Late seventh century b.c. brings a harsh wind across the Judean hills. A man sings a frantic song. He describes mountains trembling and rivers splitting the dry dirt. The air smells of incoming grit and impending slaughter. His muscles ache from bracing against the inevitable arrival of a foreign army. This land offers no physical comfort. The terraced rocks hold the blistering heat of the day. A brutal winter approaches. The singer stands on precarious footing. He waits for the collapse of his nation.
Habakkuk concludes his complaint. He drafts a psalm using a musical direction called Shigionoth. This notation dictates a wild, erratic beat. He records this near Jerusalem just before the Babylonian siege. He builds a framework to survive total economic collapse. The impending invasion means fields will burn. The Chaldeans will confiscate the livestock. The machinery of ancient warfare strips away every baseline of human security. Faith shifts from a transaction to raw survival. He accepts that the God of Salvation will let the economy fail. He trusts him anyway.
An empty sheep fold is a terrifying sight for a pastoral worker. A farmer measures his future by the olive yield and the fat on his calves. A single lost sheep equaled three weeks of a laborer's wages. Stripping the blossoms from a fig tree removes a food source for twelve months. Ancient writers use agricultural ruin to define complete devastation. A man staring at a barren field must decide if he will panic or endure. Survival requires accepting the loss of physical assets before the Gentile invaders even cross the border.
A man can stand firm on bare rocks long after the harvest fails.
The Babylonian army eventually breached the walls and leveled the terraced farms of Judah. The erratic song survived the fire to become a manual for enduring absolute material loss.