11 And you’ll also get extra credit points in my class. I find if I want my students really want them to do something, I just make it extra credit.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:06:21 So good. So Habakkuk, we understand his name. Now to give a historical setting, like Nahum, we have to do some investigative work to find out when Habakkuk is written because just like Nahum all we get about Habakkuk is the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see. And there’s some interesting parallels there that we can draw from. But the investigative work that we need to do actually is in verse 6. So in verse 6 of Habakkuk, “For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.” The Chaldeans here is a reference to the Neo Babylonians who are going to come and take over stewardship of what we would call the holy land from the Assyrians.

  00:07:09 They’re going to destroy Ninevah in 612, so you can see the natural flow from Nahum to Habakkuk. We move from the Assyrians to the Babylonians. It’s interesting with verse 6 and then if we would continue in verse 7, 8, 9, this makes it seem aware that Habakkuk is describing that people are already aware that the Babylonians have destroyed Nineveh and that they are marching across nations including the Battle of Carchemish, which takes place in 605 BC, that people are familiar that they’re starting to be on the move but they haven’t yet made their way to the kingdom of Judah and to Jerusalem. So we’re kind of in this sweet spot of some time between 605 BC and the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem in 586, 587 BC.

Hank Smith: 00:08:00 That’s Lehi’s time period, right?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:08:02 Exactly. So Habakkuk could very much be one of those contemporaries with Lehi. And everything that we’re seeing here is part of that context that we’re familiar with.

John Bytheway: 00:08:17 I’m so glad you said what you said a second ago because I’ve always thought Chaldeans equals Babylonians, but you called them Neo Babylonians so it means they kind of took over.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:08:28 We do this with the Assyrians as well. We have the Neo Assyrian Empire and we have the Babylonian Empire. So the reference to Neo Babylonians is the fact that we have people inhabiting Babylon well before the rise of the Babylonian empire. For scholars, a way to be able to delineate between people who are inhabiting Babylon let’s say in the second millennium BC and this Neo Babylonian empire that’s going to come and destroy Nineveh and destroy Jerusalem and continue to expand as an empire, they’re referred to as the Neo Babylonians because they’re new, that’s Neo, so the new Babylonians because they’re closer to our time. And so that delineates from the older Babylonians who would’ve existed prior to that.

Hank Smith: 00:09:16 It sounds to me, am I reading this right, that Habakkuk is struggling with the idea that the Babylonians are going to be successful?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:09:25 Yeah. So there’s two things. The outline of Habakkuk is Habakkuk gives two prayers, one at the beginning of chapter 1 and one at the end of chapter 1. So in Habakkuk chapter 1 verses 2 through 4, we get Habakkuk’s first prayer to God and he says this, “Oh Lord, how long shall I cry and thou wilt not hear? Even cry out unto thee of violence and thou wilt not save. Why dost thou shew me iniquity and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me and there are that rise up strife and contention. Therefore, the law is slacked and judgment doth never go forth for the wicked doth compass about the righteous. Therefore, wrong judgment proceedeth.”

  00:10:12 What Habakkuk is saying in this first prayer is, “God, why aren’t you listening to me? I’m constantly praying.” And maybe it’s not just Habakkuk, maybe it’s children of Judah and the people that are living as covenant Israel, “But how long are we going to cry and you’re not going to hear?” And I can see it on John’s face that he already knows exactly the parallel in the modern days that we want to go with, right?

John Bytheway: 00:10:36 Yep, it’s right there in the footnote.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:10:41 So this is Joseph Smith’s plea in Liberty Jail. “Oh Lord, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?” What I also find fascinating is these same words are in Psalm 13 while we get them in the Doctrine and Covenants and we’re familiar with them there and now we’re being introduced to them here in Habakkuk. When we go to Psalm 13 and we look at verses two and three, we see the similar language. “How long shall I take counsel in my soul having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, oh Lord, my God. Lighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death.”

Hank Smith: 00:11:23 Poor guy is struggling.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:11:24 Habakkuk is perhaps drawing upon that language of the Psalms and trying to say, “Lord, am I just wasting my time?” As I think of the numerous people that I’ve talked to and that I’ve interacted with who say, “Josh, I just don’t feel like my prayers leave my bedroom. I kneel down at the side of my bed and I pray to God and I feel like it hits the ceiling and it falls right back down on the floor. I don’t feel like God is listening to my prayers. “And that’s Habakkuk. Habakkuk has just reached the point where he looks and he goes, “God, are you just never going to listen to me? Are you never going to answer my prayers and the needs that I have in my life?”

  00:12:07 The needs that people have, and that’s verse 4, the word judgment is actually probably better translated here as justice. It’s the Hebrew word mishpat. “The law is slacked and justice to never go forth. Therefore wronged justice proceedeth.” Habakkuk’s not just saying, “Why aren’t you listening to me and what I need, but don’t you see all of the injustice that’s happening in the world? When are you going to wake up and take care of us?” I can’t think of a more connective way to see Habakkuk than to think of the millions of people who’ve prayed the same prayer that we see in Joseph and in Habakkuk and in the Psalms.

John Bytheway: 00:12:50 I’m so glad you brought that up because that is so many people’s question as you have said. I just don’t seem to get answers. Isaiah says it in his call in Isaiah 6 when the Lord says this, “Your mission’s not going to go well.” Well, how long? Well, until the cities are wasted without inhabitant. I think Alma and Amulek say it when they’re in prison, “How long?” It’s not, “I don’t believe in you anymore,” it’s, “I believe in you, but how long do we have to wait?” And probably more places than that. Liberty Jail one and Psalm 13:1 is beautiful that you quoted, but I’m glad you brought it up because many have that question. And so just knowing this to know, “Hey, you’re not the only one who has asked this, but hang on.”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:13:37 And what an introduction to the wrestle. The wrestle that we’re going to have is a very intimate one. People who I’ve had this conversation with and even the conversation I’ve had with myself is that is a hard hitting question, that is high adventure as we may say. That’s not a 100 level class question. That’s a 900 level class where we’re saying, “We really want an answer to this.” That’s Habakkuk’s first prayer is verses 2 through 4. And then God is going to respond in verse 5. And I love how in the King James text we see this little paragraph mark in verse 5. That’s one thing that can help us keep track of these prayers and the responses from God, is as we see those paragraph markers, that shows in the ancient Hebrew manuscripts that were used for Habakkuk or any of the texts in the Old Testament, there was a break there in the manuscript. So the oldest versions of Habakkuk said, “We need to think of it differently verse 5 from verse 4. We need to change thought.” So that’s just helpful as we’re looking through the text.

  00:14:44 So now God’s response is going to be verses 5 through 11 because verse 12 will start a new section. John, as you said, Habakkuk struggling with the fact that it’s the Babylonians that are going to happen because God’s answer to that heartfelt plea of, “Where are you? Why aren’t you listening?”, is, “I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you.”

John Bytheway: 00:15:07 Verse 5. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:15:08 And we even get language if we went further back, “That wonder marvelously for I will work a work in your days, which you will not believe, though it be told you.”

John Bytheway: 00:15:18 That’s just kind of like, “I’m going to answer your prayer and in a way that you did not think it was coming.” Is that what that means?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:15:25 Yeah. And it says, “I’m even going to tell you it and you’re going to be surprised.” And that’s why we need to know the context that this is prior to the Babylonians coming in and in an essence executing justice upon the kingdom of Judah who has abandoned God.

  00:15:41 And so that very question he says, “I’m going to do this.” And then what he does is he foretells. Starting in verse 6 all the way through verse 11 is it’s a very detailed idea of, “I’m going to raise up the Chaldeans or the Neo Babylonians.” And what they’re going to do is they are going to be terrible and dreadful we read in verse 7. “Their judgment,” again connect that verse to verse 4, this is justice, “Their justice and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. And they’re going to be swifter than leopards and more fierce than the evening wolves and their horsemen shall spread themselves. Their horsemen shall come from afar and they shall fly as the eagle that hasteneth to eat. They shall come all for violence. Their faces shall sup up as the east wind…” Keep in mind that east wind was always terrible because that’s the hot wind that’s going to bring plagues and is going to bring famine. And so they’re going to come and they’re going to be just as impactful as plagues and/or famine in your lives and they shall gather the captivity as the sand.

  00:16:43 The answer to Habakkuk’s first prayer is, “Where’s your justice, God?” and God saying, “Well, the justice is about to come with the Babylonians.”

Hank Smith: 00:16:53 Which is fascinating because the Babylonians aren’t exactly the righteous…

John Bytheway: 00:16:58 Yeah. He’s using others, the Babylonians, as an instrument to accomplish what he wants to do even though the Babylonians might not be aware of it, the Neo Babylonians.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:17:07 Exactly.

Hank Smith: 00:17:08 I’m trying to put myself in Habakkuk’s position going, “What? Well, yeah, you’re answering my prayer but not with them, please. No, not with them.”

John Bytheway: 00:17:17 That’s verse 5, “which you will not believe, though it be told you.”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:17:22 And to be honest, what you’ve just demonstrated is that we all have the same reaction, and so does Habakkuk. So now we get to Habakkuk second prayer that starts in verse 12 and he says, “Wait a second, art thou not from everlasting, oh Lord my God, mine holy one? We shall not die. Oh Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment, and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction?” I actually put a question mark in there. It seems much more like a question in verse 12. “Them? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I just want justice, but not this way.”

Hank Smith: 00:18:01 I didn’t want this answer.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:18:03 Yeah. Then he says, “Wait a second,” verse 13, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.” Wait a second, Lord. You know about the Babylonians. How can you not only look upon them but utilize them to execute justice? “Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?” So he’s saying, “Aren’t we more righteous than the Babylonians?”

Hank Smith: 00:18:33 “You wanted justice, right?”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:18:35 Yeah. And this parallel is so good with the Book of Mormon because isn’t this what Jacob tells the Nephites? “Aren’t they more righteous than you even though you think of yourself more righteous than them?” We’re getting that same human tendency of saying, “I’m righteous and they’re wicked. And if God’s going to execute justice, God’s got to do it but he can’t do it through them because they’re not righteous enough to do that.”

Hank Smith: 00:19:00 Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:19:01 So Habakkuk is now back to that struggle. It’s back to that wrestle. “You’re saying you’re going to do this, but wait, I still need clarification. I still need to better understand what’s going to happen.” And he seeks to get understanding in a way that for me is fascinating.

  00:19:20 If we continue reading in verse 14 of Habakkuk chapter 1, “And make us men as the fishes of the sea as the creeping things that have no ruler over them.” This is direct reference back to Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. So if you remember when God placed man in the garden of Eden, and I use man there as mankind, because in Genesis 1, remember God’s creating Adam and Eve at the same time.

  00:19:49 The rib story is coming in Genesis 2, but in Genesis 1 he’s making man and woman at the same time. But look at the wording in verse 26. “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

  00:20:12 So God created men in his own image. In the image of God created he/him. Male and female created he/them. This isn’t just a statement of men, but this is mankind. This is men and women that we would know from Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27. “You set us up as like covenant people to be over everything. Why are you letting the Babylonians come in and overtake us? What happened to your promise?”

  00:20:40 So now we’re getting to a new question. The new question is no longer, “God, why aren’t you executing justice and why aren’t you listening to me?” It’s now, “Why are you doing it in this way?” He then says, “They,” meaning back to the Babylonians, “Take up all of them with the angle. They catch them in their net and gather them in their drag. Therefore, they rejoice and are glad.” So he is using fishermen language.

John Bytheway: 00:21:04 Fishermen are called anglers. That’s cool.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:21:07 So they, these Babylonians, they’re going to take all these people up that you said are going to be rulers over the earth and over the people. And then he gets at one of the problems in verse 16. “Therefore they sacrifice unto their net and burn incense unto their drag because by them their portion is fat and their meat is plenteous.” So he is saying, “Wait a second, you’re going to use these people who worship the items that they use to conquer other people. They are worshiping their own hands or the images of their own hands or the work of their own hands instead of God. And then he ends with this question, “Shall they therefore empty their net and not spare continually to slay the nations?”

Hank Smith: 00:21:51 This is fascinating to me that it’s so human. “Are you going to hear my prayers?” “Yes, I’ll answer your prayers.” “Not that way.”

John Bytheway: 00:22:00 “Yeah, not that way.” It’s like Jonah, I guess, in the series to repent. And they do and he’s mad about it. But here in the summary at the beginning of the chapter, he’s troubled that the wicked can be thus employed. There’s something that doesn’t make sense to him about that.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:22:15 As we go back to that and we go back to that word, massa, this idea of a burden, I think that that’s part of it too. If we do look at it in this traditional interpretation, not just prophetic exposition, but here Habakkuk is having a burden of knowing that God is utilizing other nations to bring about his work against Israel, covenant Israel in this sense, or the nation of Judah. There’s a prophetic burden that comes with that.

  00:22:44 One thing I love about studying Hebrew is when we translate it into English, it’s okay to have these multiple interpretations because the word is trying to act in this way and in that way. We can have that prophetic exposition in Nahum and then we can have this idea of a heavy burden on the shoulders of Habakkuk because of what he knows.

Hank Smith: 00:23:07 What happens next, Josh? Does the Lord answer again?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:23:10 Yeah. So this is one of the places where chapter breaks actually do us a disservice because verse 1 in chapter 2 actually belongs with the end of the prayer in verse 17 and it’s kind of this in between. So Habakkuk has just given the prayer. Now he’s going to say something that’s really important for the rest of Habakkuk, but he says this, “I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved.” He ends with the question, but he says, “I know I’m called to be a prophet, to be a watchman on the tower,” Ezekiel 3:17 language, “And I will do what God has asked me to do. I will watch as God has asked me to watch. And even in this case I will even stand reproved if God wants to reprove me.”

John Bytheway: 00:24:02 It’s like, “I know I’m going to get reproved, but I still want to know what he’s going to say.”

Hank Smith: 00:24:06 Yeah, he’s not going to love what I just said so I’m waiting patiently to hear the answer.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:24:10 And with this I just think one of my favorite things that I’m sure both of you do the same thing in your classes, I love in the Bible Dictionary the discussion about prayer. And I know it’s frequently discussed in classrooms, but when we look at where we are in Habakkuk and we take a pause for a second and we go to what it says about prayer in the Bible Dictionary, I think we find something very impactful.

  00:24:35 In the second to last paragraph, “As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God, namely God is our Father and we are His children, then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part. Many of the so-called difficulties about prayer arise from forgetting this relationship. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but are made conditional on our asking for them. Blessings require some work or effort on our part, wrestle, before we can obtain them. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings.”

John Bytheway: 00:25:23 That’s great stuff.

Hank Smith: 00:25:25 Yeah, that fits this book exactly.

John Bytheway: 00:25:27 There’s a verse and the King James English is a little hard for me to understand, but the way it says it, and we all know James 1:5, we’re not sitting here without James 1:5, but James 4:2 says “Ye have not because ye ask not.” And that sounds like that. You just had to ask what you just read there.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:25:46 Yeah. And Habakkuk is I think coming to that. He starts with this indignation and says, “No, why aren’t you doing justice God?” And then he says, “Wait a second. That’s not how I would do it, but now I understand better that your ways are better than my ways. And I am willing to submit my will to your will. And I am willing to understand that what you are doing is with a grander perspective than what I would do if I was in your shoes.” In essence, he gives that willing to submit in verse 1. It gets lost because you transfer chapters. Sometimes when we read chapter 1 on a Wednesday and then on Thursday we start chapter 2, we forget how it’s tied into that prayer that Habakkuk is praying to God.

Hank Smith: 00:26:34 And the Lord answers him again.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:26:36 Yeah. And this is a great place because not very many places in scripture do we get what comes next. And verse 2, “And the Lord answered me and said, ‘Write the vision and make it plain upon the tables that he may run that readeth it.” And going back to what we talked about prophetic exposition in Nahum, look at what the Lord says, “Write the vision. Write what you see and make it plain upon tables. So you use your language to help make it more understandable so that he may run that readeth it.”

John Bytheway: 00:27:09 Great.

Hank Smith: 00:27:10 The prophet’s got to use his own mind to take this revelation, put it into words that people can use.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:27:17 And not just use, but do. It’s not enough just to know we could quote all of Habakkuk, but if it doesn’t cause us to run or to start to move forward along the covenant path, Habakkuk is a book that’s intended to be a book of action. And then we get this next part. So the Lord hasn’t quite answered yet, he’s saying, “Okay, you stood up and you said you’re going to be the prophet that I need you to be. I need you to write what you’re about to see. I need you to make it more understandable,” But then he says this fascinating line in verse 3, the Lord says to Habakkuk, “For the vision is yet for an appointed time. But at the end it shall speak and not lie, though it tarry, wait for it because it will surely come. It will not tarry.”

John Bytheway: 00:28:01 I underlined the “Wait for it.” I just thought that’s awesome. It’s the Lord saying, “Wait for it. It’s coming. All of these how longs will be answered eventually. Just wait for it. It won’t tarry, it’ll come.”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:28:16 And I love going back to these commentaries. As we had said at the beginning, one of the best preserved commentaries from the Dead Sea Scrolls is actually a commentary on the book of Habakkuk. And I think this is an appropriate time to insert what we see right here.

  00:28:30 So after he says, “Write these things down and see them,” it’s interesting how the Qumran community interpreted it. They said, “This refers to the fact that God told Habakkuk to write down what is going to happen to the generation to come. But when that period would be complete, he did not make known to him. When it says, ‘So that with ease someone can read it,’ this refers to the teacher of righteousness to whom God made known all the mysterious revelations of his servants, the prophets.”

  00:29:02 In an essence, the Qumran community is saying, “What Habakkuk saw was going to be understood by them who experienced what he’s trying to describe. In his own day, he’s probably not going to understand why he’s saying what he’s saying.” As interesting as that part is, they then go on, “For still the prophecy is for a specific period. It testifies of the time and does not deceive.” Their interpretation of this says, “This means that the last days will be long, much longer than the prophets had said, for God’s revelations are truly mysterious.”

  00:29:36 It’s easy for us to say, “Well the Babylonians are going to come in the next 20 years and wipe out Judah and Jerusalem and that’s going to fulfill everything.” Even the Qumran community is saying, “Wait a second, yes that happened, but in the Latter-days God is going to stretch out the time.” We can’t be prideful in thinking we know that this is exactly done. We need to continue to ponder it and look for this in our own lives. I think that makes the connection between antiquity and today that we can say, “As I read these texts, how can it be fulfilled in my life as I’m striving to live the gospel as best I can.”

  00:30:14 Verse 4 in that context then is, “Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith.” So that’s the answer. But now God’s actually going to answer the prayer. So he’s saying, “Here’s what you need to do, Habakkuk. Get ready.” And he is going to answer it by pronouncing five woes upon his people. We see the word woe in verse 6, in verse 9, in verse 12, in verse 15, and in verse 19. These five woes we can then separate and say, “Here are the actions that are going to cause justice to come upon the people of Israel.”

Hank Smith: 00:30:51 Wow, that’s the dreaded five woer, John. That’s as woe as you go, isn’t it? There’s a lot of woes here. So what are the woes, Josh? What do the woes mean? It means that these are things that God doesn’t like?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:31:08 Yeah. And this is God’s approach. It’s saying, “This is what I’m noticing that you’re doing.” Even though verse 5 doesn’t have a woe, it really ties into verse 6. So if we start in verse 6 where the woe comes in, “Woe to him that increases that which is not his.” The idea here usury or interest. And if you’ll remember in the law of Moses, the Jews were prohibited from charging interest on one another or getting rich off of one another as a means of taking advantage of one because of their situation. The references to that are Deuteronomy 20:19, Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:35. These are each commandments given by God to tell the Israelites that they’re not supposed to get rich off of their brothers and sisters.

  00:31:59 You may be reading this and saying, “Josh, wait a second, you said verse 5 has to do with verse 6.” Well verse 5 says, “Because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, whom enlargeth his desires as hell and is as death and cannot be satisfied, gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth upon him all people.”

  00:32:21 Now in my scriptures I’ve circled the word wine because the word wine is not in our oldest manuscripts of Habakkuk. The word wine here is spelled with three Hebrew letters, a heth, a yod, and a nun. The difference between the word wine and the word wealth is a waw instead of a yod in between the heth and the nun. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, they actually have wealth. So instead of wine, we should read verse 5 to say, “Yay also because he transgresseth by wealth.”

John Bytheway: 00:33:01 Interesting.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:33:03 And it’s the wealth that causes him to be proud. Not the wine, but the wealth. “And it keepeth him at home and he enlargeth his desires.” He can’t get enough of it. He needs to accumulate more wealth and more wealth and will never be satisfied. Verse 6 and verse 5 actually go together really well, but if you don’t know that the word wine there is a mistranslation through history, you might think, “What does wine have to do with-“

Hank Smith: 00:33:29 That’s a great connection. How often do we try to do that, to try to make money off of other people’s difficult situations?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:33:37 I think the Lord knew what he was talking about in the law of Moses when he’s saying, “This is not how you are to accumulate possessions and wealth, is off the backs of your brothers and sisters.”

John Bytheway: 00:33:49 Not a Zion way to do things.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:33:51 Yeah. And John, I love your reference because of Moses 7:18, “There was no poor among them.” What does poor have to do with building Zion? It’s because of the fact that we often talk about consecration, but we also need to give the idea that Habakkuk is giving us that we’re not trying to build wealth off of our brothers and sisters.

  00:34:12 The next one in verse 9 is, “Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house.” This actually connects again with what we have. A better translation of coveted here is a translation that I read that actually changes the word to fraudulent profits. So woe to him that gets fraudulent profits an evil covetousness to his house that he may set his nest on high and he may be delivered from the power of evil.” Now that word power comes back to what we talked about… I told you that we’d come back to this grasp, the kaphar, the word there is kaph or fist or reach or hand. So what this individual is doing is he’s trying to amass enough profit to protect himself from the powers of evil, saying, “If I get rich enough, evil cannot impact me.”

Hank Smith: 00:35:07 Seems like a backwards way of thinking, but okay.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:35:09 And Habakkuk is saying, “This is a false hope, that you will not be able to ever run away from evil if you’re participating in these abilities of gaining profits.”

  00:35:21 Verse 10 then makes more sense when it says, “Thou has consulted shame to thy house.” Another word for consulted there, if you look at the footnotes on 10 is devised or schemed. So, “Thou has schemed shame to thy house by cutting off many people and has sinned against thy soul.” The idea here is that you’re not going to get away with this. The more people that you fraud out of money… And this is one of those times where I remember talking about the outer darkness or telestial kingdom with my students and I say, “This is reserved for people who are whoremungers and who love to make a lie and people who make fraud and telemarketers and all of those” only half joking. But that’s what this idea here is, that if you’re going to try and defraud people out of their money, then you’re going to sin against your soul.

  00:36:14 And I think that there’s an innate belief within all people that if they participate in those activities, they know that they’re taking advantage of someone and that their soul is bearing testimony to them that they should not do what they’re doing. And that idea that they’re sinning against their own soul, I love the definition of sin.

John Bytheway: 00:36:36 “To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” That one?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:36:41 Yep.

John Bytheway: 00:36:41 Yeah, James. It’s in the book of James, I think.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:36:44 That idea of the fact that sinning is openly rebelling and knowing what you’re doing is wrong. And that’s what he’s saying here, is that, “If you’re fraudulating people out of this, that’s the case.” I don’t know how much comfort that brings to the person who’s being frauded, but at least God is being aware. And we’re going back to that justice. “Is there not justice for these people?”, and the justice is there.

  00:37:06 The last note that I might make on just this woe is verse 11 is fascinating to me because it says, “For the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.” And I can’t help but think of the Savior on Palm Sunday when people are telling him, “Hey, you need to keep these crowds down. You’re going to get this attention of Rome that we don’t want.” And he says that if they should hold their peace, the stones shall cry out.

Hank Smith: 00:37:33 The stones shall cry out of the wall. Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:37:36 I think we get a great connection there with what the Savior was trying to teach, is that even what we may call inanimate objects are going to bear testimony against those who are wicked but also bear testimony of truth to those who are righteous.

Hank Smith: 00:37:51 Yeah. It’s like, “If these walls could talk.” Let’s keep going through these woes.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:37:55 We can move a little faster. I think these are fairly straightforward. In verse 12, we get the next woe from 12 and 13, “Woe unto him that buildeth a town with blood.” This idea of political arrogance. “I’m going to buildeth a town on the blood of the people and establish a city out of iniquity.”

  00:38:13 There’s numerous examples from the ancient world and even our modern world of people who build great names to themselves, but on the backs of innocent individuals. “The Lord of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire and the people shall worry themselves from the vanity.” The phrase Lord of hosts, this is Jehovah, the God of Sabaoth, the hosts or the armies of heaven. He’s aware and your city cannot stand against him.

  00:38:43 Verse 14 really doesn’t fit. And some people actually think that verse 14 actually belonged in chapter 3 and not here. But I think that there’s actually something instructive here of the Lord then saying, “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” That all the world, no matter where you’re at, is going to know the glory, the kavod, that presence of Jehovah, that divine presence that existed over the tabernacle that led the children of Israel in the wilderness, all the world will know about it.

Hank Smith: 00:39:16 Yeah, you can build a town on blood and establish a city by iniquity, but it’s still on the earth, which is the Lord’s.

John Bytheway: 00:39:23 Right. And one day everybody will know.

Hank Smith: 00:39:26 All will know.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:39:28 We talked about the next woe in verses 15 through 17 in this idea of drunkenness and sexual promiscuity. And then the last one, verse 19, we get a, “Woe onto him that saith to wood, ‘Awake,’ and to the dumb stone, ‘Arise’.” Here’s the idolatry that is present throughout the ancient world, including Israel. I remember talking to an archeologist and I said, “What’s the most common thing outside of pottery that we find in Jerusalem, in the surrounding area?” And I was blown away by the response that one of the things that we find most in Jerusalem are idols.

John Bytheway: 00:40:03 Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:40:03 And for us it’s easy to put distance between us and idols. We go, “Oh, I don’t build an idol and put it in my bedroom or go to some temple.” But in an essence, this is anything that we put our trust in that’s not God. And for us, it may even be gold and silver, just not in the form of a small statue.

John Bytheway: 00:40:22 President Kimball kind of did that thing about some might be surprised to think that the boat, the vacation, I can’t remember all the things he said, that that could be idol worship because like you said, it’s anything that’s not God that you’re giving your reliance and devotion to.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:40:37 Yeah. So God’s saying, “Here’s your last woe if you’re adulterous.” And then verse 20, we already talked about it and it’s presence in the Idaho Falls temple, but, “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him.” The end of his response to Habakkuk to me is awe-inspiring because all of the earth includes Habakkuk. God is in an essence saying, “Habakkuk, you have now received your answer and it would be inappropriate for you to continue to be angry with me because I am in my holy temple and I have given you my answer.”

Hank Smith: 00:41:15 “I answered your prayer.”

John Bytheway: 00:41:17 So, “Let all the earth keep silence. That includes you, Habakkuk.” Is that what you mean?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:41:23 Yeah. I just think this is such an instructive story for you and I because we can wrestle with the Lord. But when the Lord gives us an answer, it’s inappropriate for us to continue to rail and say God is not answering our prayers. When we know that we’ve received an answer, it’s time for us to keep silence before him.

  00:41:44 What’s fascinating to me in this sense is that in the Dead Sea Scrolls in the commentary on Habakkuk, it actually ends with verse 20 and there’s plenty of space on the scroll where they could have continued into chapter 3. But Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 20 is the last verse that’s on the commentary of this. And I love what they say in regards to this last verse.

  00:42:10 In the pesher Habakkuk it says that, “This refers to all the gentiles who have worshiped stone and wood. In the day of judgment, god will exterminate all those who worship false gods as well as the wicked from the earth.” The silence is not people choosing to be silent, but that God eventually will silence all of those who are going against him and he will stand alone in his temple and will have silenced all the other gods and all the other voices. Eventually, all of the tumult and all of the naysayers about God, eventually they will be silenced by the God of Israel.

Hank Smith: 00:42:50 I can see that. The Lord is not an idol, he’s in his temple. So chapter 3 then is Habakkuk responding but responding with praise?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:43:00 Yeah. Habakkuk chapter 3 is this just enigma in the Old Testament because if we read the first verse, “A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, upon Shigionoth.” What a great word. What that word is, at least most scholars have come to the conclusion, that’s the melody. So what Habakkuk is actually giving us is he’s giving us a song. So he’s just prayed, he’s just had this experience, this wrestle with God. And now Habakkuk is going to sing a song.

Hank Smith: 00:43:33 I think I feel a song coming on. Okay.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:43:39 The melody of that song is this Shigionoth, but Habakkuk is now going to give us a psalm. And you see the language, if you look at verse 3, right in the middle, we get that word selah. And if you remember from the Psalms, remember we had “Selah, selah, selah.” We’re now singing a song. And Habakkuk is going to give this song, which is his way of taking everything that he just learned from the Lord and making it so that the people can understand and they can run with it.

Hank Smith: 00:44:11 Yeah, they can remember it too. If you think how… I mean, you can hear a song that you haven’t heard in 10, 15 years and all of a sudden you know all the words again. So it makes it easier to remember.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:44:23 Exactly. And the way it’s written poetically in ancient Israel they would’ve been able to recall this as well. We see this and we can get some great insights. A lot of it is just recirculating. What we’ve seen is that God is displeased with the world and will eventually destroy it, whether by the hands of the Neo Babylonians or others, but also the fact that we need to rejoice. And if we skip forward to verse 13, and I know that’s missing a lot of other things, but I think with that context it gives people a good chance to understand. But verse 13 in Habakkuk chapter 3, “Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed, thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked by discovering the foundation upon unto the neck. Selah” Habakkuk is sitting here and he’s saying God is going to work for the salvation of his people and especially for his anointed.

  00:45:18 And that’s any covenant member of Israel who is participating actively in what God has commanded for them to do. And that anointing for us in a modern context takes on even more relevance as we think about the ordinances of the temple.

Hank Smith: 00:45:35 Oh yeah, that anointed. I’m reading now. This is great stuff.

John Bytheway: 00:45:41 It does sound like a Psalm, even like 18, “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will join the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength.” Sounds like one of our hymns

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:45:53 Yeah. And I mean as we conclude Habakkuk, I think this is a good place. I loved what you discussed with Aaron Shade and his discussion with Hosea and Joel and how he was talking about the idea that when we walk with God, God is helping us to walk. “I love here that God will make me to walk upon mine high places.” And that idea of high places is the presence of God and in exalted places like temples. “And God is going to make me walk in his presence. He’s going to teach me how to walk, halak, to go in his places.” And that’s where he ends it. He says, “God is going to teach me.” Habakkuk’s wrestle turns into a song of jubilant praise and joy that what he learned is that God is actually fighting for justice and is listening to his people’s prayers and that we simply need to trust in him and rejoice in him so that we can have joy.

Hank Smith: 00:46:54 That’s interesting. Josh, I look at chapter 1 verse 2, “Oh Lord, how long shall I cry and thou will not hear?” And then you get to the end and he says, “I heard.” That’s verse 16. “I heard the Lord is my strength.” What’s happened between the beginning and the end is this wrestle that has turned out with him saying, “God is really there. He does hear our prayers. He does answer our prayers.” It might not be in the way we think, but he does answer our prayers and he does see the injustice that’s happening on the earth and he will do something about it.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:47:25 Absolutely. I love that bookend. We see the progress of a prophet. And for me that’s really invigorating. It’s really encouraging that if I have struggles, if I think that God’s not listening to my prayers, if I continue to wrestle, I eventually will hear him.

Hank Smith: 00:47:41 All right. We are two-thirds of the way done. But Zephaniah, it’s three chapters. How is it different than our other two books?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:47:49 From the very beginning, we actually see Zephaniah is different than Nahum and Habakkuk because it starts with the word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah, the son of Cush, the son of Gedaliah, and the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah. Unlike the other ones where we had to go dig to find context, we don’t have to dig very hard here. We’ve got an exact reference. The Superscription here sets the prophet as prophesying in Judah between 640 and 609 BC. Chapter 1 appears to give us a parallel with 2 Kings chapter 22. So if we want to reference this back into the narrative of Israelite history, we can go back to 2 Kings 22.

  00:48:34 However, one thing that’s interesting about Zephaniah is it appears the text is being written and given prior to Josiah’s reforms in 622 BC because we don’t have a lot of reference towards the idea that the reforms are happening. And according to verses 2:13, which if we read 2, verse 13 it says, “And he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria and will make Nineveh a desolation and a dry like a wilderness.” Well we’ve already talked about Nineveh and Assyria being destroyed back in Nahum. So Zephaniah actually probably would be better placed between Nahum and Habakkuk chronologically speaking.

Hank Smith: 00:49:17 Oh wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:49:18 Because Nineveh is still in power and Josiah hasn’t quite reformed yet and that’s going to happen in 6:22. So if I was king of the minor prophets, I would move Zephaniah to be more chronologically fit between Nahum and Habakkuk.

Hank Smith: 00:49:34 Well, you can be followHIM’s King of the Minor Prophet. We will give you that title.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:49:41 I don’t know. You’ve had some good people on that I think know the text better than I do, so we’ll wrestle for it. How about that?

Hank Smith: 00:49:49 What’s the essence of this book?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:49:50 So unlike the other two books where we’ve had kind of a back and forth or we’ve had clear delineations with what’s happening in the text, Zephaniah could probably be read as one single chapter. We could just start right at the beginning of Zephaniah and continue reading on and it would just continue to flow as one general text. There are some key moments in Zephaniah.

  00:50:14 So in verses 2 through 9 of chapter 1, we get this announcement of doom that’s about to come upon the people, particularly the people of Judah. There’s this announcement of doom that’s going to come. And then verses 10 through 18 then describe what that doom is going to be. We get anticipation of doom, an announcement, and then we’re going to see exactly what’s going to happen, and that’s chapter 1.

  00:50:40 Chapter 2 verses 1 through 4 is probably where we want to be the most because that’s where the prophet Zephaniah says, “You have one last chance to repent. Here’s your last chance. Please, please listen and take your chance to repent.” And then once we get to verses 5 through 15 in Zephaniah chapter 2, it’s prophecies about how the other nations are going to be destroyed. Chapter 3 verses 1 through 13 sets up this city that has puffed itself up in pride.

  00:51:11 Again, we can go back to our very first question, “Am I part of this city?” We don’t know for sure what city it is, but chapter 3 verses 1 through 13 is that there’s this great city that’s puffed up that is going to be destroyed by God. Lots of woes there again with chapter 3 verse 1, “Woe to her that is filthy and polluted to the oppressing city.” Some people will actually call this the woe against the oppressive city because we don’t get any other insights into what the oppressive city is from verse 1 to verse 13. So any city that’s being oppressive, this is what God is going to tell you is going to happen.

  00:51:50 And then verses 14 through 20 in Zephaniah chapter 3 is a song of rejoicing for Jerusalem, is that Jerusalem the city of peace. So we’re getting this juxtaposition between this oppressing city and Jerusalem city of peace that we’re going to have two differing outcomes as we move closer and closer to the day of the Lord or this coming of the son of man. Which city do we want to take up residency in? Do we want to be part of the city of oppression or do we want to be part of the city of peace? And Zephaniah is really trying to just set it out there and say, “You choose. Which one do you want to be a part of?”

John Bytheway: 00:52:32 “Here’s a no brainer. Which one do you choose?”

Hank Smith: 00:52:36 Yeah. And I love the description, The filthy and polluted versus the city where God is. He will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing.” Lehi like, “Which one do you want? Do you want misery and death or do you want happiness in eternal life? Which one do you want?”

John Bytheway: 00:52:54 Liberty and eternal life. Ooh, that’s a tough one.

Hank Smith: 00:52:57 Yeah.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:52:58 If we take everything that we’ve talked about today and as we talk about what we’ve studied as we take this as kind of a progressive read, from Nahum through Habakkuk to Zephaniah, what better place to end after all of these woes and destructions than this idea of singing as members of the city of Jerusalem or the city of peace? And even themes that we saw in the earlier texts are going to come up. For example, verse 15 in Zephaniah chapter 3, The Lord hath taken away thy judgements. He hath cast out thine enemy, the king of Israel, even the Lord is in the midst of thee. Thou shalt not see evil anymore.”

  00:53:37 We had Habakkuk who said, “Wait a second, I’m seeing evil things in my life,” if we go to Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 3, “Why dost thou shew me iniquity and cause me to behold grievanceness?” Now we’re saying we’re not going to see that anymore once we get to the city. And so I really love how these were put together with “Come, follow me” because they’re leading us towards where we want to inhabit. And after reading all of these cities and all of these nations being destroyed and all of these woes, what better way to end our week of reading than to see all of these great blessings and especially the blessing that God is in the midst of those who are part of this city?

Hank Smith: 00:54:14 It’s a beautiful way to finish. It’s nice that these three books were together and it finishes in such a positive note.

John Bytheway: 00:54:19 The manual says, “You might compare these verses to the experiences described in 3 Nephi 17 and ponder how Jesus Christ feels about his people including you.”

Hank Smith: 00:54:29 I love that. Verse 19, Zephaniah 3:19, “I will undo all that afflict thee. I will gather her that was driven out. I will get them praise and fame in every land.” It reminds me of the Lord saying, “I can do my own work.”

John Bytheway: 00:54:43 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:54:44 Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:54:45 And what that work is, I love… Zephaniah actually kind of shows his hand a little bit in Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 7, because we’re going to get to that piece and we’re going to get to that. But verse 7, again we’re going to draw on that Habakkuk language, “Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God.” There’s Habakkuk 2:20 again. “For the day of the Lord is at hand. For the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice. He hath bid his guests.”

  00:55:12 This most recent general conference I think of Elder Bednar’s discussion of the Parable of the Wedding Feast in Matthew 22:1-14, Zephaniah is saying that exact same thing, is that, “At the end of days God is going to hold a sacrifice, a feast, and he hath bid his guests to come.” Zephaniah is going to go on and talk about these woes and the doom and destruction, but he’s ultimately saying, “Wait, don’t worry about that part of it. God is going to invite you to be a guest as part of his sacrifice.” And we’re going to read that and we’re going to talk about that at the very end. So don’t get too depressed by the doom and gloom in what I’m about to say.

Hank Smith: 00:55:54 Because the end will come.

John Bytheway: 00:55:56 And a way to apply that to us, we have been bidden to feast at the Lord’s table.

Hank Smith: 00:56:01 It reminds me of this quote from Elder Holland, October 1997. Wow. We were quoting Elder Holland from the 1990s today. He Filled the Hungry With Good Things is the name of the talk. He says, “Now, if you feel too spiritually maimed to come to the feast, please realize that the church is not a monastery for perfect people. Though all of us ought to be striving on the road to godliness, know at least one aspect of the church is more like a hospital or an aid station provided for those who are ill and want to get well where one can get an infusion of spiritual nutrition and a supply of sustaining water in order to keep on climbing.”

John Bytheway: 00:56:38 We’ve been bidden to the feast. And even if you feel spiritually maimed, well it’s not a monastery. It’s more like a hospital for those who are ill.

Hank Smith: 00:56:46 Beautiful.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:56:47 I think taking that and that idea of come, and be a part is the language of Zephaniah too. “Gather yourselves together. Yea, gather together O nation not desired. Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment.” Again, you can read justice there. “Seek righteousness, seek meekness. It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” Again, I love this idea of the simple folk, the tender, the meek folk of Ephraim if we are willing to be humble, to be able to come to the Lord.

Hank Smith: 00:57:29 Yeah, I hear that. Repent before it’s too late. You still have time. Take advantage of the time that you have, right? Before the decree, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. You still have time.

  00:57:44 Josh. This has been a fantastic day. I’ve got notes all over. John, do you have notes all over? And now in Nahum and Habakkuk where my pages used to be blank, I’ve now got colors and notes.

John Bytheway: 00:57:55 Exactly. Notes where I never had a note before.

Hank Smith: 00:57:59 Yeah, this has been a great day. I think our listeners, Josh, would be interested in your journey as a Bible scholar and a believing Latter-day Saint. What’s that journey been like for you?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:58:11 Well, it actually started humorously. Hank, at the beginning you talked about hearing John Bytheway for the first time when you were 12. I was about 12 years old and I was watching the History Channel on a Sunday. Our family rule was no football until after church. The only two things we could watch before church were church movies or the History Channel because it had churchy stuff on it.

  00:58:33 I remember vividly watching the History Channel and a biblical scholar was being interviewed and talking about the event we talked about earlier, the parting of the Red Sea by God for the children of Israel to leave Egypt. This scholar presented what is very popular among scholars’ discussions today that, “There wasn’t a parting of the sea. It didn’t actually happen, and here’s all of our evidence for why that’s the case.” And my 12-year-old self started yelling at the television. My mother came down and asked, “Josh, what’s going on?” At least how I remember it. She may be listening and think, “I don’t remember that, Josh.” But as I remember it she said, “Josh, why are you yelling at your brother?” And I said, “Because he’s lying.” And she thought I was talking about my little brother, but I was talking about my brother on the television.

  00:59:22 And I remember vividly just committing in my heart and saying, “You know what? I want to have all the credentials that that man has. And I want to have the opportunity to use my education to help people grow in faith and not diminish faith.” I, in an essence, wanted to read all the books and get the degrees and the titles not because those mean a lot to me, but because I know there are people out there who find comfort in knowing that somebody can get an education and can get letters before or after their name and still have faith, that they can still believe.

  01:00:00 I think if we don’t ingest what we’ve just talked about and we don’t really think about this idea of humility and meekness and putting ourselves before God, if we lift ourselves up like these ancient cities and these ancient people, if we think we know more than God, then we set ourselves up for the same type of spiritual destruction that awaited them.

  01:00:24 Throughout my journey, my intention has been to want to be a source of faith. And people can say, “Hey, I’ve got questions about Habakkuk, which plague of the revelations is that?” And be able to say, “Hey, let’s look at this from a perspective of faith.” And I can tell you what those who are approaching it from a perspective of doubt are thinking and saying, and I want you to be aware of what they’re saying, but they don’t have to be right.

  01:00:52 Scholarship constantly changes. That’s one of the challenges. The predominant theories of today are going to be the outdated theories of 20 years from now. But the one thing that doesn’t go out of vogue is the truth that comes from the source of all truth, our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that there are things that are absolutely true.

  01:01:14 For me as a teenager and as a young adult, I looked up to people who had put the work in to really know these things, but also people who were willing to say, “I’m humble enough to know that God knows more than I do.” If there’s one thing that I’ve come to know more surely throughout my life, it’s the fact that the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a real event and that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth is a means by which God is bringing salvation to his children. I love the idea of being part of the gathering of Israel as President Nelson is encouraging us all to be a part of. There’s no greater work in the world.

  01:02:02 And I view what I get to do and what I’ve studied and what I try to do on a daily basis as a means of gathering Israel. And that’s the ultimate purpose of the restoration, is to gather Israel on both sides of the veil. I have seen how studying the Bible, coming to become proficient in its languages and in the language of scholarship, how that helps gather Israel. I get excited about the fact that gaining an education is encouraged by the restoration, but it’s also part of building the restoration for all of God’s children to come unto Him.

Hank Smith: 01:02:37 Beautiful. Thanks, Josh. What a great day. What a great day. Never thought I would be excited about some of these minor prophets who are not minor any longer.

  01:02:50 We want to thank Dr. Josh Matson for being with us today. What a treat. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, and our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We have another episode coming up of followHIM.

  01:03:09 We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.