Tale of two fig trees

This is a tale of two fig trees for troubled economic times. The first, and more familiar (John Piper and his wife adopted it as their wedding verse), is from Habakkuk:

"Though the fig does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength" (Habakkuk 3:17).

The second is from another prophet also musing about the diminutive Middle Eastern fruit:

"The Lord has a message against … [those] who say with pride and arrogance of heart, 'The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars'" (Isaiah 9:9,10).

I am struck by the parallel structures of the two poems, both enlisting the literary device of piling on examples for intensification of purpose. In Habakkuk, the perfect storm of fig trees not budding and vines not yielding grapes and sheep not bearing are the foil against which the speaker pledges his unfailing trust in God.

In the Isaiah passage, the hypothetical scenarios of brick walls toppling and fig trees being felled are the catalysts of a revved up bravado and pledges of unfailing trust-in themselves.

Every disaster, economic or other, is an occasion to either repent and renew trust in God or to shake our fists and redouble our trust in ourselves.