"You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And you cannot look on wickedness..."

The following is one of those verses where you may have heard it mentioned before and simply nodded your head in agreement: "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And you cannot look on wickedness..." It plainly states here that God cannot behold evil or look at wickedness, right? The common idea is He cannot look on people who are in sin or that He will leave if sin is present because He is too pure and holy. What I have discovered about this though, is people say this but then behind-the-scenes wonder to themselves how this can be? Inside they sense something is strange but are not sure what to do about it? I mean if I do something bad, He can't look at me?

It seems so bizarre that Jesus comes to mankind to fully and accurately reveal the complete character and being of the Father. So much so, that Jesus goes on to say that if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. He shows us a God who fellowships with sinners, who spends His time in the midst of sinners, who is not afraid to be in the middle of our wickedness and chaos and instead of looking away or condemning mankind, He is continually embracing, forgiving, healing and restoring! We see this Jesus and we wonder, "how can He fully express who the Father is and do these things when the Old Testament says God cannot even look upon them!"

So is this verse wrong? No (if understood in context) I don't think so. But what is going on then? As the norm, when it comes to understanding a verse, the context does help. You may not realize, but in this particular passage (Habakkuk 1:13), do you know what Habakkuk was doing? He was actually complaining to God! You can see his complaint introduced in verse 2 and again in verse 12. Now I'm not sure if your Bible does this, but I have looked at different translations and the ones I've seen will break it up like this: The Prophet's First Complaint (vs 2-4) and then God Answers his Complaint (vs 5-11) and then The Prophet's Second Complaint (vs 12-17). The verse "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And you cannot look upon wickedness..." is verse 13 and is part of Habakkuk's Second *Complaint* to God.

With this in mind (as being a complaint), I want to also mention another important detail before we carry on. Did you happen to notice that during my quotes of Habakkuk 1:13 above that there is actually something missing? I purposely ended the verse with "..." because what we commonly do is end here. But did you know that is only half the verse? If I was to ask what does the rest of the verse say, most people probably couldn't tell me. And this is precisely where the confusion lies. If you don't know what it says, don't beat yourself up, I didn't either!

So what does it say? I will quote the verse from the beginning again and then I will quote the rest so you will see just how wild this gets! Ready?

"You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And You cannot look on wickedness. SO WHY DO YOU? Why do you look on those who do evil, And hold your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?"

Wow! Do you see that? Habakkuk is complaining to God: God you are far too great to look at evil and to be staring at men in their wickedness...SO WHY DO YOU GOD?! Why are you looking at them? What is it about man, even in all their evil, that you still set your eyes upon them? Why God? Why are you holding your tongue?! Why do you not just wipe them out already?! (Also note in the beginning of this chapter, Habakkuk is "crying out, Violence! Violence! Why are you not providing it?" Judgement is what he is wanting and God seems to be delaying it.)

When God answers Habakkuk next in Chapter 2, what does He describe? He describes all kinds of evil and wickedness that He can see the nations doing (idol makers/lawless/violent men/etc). He says what these evil actions will bring upon them, as far as their own destruction, and that their lying and cheating and killing is nothing to be rejoicing about. So we see here in chapter 2 that God is able to see these people and what they are doing even when they are corrupt. He sees and yet He has a plan and a heart even for these heaven people.

Now there is so much more that could be said, but what is God's FINAL answer to Habakkuk?  

"The Lord is in his holy Temple. ALL the earth—be quiet IN His presence." vs 2:20.

His presence is in ALL the earth! Be still as you are in the presence of God. Did you know that the Hebrew word "presence" means "to be face to face with?" You are face to face with God! He is there even in your worst days. In Jesus, we see that He does not hide when a sinner walks by nor does He turn His face in disgust (only the Pharisees did that). He came to restore. Jesus is the perfect representation of the Father. He is there when you need Him most. The whole earth is full of His glory (His goodness). You do not have the power to make Him look away. Look in His loving face. The Lord is not far from anyone of you!