Armenia in comments -- Book: Habakkuk (tHab) Ամբակում
Searched terms: chald
hab 2:0
The prophet, waiting for a return to his expostulation, is answered by God that the time for the destruction of the Jewish polity by the Chald:eans is not only fixed in the Divine counsel, but is awfully near; and he is therefore commanded to write down the vision relative to this appalling subject in the most legible characters, and in the plainest language, that all who read it with attention (those just persons who exercise an unwavering faith in the declaration of God respecting the violent irruption of the merciless Babylonians) may flee from the impending vengeance, Hab 2:1-4. The fall of the Chald:eans, and of their ambitious monarch is then predicted, Hab 2:5-10; and, by a strong and bold personification, the very stone and wood of those magnificent buildings, which the Babylonish king had raised by oppression and bloodshed, pronounce his wo, and in responsive taunts upbraid him, Hab 2:11, Hab 2:12. The prophet then beautifully sets forth the absolute impotence of every effort, however well conducted, which is not in concert with the Divine counsel: for though the wicked rage, and threaten the utter extermination of the people of God; yet when the Set time to favor Zion is come, the destroyers of God's heritage shall themselves be destroyed, and "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea," Hab 2:13, Hab 2:14. See Psa 102:13-16. For the cup of idolatry which Babylon has given to many nations, she will receive of the Lord's hand the cup of fury by the insurrection of mighty enemies (the Medes and Persians) rushing like wild beasts to destroy her, Hab 2:15. In the midst of this distress the prophet very opportunely asks in what the Babylonians had profited by their idols, exposes the absurdity of trusting in them, and calls upon the whole world to stand in awe of the everlasting Jehovah, Hab 2:16-19. Habakkuk 2:1
tHab 2::2 Write the vision - Carefully take down all that I shall say.
Make it plain upon tables - Write it in a full plain, legible hand.
That he may run that readeth it - That he who attentively peruses it may speed to save his life from the irruption of the Chald:eans, by which so many shall be cut off. The prophet does not mean that the words are to be made so plain, that a man running by may easily read them, and catch their meaning. This interpretation has been frequently given; and it has been incautiously applied to the whole of the Bible: "God's book is so plain, that he that runs may read;" but it is very foolish: God never intends that his words shall be understood by the careless. He that reads, studies, meditates, and prays, shall understand every portion of this sacred book that relates immediately to his own salvation. But no trifler can understand it. If the contents of a play-bill were to be read as many read the Bible, they would know just as much of the one as they do of the other. Habakkuk 2:3 tHab 2::3 The vision is yet for an appointed time - The Chald:eans, who are to ruin Judea, shall afterwards be ruined themselves: but they must do this work before they receive their wages; therefore the vision is for an appointed time. But at the end it shall speak. When his work of devastation is done, his day of retribution shall take place.
Though it tarry - Though it appear to be long, do not be impatient; it will surely come; it will not tarry longer than the prescribed time, and this time is not far distant. Wait for it. Habakkuk 2:4 tHab 2::4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up - He that presumes on his safety without any special warrant from God, is a proud man; and whatever he may profess, or think of himself, his mind is not upright in him. But he that is just by faith shall live - he that believes what God hath said relative to the Chald:eans besieging Jerusalem, shall make his escape from the place, and consequently shall save his life. The words in the New Testament are accommodated to the salvation which believers in Christ shall possess. Indeed, the just - the true Christians, who believed in Jesus Christ's words relative to the destruction of Jerusalem, when they found the Romans coming against it, left the city, and escaped to Pella in Coelesyria, and did live - their lives were saved: while the unbelieving Jews, to a man, either perished or were made slaves. One good sense is, He that believes the promises of God, and has found life through believing, shall live by his faith. Habakkuk 2:5 tHab 2::9 An evil covetousness to his house - Nebuchadnezzar wished to aggrandize his family, and make his empire permanent: but both family and empire were soon cut off by the death of his son Belshazzar, and the consequent destruction of the Chald:ean empire. Habakkuk 2:10 tHab 2::15 Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink - This has been considered as applying to Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt, who enticed his neighbors Jehoiachin and Zedekiah to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, whereby the nakedness and imbecility of the poor Jews was soon discovered; for the Chald:eans soon took Jerusalem, and carried its kings, princes, and people, into captivity. Habakkuk 2:16 tHab 2::16 The cup of the Lord's right hand - Among the ancients, all drank out of the same cup; was passed from hand to hand, and each drank as much as he chose. The Chald:eans gave to the neighboring nations the cup of idolatry and of deceitful alliance: and in return they received from the Lord the cup of his fury. So Grotius. Habakkuk 2:17 tHab 2::17 For the violence of Lebanon - Or, the violence done to Lebanon; to men, to cattle, to Judea, and to Jerusalem. See the note on the parallel place, Hab 2:8 (note). This may be a threatening against Egypt, as the former was against Chald:ea. Habakkuk 2:18 tHab 2::18 What profiteth the graven image - This is against idolatry in general, and every species of it, as well as against those princes, priests, and people who practice it, and encourage others to do the same. See on Isa 44:9-10 (note); Isa 46:2 (note).
Dumb idols? - אלילים אלמים elilim illemim, "dumb nothings." This is exactly agreeable to St. Paul, Co1 8:4, who says, "An idol is nothing in the world." What signify the idols worshipped by the Chald:eans, Tyrians, and Egyptians? They have not been able to save their worshippers. Habakkuk 2:19
tHab 2::4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up - literally, swollen
Is not upright in him - The construction is probably that of a condition expressed absolutely. Lo, swollen is it, not upright is his soul in him. We should say, "His soul, if it be swollen , puffed up, is not upright in him." The source of all sin was and is pride. It is especially the sin of all oppressors, of the Chald:ee, of antichrists, and shall be of the antichrist. It is the parent of all heresy, and of all corruption and rejection of the gospel. It stands therefore as the type of all opposed to it. Of it he says, it is in its very inmost core ("in him") lacking in uprightness. It can have no good in it, because it denies God, and God denies it His grace. And having nothing upright in it, being corrupt in its very inmost being, it cannot stand or abide. God gives it no power to stand. The words stand in contrast with the following, the one speaking of the cause of death, the other of life. The soul, being swollen with pride, shuts out faith, and with it the Presence of God. It is all crooked in its very inner self or being. Paul gives the result, Heb 10:39, "if any man draw back, my soul hath no pleasure in him." The prophet's words describe the proud man who stunts aloof from God, in himself; Paul, as he is in the Eyes of God. As that which is swollen in nature cannot be straight, it is clean contrary that the soul should be swollen with pride and yet upright. Its moral life being destroyed in its very inmost heart, it must perish.
Alb.: "Plato saith, that properly is straight, which being applied to what is straight, touches and is touched everywhere. But God is upright, whom the upright soul touches and is touched everywhere; but what is not upright is bent away from God, Psa 73:1. "God is good unto Israel, the upright in heart;" Sol 1:4, "The upright love thee;" Isa 26:7, "The way of the just is uprightness, Thou, most Upright, doth weigh the path of the just."
But the just shall live by his faith - The accents emphasize the words , "The just, by his faith he shall live." They do not point to an union of the words, "the just by his faith." Isaiah says that Christ should "justify" many by the knowledge of Himself," but the expression, "just by his faith," does not occur either in the Old or New Testament. In fact, to speak of one really righteous as being "righteous by his faith" would imply that people could be righteous in some other way. "Without faith," Paul says at the commencement of his Old Testament pictures of giant faith, Heb 11:6, "it is impossible to please God." Faith, in the creature which does not yet see God, has one and the same principle, a trustful relying belief in its Creator. This was the characteristic of Abraham their father, unshaken, unswerving, belief in God who called him, whether in leaving his own land and going whither he knew not, for an end which he was never to see; or in believing the promise of the son through whom theft Seed was to be, in whom all the nations of the world should be blessed; or in the crowning act of offering that son to God, knowing that he should receive him back, even from the dead.
In all, it was one and the same principle. According to Gen 15:6, "His belief was counted to him for righteousness," though the immediate instance of that faith was not directly spiritual. In this was the good and bad of Israel. Exo 4:31 : "the people believed." Exo 14:31 : "they believed the Lord and His servant Moses." Psa 106:12 : "then believed they His word, they sang His praise." This contrariwise was their blame Deu 1:32 : "In this ye did not believe the Lord." Deu 9:23 : "ye rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and believed Him not, nor hearkened to His voice." Psa 106:21, Psa 106:24 : "they forgat God their Saviour; they despised the pleasant land, they believed not His word." And God asks, Num 14:11, "How long will it be, ere this people belove Me, for all the signs which I have shown among them?" Psa 78:21-22 : "anger came upon Israel, because they believed not in God, and in His salvation trusted not."
Psa 78:32 : "for all this they sinned still, and believed not His wondrous works." Even of Moses and Aaron God assigns this as the ground, why they should not bring His people into the land which He gave them, Num 20:20, "Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel" (at Meribah). This was the watchword of Jehoshaphat's victory, Ch2 20:20, "Believe in the Lord your God and ye shall be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper." This continued to be one central saying of Isaiah. It was his own commission to his people; Isa 6:9, "Go and say to this people; hear ye on, and understand not; see ye on and perceive not." In sight of the rejection of faith, he spake prominently of the loss upon unbelief; Isa 7:9, "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established;" and, Isa 53:1, "Who hath believed our report?" he premises as the attitude of his people toward him, the Center of all faith - Jesus. Yet still, as to the blessings of faith, having spoken of Him, Isa 28:16, "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone," he subjoins, "he that believeth in Him shall not make haste."
So it had been the keynote of Habakkuk to his people, "Ye will not believe when it is declared unto you." Here he is told to declare contrariwise the blessing on belief. "The just shall live by his faith." The faith, then, of which Habakkuk speaks, is faith, in itself, but a real, true confiding faith. It is the one relation of the creature to the Creator, unshaken trust. The faith may vary in character, according as God reveals more or less of Himself, but itself is one, a loving trust in Him, just as He reveals Himself. Lap. (in Rom 1:17): "By this faith in God, each righteous person begins to live piously, righteously, holily, peacefully and divinely, and advanceth therein, since in every tribulation and misery, by this faith and hope in God he sustains, strengthens, and increases this life of the soul. He says then, "the just lives by faith," i. e., the unbelieving and unrighteous displeases God, and consequently will not live by the true, right, peaceful and happy life of grace, present righteousness, and future glory because God is displeased with him, and He places his hopes and fears, not in God, but in human beings and man's help and in created things. But the righteous who believeth in God shall live a right, sweet, quiet, happy, holy, untroubled life, because, fixed by faith and hope in God who is the true Life, and in God's promises, he is dear to God, and the object of His care.
"This sentence, 'the just shall live by faith,' is universal, belonging at once to Jews and Christians, to sinners who are first being justified, as also to those who are already justified. For the spiritual life of each of these begins, is maintained and grows through faith. When then it is said, 'the just shall live by his faith,' this word, his, marks the cause, which both begins and preserves life. The just, believing and hoping in God, begins to live spiritually, to have a soul right within him, whereby he pleases God; and again, advancing and making progress in this his faith and hope in God, therewith advances and makes progress in the spiritual life, in rightness and righteousness of soul, in the grace and friendship of God, so as more and more to please God."
Most even of the Jewish interpreters have seen this to be the literal meaning of the words. It stands in contrast with, illustrates and is illustrated by the first words, "his soul is swollen, is not upright in him." Pride and independence of God are the center of the want of rightness; a steadfast cleaving to God, whereby "the heart" (as Abraham's) "was stayed on God," is the center and cause of the life of the righteous. But since this stayedness of faith is in everything the source of the life of the righteous, then the pride, which issues in want of rightness of the inmost soul, must be a state of death. Pride estranges the soul from God, makes it self-sufficing, that it should not need God, so that he who is proud cannot come to God, to be by Him made righteous. So contrariwise, since by his faith doth the righteous live, this must be equally true whether he be just made righteous from unrighteous, or whether that righteousness is growing, maturing, being perfected in him.
This life begins in grace, lives on in glory. It is begun, in that God freely justifies the ungodly, accounting and making him righteous for and through the blood of Christ; it is continued in faith which worketh by love; it is perfected, when faith and hope are swallowed up in love, beholding God. In the Epistles to the Romans Rom 1:17 and the Galatians Gal 3:11 Paul applies these words to the first beginning of life, when they who had before been dead in sin, began to live by faith in Christ Jesus who gave them life and made them righteous. And in this sense he is called "just," although before he comes to the faith he is unjust and unrighteous, being unjustified. For Paul uses the word not of what he was before the faith, but what be is, when he lives by faith. Before, not having faith, he had neither righteousness nor life; having faith, he at once has both; he is at once "just" and "lives by his faith." These are inseparable. The faith by which he lives, is a living faith, Gal 5:6, "faith which worketh by love." In the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 10:38, Paul is speaking of their endurance in the faith, once received, whose faith is not shaken by the trial of their patience. They who look on beyond things present, and fix their minds steadfastly on the Coming of Christ, will not suffer shipwreck of their faith, through any troubles of this time. Faith is the foundation of all good, the beginning of the spiritual building, whereby it rests on The Foundation, Christ. "Without faith it is impossible to please God," and so the proud cannot please Him. Through it, is union with Christ and thereby a divine life in the soul, even a life, Gal 2:20, "through faith in the Son of God," holy, peaceful, self-posessed Luk 21:19, enduring to the end, being "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" Pe1 1:5. Habakkuk 2:5 tHab 2::5 This general rule the prophet goes on to apply in words which belong in part to all oppressors and in the first instance to the Chald:aean, in part yet more fully to the end and to antichrist. "Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine" (or better, "Yea, how much more, since wine is a deceiver , as Solomon says, Pro 20:1, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever erreth thereby shall not be wise;" and Pro 23:32, "In the end it biteth like a serpent and pierceth like an adder;" and Hosea Hos 4:11, "Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart." As wine at first gladdens, then deprives of all reason, and lays a man open to any deceit, so also pride. And whereas all pride deceives, how much more , when people are either heated and excited by the abuse of God's natural gifts, or drunken with prosperity and hurried away, as conquerors are, to all excess of cruelty or lust to fulfill their own will, and neglect the laws of God and man.
Literal drunkenness was a sin of the Babylonians under the Persian rule, so that even a pagan says of Babylon, "Nothing can be more corrupt than the manners of that city, and more provided with all to rouse and entice immoderate pleasures;" and "the Babylonians give themselves wholly to wine, and the things which follow upon drunkenness." It was when flushed with wine, that Belshazzar, with his princes his wives and his concubines, desecrated the sacred vessels, insulted God in honor of his idols, and in the night of his excess "was slain." Pride blinded, deceived, destroyed him. It was the general drunkenness of the inhabitants, at that same feast, which enabled Cyrus, with a handful of men, to penetrate, by means of its river, the city which, with its provisions for many years and its impregnable walls, mocked at his siege. He calculated beforehand on its feast and the consequent dissolution of its inhabitants; but for this, in the language of the pagan historian, he would have been caught "as in a trap," his soldiery drowned.
He is a proud man, neither keepeth at home. - It is difficult to limit the force of the rare Hebrew word rendered "keep at home;" for one may cease to dwell or abide at home either with his will or without it; and, as in the case of invaders, the one may he the result of the other. He who would take away the home of others becomes, by God's Providence, himself homeless. The context implies that the primary meaning is the restlessness of ambition; which abides not at home, for his whole pleasure is to go forth to destroy. Yet there sounds, as it were, an undertone, "he would not abide in his home and he shall not." We could scarcely avoid the further thought, could we translate by a word which does not determine the sense, "he will not home," "he will not continue at home." The words have seemed to different minds to mean either; as they may . Such fullness of meaning is the contrary of the ambiguity of pagan oracles; they are not alternative meanings, which might be justified in either case, but cumlative, the one on the other. The ambitious part with present rest for future loss. Nebuchadnezzar lost his kingdom and his reason through pride, received them back when he humbled himself; Belshazzar, being proud and impenitent, lost both his kingdom and life.
Who enlargeth his desire - literally, his soul. The soul becomes like what it loves. The ambitious man is, as we say, "all ambition;" the greedy man, "all appetite;" the cruel man, "all savagery;" the vain-glorious, "all vain glory." The ruling passion absorbs the whole being. It is his end, the one object of his thoughts, hopes, fears. So, as we speak of "largeness of heart," which can embrace in its affections all varieties of human interests, whatever affects man, and "largeness of mind" uncramped by narrowing prejudices, the prophet speaks of this "ambitious man widening his soul," or, as we should speak, "appetite," so that the whole world is not too large for him to long to grasp or to devour. So the Psalmist prays not to be delivered into the murderous desire of his enemies (Psa 27:12; Compare Psa 41:3 (Psa 41:2 in English); Ezek. 26:27) (literally their soul,) and Isaiah, with a metaphor almost too bold for our language Isa 5:14, "Hell hath enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth beyond measure." It devours, as it were, first in its cravings, then in act.
As hell - which is insatiable Pro 30:15. He saith, "enlargeth"; for as hell and the grave are year by year fuller, yet there is no end, the desire "enlargeth" and becometh wider, the more is given to it to satisfy it.
And (he) is (himself) as death - o, sparing none. Our poetry would speak of a destroyer as being "like the angel of death;" his presence, as the presence of death itself. Where he is, there is death. He is as terrible and as destroying as the death which follows him.
And cannot be satisfied - Even human proverbs say (Juv. Sat. xiv. 139): "The love of money groweth as much as the money itself groweth." "The avaricious is ever needy." Ecc 5:10 : "he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver." For these fleeting things cannot satisfy the undying soul. It must hunger still; for it has not found what will allay its cravings .
But gathereth - literally, "And hath gathered" - He describes it, for the rapidity with which he completes what he longs for, as though it were already done.
Unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people - One is still the subject of the prophecy, rising up at successive times, fulfilling it and passing away, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Attila, Timur, Genghizchan, Hunneric, scourges of God, all deceived by pride, all sweeping the earth, all in their ambition and wickedness the unknowing agents and images of the evil One, who seeks to bring the whole world under his rule. But shall it prosper? Habakkuk 2:6 tHab 2::7 Shall not they rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee? - The destruction of the wicked is ever sudden at last. Such was the flood Luk 17:26-27, the destruction of Sodom, of Pharaoh, of the enemies of God's people through the Judges, of Sennacherib, Nineveh, Babylon by the Medes and Persians. Such shall the end be Mat 24:43-44; Mat 25:13; Luk 17:26-30; Luk 21:34-35; Th1 5:3; Pe2 3:10; Rev 16:15. As he by his oppressions had pierced others (it is the word used of the oppression of usury), so should it be done to him. "The Medes and Persians who were before subject to the Babylonian empire, and whose kings were subject to Nebuchudnezzar and his successors, rose up and awaked, i. e., stirred themselves up in the days of Belshazzar to rebel against the successors of Nebuchadnezzar which sat on his throne, like a man who awaketh from sleep." The words "awake," "arise," are used also of the resurrection, when the worm of the wicked gnaweth and dieth not (See Isa 14:11; Isa 66:24).
And thou shall be for booties unto them? - The common phrase is modified to explain the manifoldness of the plunder which he should yield. So Jeremiah Jer 50:10, "Chald:aea shall be a spoil; all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord." See Cyr: "We may hear Him who saith Mat 12:29, 'How can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.' For, as soon as He was born of the holy Virgin, He began to 'spoil his goods.' For the Magi came from the East - and worshiped Him and honored Him with gifts and became a first-fruits of the Church of the Gentiles. And being vessels of Satan, and the most honored of all his members, they hastened to Christ." Habakkuk 2:8 tHab 2::9 Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house - (or, with accents, "that coveteth covetousness or unjust gain, an evil to his house.") What man coveteth seems gain, but is evil "to his house" after him, destroying both himself and his whole family or race with him . "That he may set his nest on high," as an eagle, to which he had likened the Chald:ee (Hab 1:8. Compare Jer 20:16). A pagan called "strongholds, the nests of tyrants." The nest was placed "on high" which means also "heaven," as it is said, Oba 1:4, "though thou set thy nest among the stars;" and the tower of Babel was to "reach unto heaven" Gen 11:4; and the antichrist, whose symbol the King of Babylon is, Isa 14:13 says, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God." Babylon lying in a large plain, on the sides of the Euphrates, the image of its eagle's-nest on high must be taken, not from any natural eminence, but wholly from the works of man.
Its walls, and its hanging gardens were among "the seven wonders of the world." Eye-witnesses speak of its walls, encompassing at least 100 square miles , "and as large as the land-graviat of Hesse Homberg;" those walls, 335, or 330 feet high, and 85 feet broad ; a fortified palace, nearly 7 miles in circumference; gardens, 400 Greek feet square, supporting at an artificial height arch upon arch, of "at least 75 feet," forest trees; a temple to its god, said to have been at least 600 feet high.
If we, creatures of a day, had no one above us, Nebuchadnezzars boast had been true Dan 4:30, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the Kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?" He had built an eagle's nest, which no human arm could reach, encircled by walls which laughed its invaders to scorn, which, at that time, no skill could scale or shatter or mine. Even as one sees in a picture the vast mounds which still remain , one can hardly imagine that they were, brick upon brick, wholly the work of man.
To be delivered from the hand (grasp) of evil - that it should not be able to reach him. Evil is spoken of as a living power , which would seize him, whose grasp he would defy. It was indeed a living power, since it was the will of Almighty God, whose servant and instrument Cyrus was, to chasten Babylon, when its sins were full. Such was the counsel, what the result? The evil covetousness which he worked, brought upon him the evil, from which, in that nest built by the hard toil of his captives, he thought to deliver himself. Habakkuk 2:10 tHab 2::11 For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it - All things have a voice, in that they are . God's works speak that, for which He made them Psa 19:1 : "The heavens declare the glory of God." Psa 65:13 : "the valleys are clad with corn, they laugh, yea, they sing;" their very look speaks gladness. Cyril: "For the creation itself proclaims the glory of the Maker, in that it is admired as well made. Wherefore there are voices in things, although there are not words." Man's works speak of that in him, out of which and for which he made them. Works of mercy go up for a memorial before God, and plead there; great works, performed amid wrong and cruelty and for man's ambition and pride, have a voice too, and cry out to God, calling down His vengeance on the oppressor. Here the stones of the wall, whereby the building is raised, and the beam, the tye-beam, out of the timber-work wherewith it is finished, and which, as it were, crowns the work, join, as in a chorus, answering one another, and in a deep solemn wailing, before God and the whole world, together chant "Woe, Woe." Did not the blood and groans of men cry out to God, speechless things have a voice to appeal to Him (See Luk 19:40). Against Belshazzar the wall had, to the letter, words to speak.
Each three verses forming one stanza, as it were, of the dirge, the following words are probably not directly connected with the former, as if the woe, which follows, were, so to speak, the chant of these inanimate witnesses against the Chald:aeans; yet they stand connected with it. The dirge began with woe on the wrongful accumulation of wealth from the conquered and oppressed people: it continues with the selfish use of the wealth so won. Habakkuk 2:12 tHab 2::17 For the violence of Lebanon - i. e., done to Lebanon, whether the land of Israel of which it was the entrance and the beauty (See Isa 37:24, and, as a symbol, Jer 22:6, Jer 22:23; Eze 17:3; but it is used as a symbol of Sennacherib's army, Isa 10:34, and the king of Asshur is not indeed spoken of under the name as a symbol (in Eze 21:3,) but is compared to it), or the temple (See the note at Zac 12:1), both of which Nebuchadnezzar laid waste; or, more widely, it may be a symbol of all the majesty of the world and its empires, which he subdues, as Isaiah uses it, when speaking of the judgment on the world, Isa 2:13, "It shall cover thee, and the spoil (i. e., spoiling, destruction) of beasts (the inhabitants of Lebanon) which made them afraid," or more simply, "the wasting of wild beasts shall crush , Pro 10:14; Pro 13:3; Pro 14:14; Pro 18:7) them (selves)," i. e., as it is in irrational nature, that "the frequency of the incursions of very mischievous animals becomes the cause that people assemble against them and kill them, so their (the Chald:aeans') frequent injustice is the cause that they haste to be avenged on thee" .
Having become beasts, they shared their history. They spoiled, scared, laid waste, were destroyed. "Whoso seeketh to hurt another, hurteth himself." The Chald:aeans laid waste Judea, scared and wasted its inhabitants; the end of its plunder should be, not to adorn, but to cover them, overwhelm them as in ruins, so that they should not lift up their heads again. Violence returns upon the head of him who did it; they seem to raise a lofty fabric, but are buried under it. He sums up their past experience, what God had warned them beforehand, what they had found. Habakkuk 2:18 tHab 2::18 What profiteth - (Hath profited) הועיל מה. Samuel warned them, "Serve the Lord with all your heart, and turn ye not aside; for (it would be) after vanities which will not profit nor deliver for they are vain:" and Jeremiah tells their past; "their prophets prophesied by Baal; and after things יועילי לא which profit not, have they gone." Elsewhere the idol is spoken of as a thing "which will not profit" (future) "My people hath changed its glory יועיל בלא for that which profiteth not," Jer 2:8, Jer 2:11. So Isaiah, "Who hath formed a god, הועיל לבלתי not to profit." Isa 44:9.10. "The makers of a graven image are all of them vanity, and their desirable things יועילו בל will not profit."
The graven image, that the maker therefore hath graven it? - What did Baal and Ashtaroth profit you? What availed it ever but to draw down the wrath of God? Even so neither shall it profit the Chald:aean. As their idols availed them not, so neither need they fear them. Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar were propagandists of their own belief and would destroy, if they could, all other worship, false or true : Nebuchadnezzar is thought to have set up his own image Dan. 3. Antichrist will set himself up as God Th2 2:4; Rev 13:15-17. We may take warning at least by our own sins. If we had no profit at all from them, neither will the like profit others. the Jews did, in the main, learn this in their captivity.
The molten image and teacher of lies - It is all one whether by "teacher of lies" we understand the idol , or its priest . For its priest gave it its voice, as its maker created its form. It could only seem to teach through the idol-priest. Isaiah used the title "teacher of lies," of the false prophet Isa 9:14. It is all one. Zechariah combines them Zac 10:2; "The teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have had false dreams."
That the maker of his work trusteth therein - This was the special folly of idolatry. The thing made must needs he inferior to its maker. It was one of the corruptions of idolatry that the maker of his own work should trust in what was wholly his own creation, what, not God, but himself created, what had nothing but what it had from himself . He uses the very words which express the relation of man to God, "the Framer" and "the thing framed." Isa 29:16, "O your perverseness! Shall the framer be accounted as clay, theft the thing made should say of its Maker, He made me not, and the thing framed say of its Framer, He hath no hands?" The idol-maker is "the creator of his creature," of his god whom he worships. Again the idol-maker makes "dumb idols" (literally, "dumb nothings") in themselves nothings, and having no power out of themselves; and what is uttered in their name, are but lies. And what else are man's idols of wealth, honor, fame, which he makes to himself, the creatures of his own hands or mind, their greatness existing chiefly in his own imagination before which he bows down himself, who is the image of God? Habakkuk 2:19
hab 2:0
Destruction of the Ungodly World-Power - Habakkuk 2
After receiving an answer to this supplicatory cry, the prophet receives a command from God: to write the oracle in plain characters, because it is indeed certain, but will not be immediately fulfilled (Hab 2:1-3). Then follows the word of God, that the just will live through his faith, but he that is proud and not upright will not continue (Hab 2:4, Hab 2:5); accompanied by a fivefold woe upon the Chald:aean, who gathers all nations to himself with insatiable greediness (Hab 2:6-20). Habakkuk 2:1
tHab 2::4 With these verses the prophecy itself commences; namely, with a statement of the fundamental thought, that the presumptuous and proud will not continue, but the just alone will live. Hab 2:4. "Behold, puffed up, his soul is not straight within him: but the just, through his faith will he live. Hab 2:5. And moreover, the wine is treacherous: a boasting man, he continues not; he who has opened his soul as wide as hell, and is like death, and is not satisfied, and gathered all nations to himself, and collected all peoples to himself." These verses, although they contain the fundamental thought, or so to speak the heading of the following announcement of the judgment upon the Chald:aeans, are nevertheless not to be regarded as the sum and substance of what the prophet was to write upon the tables. For they do indeed give one characteristic of two classes of men, with a brief intimation of the fate of both, but they contain no formally rounded thought, which could constitute the motto of the whole; on the contrary, the description of the insatiable greediness of the Chald:aean is attached in Hab 2:5 to the picture of the haughty sinner, that the two cannot be separated. This picture is given in a subjective clause, which is only completed by the filling up in Hab 2:6. The sentence pronounced upon the Chald:aean in Hab 2:4, Hab 2:5, simply forms the preparatory introduction to the real answer to the prophet's leading question. The subject is not mentioned in Hab 2:4, but may be inferred from the prophet's question in Hab 1:12-17. The Chald:aean is meant. His soul is puffed up. עפּלה, perf. pual of עפל, of which the hiphil only occurs in Num 14:44, and that as synonymous with הזיד in Deu 1:43. From this, as well as from the noun עפל, a hill or swelling, we get the meaning, to be swollen up, puffed up, proud; and in the hiphil, to act haughtily or presumptuously. The thought is explained and strengthened by לא ישׁרה, "his soul is not straight." ישׁר, to be straight, without turning and trickery, i.e., to be upright. בּו does not belong to נפשׁו (his soul in him, equivalent to his inmost soul), but to the verbs of the sentence. The early translators and commentators have taken this hemistich differently. They divide it into protasis and apodosis, and take עפּלה either as the predicate or as the subject. Luther also takes it in the latter sense: "He who is stiff-necked will have no rest in his soul." Burk renders it still more faithfully: ecce quae effert se, non recta est anima ejus in eo. In either case we must supply נפשׁ אשׁר after עפּלה. But such an ellipsis as this, in which not only the relative word, but also the noun supporting the relative clause, would be omitted, is unparalleled and inadmissible, if only because of the tautology which would arise from supplying nephesh. This also applies to the hypothetical view of הנּה עפּלה, upon which the Septuagint rendering, ἐὰν ὑποστείληται, οὐκ εὐδοκεῖ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῶ, is founded. Even with this view nephesh could not be omitted as the subject of the protasis, and בּו would have no noun to which to refer. This rendering is altogether nothing more than a conjecture, עפל being confounded with עלף, and נפשׁו altered into נפשׁי. Nor is it proved to be correct, by the fact that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 10:38) makes use of the words of our verse, according to this rendering, to support his admonition is to stedfastness. For he does not introduce the verse as a quotation to prove his words, but simply clothes his own thoughts in these words of the Bible which floated before his mind, and in so doing transposes the two hemistichs, and thereby gives the words a meaning quite in accordance with the Scriptures, which can hardly be obtained from the Alexandrian version, since we have there to take the subject to ὑποστείληται from the preceding ἐρχόμενος, which gives no sense, whereas by transposing the clauses a very suitable subject can be supplied from ὁ δίκαιος.
The following clause, וצדּיק וגו, is attached adversatively, and in form is subordinate to the sentence in the first hemistich in this sense, "whilst, on the contrary, the righteous lives through his faith," notwithstanding the fact that it contains a very important thought, which intimates indirectly that pride and want of uprightness will bring destruction upon the Chald:aean. בּאמוּנתו belongs to יחיה, not to צדּיק. The tiphchah under the word does not show that it belongs to tsaddı̄q, but simply that it has the leading tone of the sentence, because it is placed with emphasis before the verb (Delitzsch). אמוּנה does not denote "an honourable character, or fidelity to conviction" (Hitzig), but (from 'âman, to be firm, to last) firmness (Exo 17:12); then, as an attribute of God, trustworthiness, unchangeable fidelity in the fulfilment of His promises (Deu 32:4; Psa 33:4; Psa 89:34); and, as a personal attribute of man, fidelity in word and deed (Jer 7:28; Jer 9:2; Psa 37:3); and, in his relation to God, firm attachment to God, an undisturbed confidence in the divine promises of grace, firma fiducia and fides, so that in 'ĕmūnâh the primary meanings of ne'ĕmân and he'ĕmı̄n are combined. This is also apparent from the fact that Abraham is called ne'ĕmân in Neh 9:8, with reference to the fact that it is affirmed of him in Gen 15:6 that האמין בּיהוה, "he trusted, or believed, the Lord;" and still more indisputably from the passage before us, since it is impossible to mistake the reference in צדּיק בּאמוּנתו יחיה to Gen 15:6, "he believed (he'ĕmı̄n) in Jehovah, and He reckoned it to him litsedâqâh." It is also indisputably evident from the context that our passage treats of the relation between man and God, since the words themselves speak of a waiting (chikkâh) for the fulfilment of a promising oracle, which is to be preceded by a period of severe suffering. "What is more natural than that life or deliverance from destruction should be promised to that faith which adheres faithfully to God, holds fast by the word of promise, and confidently waits for its fulfilment in the midst of tribulation? It is not the sincerity, trustworthiness, or integrity of the righteous man, regarded as being virtues in themselves, which are in danger of being shaken and giving way in such times of tribulation, but, as we may see in the case of the prophet himself, his faith. To this, therefore, there is appended the great promise expressed in the one word יחיה" (Delitzsch). And in addition to this, 'ĕmūnâh is opposed to the pride of the Chald:aean, to his exaltation of himself above God; and for that very reason it cannot denote integrity in itself, but simply some quality which has for its leading feature humble submission to God, that is to say, faith, or firm reliance upon God. The Jewish expositors, therefore, have unanimously retained this meaning here, and the lxx have rendered the word quite correctly πίστις, although by changing the suffix, and giving ἐκ πίστεώς μου instead of αὐτοῦ (or more properly ἑαυτοῦ: Aquila and the other Greek versions), they have missed, or rather perverted, the sense. The deep meaning of these words has been first fully brought out by the Apostle Paul (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11 : see also Heb 10:38), who omits the erroneous μου of the lxx, and makes the declaration ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται the basis of the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith.
Hab 2:5
Hab 2:5 is closely connected with Hab 2:4, not only developing still further the thought which is there expressed, but applying it to the Chald:aean. אף כּי does not mean "really if" (Hitzig and others), even in Job 9:14; Job 35:14; Eze 15:5, or Sa1 21:6 (see Delitzsch on Job 35:14), but always means "still further," or "yea also, that;" and different applications are given to it, so that, when used as an emphatic assurance, it signifies "to say nothing of the fact that," or when it gives emphasis to the thing itself, "all the more because," and in negative sentences "how much less" (e.g., Kg1 8:27). In the present instance it adds a new and important feature to what is stated in Hab 2:4, "And add to this that wine is treacherous;" i.e., to those who are addicted to it, it does not bring strength and life, but leads to the way to ruin (for the thought itself, see Pro 23:31-32). The application to the Chald:aean is evident from the context. The fact that the Babylonians were very much addicted to wine is attested by ancient writers. Curtius, for example (Hab 2:1), says, "Babylonii maxime in vinum et quae ebrietatem sequuntur effusi sunt;" and it is well known from Daniel 5 that Babylon was conquered while Belshazzar and the great men of his kingdom were feasting at a riotous banquet. The following words גּבר יהיר are not the object to בּוגד, but form a fresh sentence, parallel to the preceding one: a boasting man, he continueth not. ולא introduces the apodosis to גבר יהיר, which is written absolutely. יהיר only occurs again in Pro 21:24, and is used there as a parallel to זד: ἀλαζών (lxx), swaggering, boasting. The allusion to the Chald:aean is evident from the relative clause which follows, and which Delitzsch very properly calls an individualizing exegesis to גבר יהיר. But looking to what follows, this sentence forms a protasis to Hab 2:6, being written first in an absolute form, "He, the widely opened one, etc., upon him will all take up," etc. Hirchı̄bh naphshō, to widen his soul, i.e., his desire, parallel to pâ‛ar peh, to open the mouth (Isa 5:14), is a figure used to denote insatiable desire. כּשׁאול, like Hades, which swallows up every living thing (see Pro 27:20; Pro 30:15-16). The comparison to death has the same meaning. ולא ישׂבּע does not refer to מות, but to the Chald:aean, who grasps to himself in an insatiable manner, as in Hab 1:6-7, and Hab 1:15-17. The imperff. consecc. express the continued gathering up of the nations, which springs out of his insatiable desire. Habakkuk 2:6 tHab 2::6 In Hab 2:6-20 the destruction of the Chald:aean, which has been already intimated in Hab 2:4, Hab 2:5, is announced in the form of a song composed of threatening sentences, which utters woes in five strophes consisting of three verses each: (1) upon the rapacity and plundering of the Chald:aean (Hab 2:6-8); (2) upon his attempt to establish his dynasty firmly by means of force and cunning (Hab 2:9-11); (3) upon his wicked ways of building (Hab 2:12-14); (4) upon his base treatment of the subjugated nations (Hab 2:15-17); and (5) upon his idolatry (Hab 2:18-20). These five strophes are connected together, so as to form two larger divisions, by a refrain which closes the first and fourth, as well as by the promise explanatory of the threat in which the third and fifth strophes terminate; of which two divisions the first threatens the judgment of retribution upon the insatiableness of the Chald:aean in three woes (Hab 2:5), and the second in two woes the judgment of retribution upon his pride. Throughout the whole of the threatening prophecy the Chald:aean nation is embraced, as in Hab 2:4, Hab 2:5, in the ideal person of its ruler.
(Note: The unity of the threatening prophecy, which is brought out in the clearest manner in this formal arrangement, has been torn in pieces in the most violent manner by Hitzig, through his assumption that the oracle of God includes no more than Hab 2:4-8, and that a second part is appended to it in Hab 2:9-20, in which the prophet expresses his own thoughts and feelings, first of all concerning king Jehoiakim (Hab 2:9-14), and then concerning the Egyptians (Hab 2:15-20). This hypothesis, of which Maurer observes quite correctly, Qua nulla unquam excogitata est infelicior, rests upon nothing more than the dogmatic assumption, that there is no such thing as prophecy effected by supernatural causality, and therefore Habakkuk cannot have spoken of Nebuchadnezzar's buildings before they were finished, or at any rate in progress. The two strophes in Hab 2:9-14 contain nothing whatever that would not apply most perfectly to the Chald:aean, or that is not covered by what precedes and follows (compare Hab 2:9 with 6b and 8a, and Hab 2:10 with 5b and 8a). "The strophe in Hab 2:9-11 contains the same fundamental thought as that expressed by Isaiah in Isa 14:12-14 respecting the Chald:aean, viz., the description of his pride, which manifests itself in ambitious edifices founded upon the ruins of the prosperity of strangers" (Delitzsch). The resemblance between the contents of this strophe and the woe pronounced upon Jehoiakim by Jeremiah in Jer 12:13-17 may be very simply explained from the fact that Jehoiakim, like the Chald:aean, was a tyrant who occupied himself with the erection of large state buildings and fortifications, whereas the extermination of many nations does not apply in any respect to Jehoiakim. Lastly, there is no plausible ground whatever for referring the last two strophes (Hab 2:15-20) to the Egyptian, for the assertion that Habakkuk could not pass over the Egyptian in silence, unless he meant to confine himself to the Chald:aean, is a pure petitio principii; and to any unprejudiced mind the allusion to the Chald:aean in this verse is placed beyond all possible doubt by Isa 14:8, where the devastation of Lebanon is also attributed to him, just as it is in Hab 2:17 of our prophecy.)
Hab 2:6-8
Introduction of the ode and first strophe. - Hab 2:6. "Will not all these lift up a proverb upon him, and a song, a riddle upon him? And men will say, Woe to him who increases what is not his own! For how long? and who loadeth himself with the burden of pledges. Hab 2:7. Will not thy biters rise up suddenly, and thy destroyers wake up, and thou wilt become booty to them? Hab 2:8. For thou hast plundered many nations, all the rest of the nations will plunder thee, for the blood of men and wickedness on the earth, the city, and all its inhabitants." הלוא is here, as everywhere else, equivalent to a confident assertion. "All these:" this evidently points back to "all nations" and "all people." Nevertheless the nations as such, or in pleno, are not meant, but simply the believers among them, who expect Jehovah to inflict judgment upon the Chald:aeans, and look forward to that judgment for the revelation of the glory of God. For the ode is prophetical in its nature, and is applicable to all times and all nations. Mâshâl is a sententious poem, as in Mic 2:4 and Isa 14:4, not a derisive song, for this subordinate meaning could only be derived from the context, as in Isa 14:4 for example; and there is nothing to suggest it here. So, again, melı̄tsâh neither signifies a satirical song, nor an obscure enigmatical discourse, but, as Delitzsch has shown, from the first of the two primary meanings combined in the verb לוּץ, lucere and lascivire, a brilliant oration, oratio splendida, from which מליץ is used to denote an interpreter, so called, not from the obscurity of the speaking, but from his making the speech clear or intelligible. חידות לו is in apposition to מליצה and משׁל, adding the more precise definition, that the sayings contain enigmas relating to him (the Chald:aean). The enigmatical feature comes out more especially in the double meaning of עבטיט in Hab 2:6, נשׁכיך in Hab 2:7, and קיקלון in Hab 2:16. לאמר serves, like לאמר elsewhere, as a direct introduction to the speech. The first woe applies to the insatiable rapacity of the Chald:aean. המּרבּה לא־לו, who increases what does not belong to him, i.e., who seizes upon a large amount of the possessions of others. עד־מתי, for how long, sc. will he be able to do this with impunity; not "how long has he already done this" (Hitzig), for the words do not express exultation at the termination of the oppression, but are a sign appended to the woe, over the apparently interminable plunderings on the part of the Chald:aean. וּמכבּיד is also dependent upon hōi, since the defined participle which stands at the head of the cry of woe is generally followed by participles undefined, as though the former regulated the whole (cf. Isa 5:20 and Isa 10:1). At the same time, it might be taken as a simple declaration in itself, though still standing under the influence of the hōi; in which case הוּא would have to be supplied in thought, like וחוטא in Hab 2:10. And even in this instance the sentence is not subordinate to the preceding one, as Luther follows Rashi in assuming ("and still only heaps much slime upon himself"); but is co-ordinate, as the parallelism of the clauses and the meaning of עבטיט require. The ἁπ. λεγ. עבטיט is probably chosen on account of the resemblance in sound to מכבּיד, whilst it also covers an enigma or double entendre. Being formed from עבט (to give a pledge) by the repetition of the last radical, עבטיט signifies the mass of pledges (pignorum captorum copia: Ges., Maurer, Delitzsch), not the load of guilt, either in a literal or a tropico-moral sense. The quantity of foreign property which the Chald:aean has accumulated is represented as a heavy mass of pledges, which he has taken from the nations like an unmerciful usurer (Deu 24:10), to point to the fact that he will be compelled to disgorge them in due time. הכבּיד, to make heavy, i.e., to lay a heavy load upon a person. The word עבטיט, however, might form two words so far as the sound is concerned: עב טיט, cloud (i.e., mass) of dirt, which will cause his ruin as soon as it is discharged. This is the sense in which the Syriac has taken the word; and Jerome does the same, observing, considera quam eleganter multiplicatas divitias densum appellaverit lutum, no doubt according to a Jewish tradition, since Kimchi, Rashi, and Ab. Ezra take the word as a composite one, and merely differ as to the explanation of עב. Grammatically considered, this explanation is indeed untenable, since the Hebrew language has formed no appellative nomina composita; but the word is nevertheless enigmatical, because, when heard from the lips, it might be taken as two words, and understood in the sense indicated.
In Hab 2:7 the threatening hōi is still further developed. Will not thy biters arise? נשׁכיך = נשׁכתם אתך, those who bite thee. In the description here given of the enemy as savage vipers (cf. Jer 8:17) there is also an enigmatical double entendre, which Delitzsch has admirably interpreted thus: "המּרבּה," he says, "pointed to תּרבּית (interest). The latter, favoured by the idea of the Chald:aean as an unmerciful usurer, which is concentrated in עבטיט, points to נשׁך, which is frequently connected with תּרבּית, and signifies usurious interest; and this again to the striking epithet נשׁכתם, which is applied to those who have to inflict the divine retribution upon the Chald:aean. The prophet selected this to suggest the thought that there would come upon the Chald:aean those who would demand back with interest (neshek) the capital of which he had unrighteously taken possession, just as he had unmercifully taken the goods of the nations from them by usury and pawn." יקצוּ, from יקץ, they will awake, viz., מזעזעך, those who shake or rouse thee up. זעזע, pilel of זוּע, σείω, is used in Arabic of the wind (to shake the tree); hence, as in this case, it was employed to denote shaking up or scaring away from a possession, as is often done, for example, by a creditor (Hitzig, Delitzsch). משׁסּות is an intensive plural.
So far as this threat applies to the Chald:aeans, it was executed by the Medes and Persians, who destroyed the Chald:aean empire. But the threat has a much more extensive application. This is evident, apart from other proofs, from Hab 2:8 itself, according to which the whole of the remnant of the nations is to inflict the retribution. Gōyı̄m rabbı̄m, "many nations:" this is not to be taken as an antithesis to kol-haggōyı̄m (all nations) in Hab 2:5, since "all nations" are simply many nations, as kol is not to be taken in its absolute sense, but simply in a relative sense, as denoting all the nations that lie within the prophet's horizon, as having entered the arena of history. Through ישׁלּוּך, which is placed at the head of the concluding clause without a copula, the antithesis to שׁלּות is sharply brought out, and the idea of the righteous retaliation distinctly expressed. כּל־יתר עמּים, the whole remnant of the nations, is not all the rest, with the exception of the one Chald:aean, for yether always denotes the remnant which is left after the deduction of a portion; nor does it mean all the rest of the nations, who are spared and not subjugated, in distinction from the plundered and subjugated nations, as Hitzig with many others imagine, and in proof of which he adduces the fact that the overthrow of the Chald:aeans was effected by nations that had not been subdued. But, as Delitzsch has correctly observed, this view makes the prophet contradict not only himself, but the whole of the prophetic view of the world-wide dominion of Nebuchadnezzar. According to Hab 2:5, the Chald:aean has grasped to himself the dominion over all nations, and consequently there cannot be any nations left that he has not plundered. Moreover, the Chald:aean, or Nebuchadnezzar as the head of the Chald:aean kingdom, appears in prophecy (Jer 27:7-8), as he does in history (Dan 2:38; 3:31; Dan 5:19) throughout, as the ruler of the world in the highest sense, who has subjugated all nations and kingdoms round about, and compelled them to serve him. These nations include the Medes and Elamites (= Persians), to whom the future conquest of Babylon is attributed in Isa 13:17; Isa 21:2; Jer 51:11, Jer 51:28. They are both mentioned in Jer 25:25 among the nations, to whom the prophet is to reach the cup of wrath from the hand of Jehovah; and the kingdom of Elam especially is threatened in Jer 49:34. with the destruction of its power, and dispersion to all four winds. In these two prophecies, indeed, Nebuchadnezzar is not expressly mentioned by name as the executor of the judgment of wrath; but in Jeremiah 25 this may plainly be inferred from the context, partly from the fact that, according to Jer 25:9, Judah with its inhabitants, and all nations round about, are to be given into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, and partly from the fact that in the list of the nations enumerated in Jer 25:18-26 the king of Sesach (i.e., Babel) is mentioned as he who is to drink the cup "after them" (Jer 25:26). The expression 'achărēhem (after them) shows very clearly that the judgment upon the nations previously mentioned, and therefore also upon the kings of Elam and Media, is to occur while the Chald:aean rule continues, i.e., is to be executed by the Chald:aeans. This may, in fact, be inferred, so far as the prophecy respecting Elam in Jer 49:34. is concerned, from the circumstance that Jeremiah's prophecies with regard to foreign nations in Jeremiah 46-51 are merely expansions of the summary announcement in Jer 25:19-26, and is also confirmed by Eze 32:24, inasmuch as Elam is mentioned there immediately after Asshur in the list of kings and nations that have sunk to the lower regions before Egypt. And if even this prophecy has a much wider meaning, like that concerning Elam in Jer 49:34, and the elegy over Egypt, which Ezekiel strikes up, is expanded into a threatening prophecy concerning the heathen generally (see Kliefoth, Ezech. p. 303), this further reference presupposes the historical fulfilment which the threatening words of prophecy have received through the judgment inflicted by the Chald:aeans upon all the nations mentioned, and has in this its real foundation and soil.
History also harmonizes with this prophetic announcement. The arguments adduced by Hvernick (Daniel, p. 547ff.) to prove that Nebuchadnezzar did not extend his conquests to Elam, and neither subdued this province nor Media, are not conclusive. The fact that after the fall of Nineveh the conquerors, Nabopolassar of Babylonia, and Cyaxares the king of Media, divided the fallen Assyrian kingdom between them, the former receiving the western provinces, and the latter the eastern, does not preclude the possibility of Nebuchadnezzar, the founder of the Chald:aean empire, having made war upon the Median kingdom, and brought it into subjection. There is no historical testimony, however, to the further assertion, that Nebuchadnezzar was only concerned to extend his kingdom towards the west, that his conquests were all of them in the lands situated there, and gave him so much to do that he could not possibly think of extending his eastern frontier. It is true that the opposite of this cannot be inferred from Strabo, xvi. 1, 18;
(Note: This passage is quoted by Hitzig (Ezech. p. 251) as a proof that Elam made war upon the Babylonians, and, indeed, judging from Jer 49:34, an unsuccessful war. But Strabo speaks of a war between the Elymaeans (Elamites) and the Babylonians and Susians, which M. v. Niebuhr (p. 210) very properly assigns to the period of the alliance between Media (as possessor of Susa) and Babylon.)
but it may be inferred, as M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs, pp. 211-12) has said, from the fact that according to Jeremiah 27 and 28, at the beginning of Zedekiah's reign, and therefore not very long after Nebuchadnezzar had conquered Jerusalem in the time of Jehoiachin, and restored order in southern Syria in the most energetic manner, the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Zidon, entered into negotiations with Zedekiah for a joint expedition against Nebuchadnezzar. M. v. Niebuhr infers from this that troublous times set in at that period for Nebuchadnezzar, and that this sudden change in the situation of affairs was connected with the death of Cyaxares, and leads to the conjecture that Nebuchadnezzar, who had sworn fealty to Cyaxares, refused at his death to do homage to his successor; for fidelity to a father-in-law, with whose help the kingdom was founded, would assume a very different character if it was renewed to his successor. Babel was too powerful to accept any such enfeoffment as this. And even if Nebuchadnezzar was not a vassal, there could not be a more suitable opportunity for war with Media than that afforded by a change of government, since kingdoms in the East are so easily shaken by the death of a great prince. And there certainly was no lack of inducement to enter upon a war with Media. Elam, for example, from its very situation, and on account of the restlessness of its inhabitants, must have been a constant apple of discord. This combination acquires extreme probability, partly from the fact that Jeremiah's prophecy concerning Elam, in which that nation is threatened with the destruction of its power and dispersion to all four winds, was first uttered at the commencement of Zedekiah's reign (Jer 49:34), whereas the rest of his prophecies against foreign nations date from an earlier period, and that against Babel is the only one which falls later, namely, in the fourth year of Zedekiah (Jer 51:59), which appears to point to the fact that at the commencement of Zedekiah's reign things were brewing in Elam which might lead to his ruin. And it is favoured in part by the account in the book of Judith of a war between Nabuchodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) and Media, which terminated victoriously according to the Rec. vulg. in the twelfth year of his reign, since this account is hardly altogether a fictitious one. These prophetic and historical testimonies may be regarded as quite sufficient, considering the universally scanty accounts of the Chald:aean monarchy given by the Greeks and Romans, to warrant us in assuming without hesitation, as M. v. Niebuhr has done, that between the ninth and twentieth years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign - namely, at the commencement of Zedekiah's reign - the former had to make war not only with Elam, but with Media also, and that it is to this eastern war that we should have to attribute the commotion in Syria.
From all this we may see that there is no necessity to explain "all the remnant of the nations" as relating to the remainder of the nations that had not been subjugated, but that we may understand it as signifying the remnant of the nations plundered and subjugated by the Chald:aeans (as is done by the lxx, Theodoret, Delitzsch, and others), which is the only explanation in harmony with the usage of the language. For in Jos 23:12 yether haggōyı̄m denotes the Canaanitish nations left after the war of extermination; and in Zac 14:2 yether hâ‛âm signifies the remnant of the nation left after the previous conquest of the city, and the carrying away of half its inhabitants. In Zep 2:9 yether gōi is synonymous with שׁארית עמּי, and our יתר עמּים is equivalent to שׁארית הגּוים in Eze 36:3-4. מדּמי אדם: on account of the human blood unjustly shed, and on account of the wickedness on the earth (chămas with the Genesis obj. as in Joe 3:19 and Oba 1:10). 'Erets without an article is not the holy land, but the earth generally; and so the city (qiryâh, which is still dependent upon chămas) is not Jerusalem, nor any one particular city, but, with indefinite generality, "cities." The two clauses are parallel, cities and their inhabitants corresponding to men and the earth. The Chald:aean is depicted as one who gathers men and nations in his net (Hab 1:14-17). And so in Jer 50:23 he is called a hammer of the whole earth, in Jer 51:7 a cup of reeling, and in Jer 51:25 the destroyer of the whole earth. Habakkuk 2:9 tHab 2::9 The second woe is pronounced upon the wickedness of the Chald:aean, in establishing for himself a permanent settlement through godless gain. Hab 2:9. "Woe to him who getteth a godless gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to save himself from the hand of calamity. Hab 2:10. Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, destruction of many nations, and involvest thy soul in guilt. Hab 2:11. For the stone out of the wall will cry, and the spar out of the wood will answer it." To the Chald:aean's thirst for robbery and plunder there is attached quite simply the base avarice through which he seeks to procure strength and durability for his house. בּצע בּצע, to get gain, has in itself the subordinate idea of unrighteous gain or sinful covetousness, since בּצע denotes cutting or breaking something off from another's property, though here it is still further strengthened by the predicate רע, evil (gain). בּיתו (his house) is not the palace, but the royal house of the Chald:aean, his dynasty, as Hab 2:10 clearly shows, where בּית evidently denotes the king's family, including the king himself. How far he makes בּצע for his family, is more precisely defined by לשׂוּם וגו. קנּו, his (the Chald:aean's) nest, is neither his capital nor his palace or royal castle; but the setting up of his nest on high is a figure denoting the founding of his government, and securing it against attacks. As the eagle builds its nest on high, to protect it from harm (cf. Job 39:27), so does the Chald:aean seek to elevate and strengthen his rule by robbery and plunder, that it may never be wrested from his family again. We might here think of the buildings erected by Nebuchadnezzar for the fortification of Babylon, and also of the building of the royal palace (see Berosus in Hos. c. Ap. i. 19). We must not limit the figurative expression to this, however, but must rather refer it to all that the Chald:aean did to establish his rule. This is called the setting on high of his nest, to characterize it as an emanation from his pride, and the lofty thoughts of his heart. For the figure of the nest, see Num 24:21; Oba 1:4; Jer 49:16. His intention in doing this is to save himself from the hand of adversity. רע is not masculine, the evil man; but neuter, adversity, or "the hostile fate, which, so far as its ultimate cause is God (Isa 45:7), is inevitable and irreversible" (Delitzsch). In Hab 2:10 the result of his heaping up of evil gain is announced: he has consulted shame to his house. יעץ, to form a resolution. His determination to establish his house, and make it firm and lofty by evil gain, will bring shame to his house, and instead of honour and lasting glory, only shame and ruin. קצות, which has been variously rendered, cannot be the plural of the noun קצה, "the ends of many nations," since it is impossible to attach any intelligent meaning to this. It is rather the infinitive of the verb קצה, the occurrence of which Hitzig can only dispute by an arbitrary alteration of the text in four different passages, and is equivalent to קצץ, to cut off, hew off, which occurs in the piel in Kg2 10:32 and Pro 26:6, but in the kal only here. The infinitive construct does not stand for the inf. abs., or for לקצות, exscindendo, but is used substantively, and is governed by יעצתּ, which still retains its force from the previous clause. Thou hast consulted (resolved upon) the cutting off, or destruction, of many nations. וחוטא, and sinnest against thy soul thereby, i.e., bringest retribution upon thyself, throwest away thine own life. On the use of the participle in the sense of the second person without אתּה, see at Hab 1:5. חטא, with the accusative of the person, as in Pro 20:2 and Pro 8:36, instead of חטא בנפשׁו. The participle is used, because the reference is to a present, which will only be completed in the future (Hitzig and Delitzsch). The reason for this verdict, and also for the hōi which stands at the head of this strophe, follows in Hab 2:11. The stone out of the wall and the spar out of the woodwork will cry, sc. because of the wickedness which thou hast practised in connected with thy buildings (Hab 1:2), or for vengeance (Gen 4:10), because they have been stolen, or obtained from stolen property. The apparently proverbial expression of the crying of stones is applied in a different way in Luk 19:40. קיר does not mean the wall of a room here, but, as distinguished from עץ, the outside wall, and עץ, the woodwork or beams of the buildings. The ἁπ. λεγ. כּפיס, lit., that which binds, from כפס in the Syriac and Targum, to bind, is, according to Jerome, "the beam which is placed in the middle of any building to hold the walls together, and is generally called ἱμάντωσις by the Greeks." The explanations given by Suidas is, δέσις ξύλων ἐμβαλλομένων ἐν τοῖς οἰκοδομήσασι, hence rafters or beams. יעננּה, will answer, sc. the stone, i.e., join in its crying (cf. Isa 34:14). Habakkuk 2:12 tHab 2::12 The third woe refers to the building of cities with the blood and property of strangers. Hab 2:12. "Woe to him who buildeth cities with blood, and foundeth castles with injustice. Hab 2:14. For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea." The earnest endeavour of the Chald:aean to found his dynasty in permanency through evil gain, manifested itself also in the building of cities with the blood and sweat of the subjugated nations. עיר and קריה are synonymous, and are used in the singular with indefinite generality, like קריה in Hab 2:8. The preposition ב, attached to דּמים and עולה, denotes the means employed to attain the end, as in Mic 3:10 and Jer 22:13. This was murder, bloodshed, transportation, and tyranny of every kind. Kōnēn is not a participle with the Mem dropped, but a perfect; the address, which was opened with a participle, being continued in the finite tense (cf. Ewald, 350, a). With Hab 2:13 the address takes a different turn from that which it has in the preceding woes. Whereas there the woe is always more fully expanded in the central verse by an exposition of the wrong, we have here a statement that it is of Jehovah, i.e., is ordered or inflicted by Him, that the nations weary themselves for the fire. The ו before יינעוּ introduces the declaration of what it is that comes from Jehovah. הלוא הנּה (is it not? behold!) are connected together, as in Ch2 25:26, to point to what follows as something great that was floating before the mind of the prophet. בּדי אשׁ, literally, for the need of the fire (compare Nah 2:13 and Isa 40:16). They labour for the fire, i.e., that the fire may devour the cities that have been built with severe exertion, which exhausts the strength of the nations. So far they weary themselves for vanity, since the buildings are one day to fall into ruins, or be destroyed. Jeremiah (Jer 51:58) has very suitably applied these words to the destruction of Babylon. This wearying of themselves for vanity is determined by Jehovah, for (Hab 2:14) the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah. That this may be the case, the kingdom of the world, which is hostile to the Lord and His glory, must be destroyed. This promise therefore involves a threat directed against the Chald:aean. His usurped glory shall be destroyed, that the glory of Jehovah of Sabaoth, i.e., of the God of the universe, may fill the whole earth. The thought in Hab 2:14 is formed after Isa 11:9, with trifling alterations, partly substantial, partly only formal. The choice of the niphal תּפּלא instead of the מלאה of Isaiah refers to the actual fact, and is induced in both passages by the different turn given to the thought. In Isaiah, for example, this thought closes the description of the glory and blessedness of the Messianic kingdom in its perfected state. The earth is then full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the peace throughout all nature which has already been promised is one fruit of that knowledge. In Habakkuk, on the other hand, this knowledge is only secured through the overthrow of the kingdom of the world, and consequently only thereby will the earth be filled with it, and that not with the knowledge of Jehovah (as in Isaiah), but with the knowledge of His glory (כּבוד יי), which is manifested in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (Isa 2:12-21; Isa 6:3, compared with the primary passage, Num 14:21). כּבוד יי is "the δόξα of Jehovah, which includes His right of majesty over the whole earth" (Delitzsch). יכסּוּ על־ים is altered in form, but not in sense, from the ליּם מכסּים of Isaiah; and יכסּוּ is to be taken relatively, since כ is only used as a preposition before a noun or participle, and not like a conjunction before a whole sentence (comp. Ewald, 360, a, with 337, c). לדער is an infinitive, not a noun, with the preposition ל; for מלא, ימּלא is construed with the accus. rei, lit., the earth will be filled with the acknowledging. The water of the sea is a figure denoting overflowing abundance. Habakkuk 2:15 tHab 2::15 The fourth woe is an exclamation uttered concerning the cruelty of the Chald:aean in the treatment of the conquered nations. Hab 2:15. "Woe to him that giveth his neighbour to drink, mixing thy burning wrath, and also making drunk, to look at their nakedness. Hab 2:16. Thou hast satisfied thyself with shame instead of with honour; then drink thou also, and show the foreskin. The cup of Jehovah's right hand will turn to thee, and the vomiting of shame upon thy glory. Hab 2:17. For the wickedness at Lebanon will cover thee, and the dispersion of the animals which frightened them; for the blood of the men and the wickedness on the earth, upon the city and all its inhabitants." The description in Hab 2:15 and Hab 2:16 is figurative, and the figure is taken from ordinary life, where one man gives another drink, so as to intoxicate him, for the purpose of indulging his own wantonness at his expense, or taking delight in his shame. This helps to explain the משׁקה רעהוּ, who gives his neighbour to drink. The singular is used with indefinite generality, or in a collective, or speaking more correctly, a distributive sense. The next two circumstantial clauses are subordinate to הוי משׁקה, defining more closely the mode of the drinking. ספּח does not mean to pour in, after the Arabic sfḥ; for this, which is another form for Arab. sfk, answers to the Hebrew שׁפך, to pour out (compare שׁפך חמתו, to pour out, or empty out His wrath: Psa 79:6; Jer 10:25), but has merely the meaning to add or associate, with the sole exception of Job 14:19, where it is apparently used to answer to the Arabic sfḥ; consequently here, where drink is spoken of, it means to mix wrath with the wine poured out. Through the suffix חמתך the woe is addressed directly to the Chald:aean himself, - a change from the third person to the second, which would be opposed to the genius of our language. The thought is sharpened by ואף שׁכּר, "and also (in addition) making drunk" (shakkēr, inf. abs.). To look upon their nakednesses: the plural מעוריהם is used because רעהוּ has a collective meaning. The prostrate condition of the drunken man is a figurative representation of the overthrow of a conquered nation (Nah 3:11), and the uncovering of the shame a figure denoting the ignominy that has fallen upon it (Nah 3:5; Isa 47:3). This allegory, in which the conquest and subjugation of the nations are represented as making them drink of the cup of wrath, does not refer to the open violence with which the Chald:aean enslaves the nations, but points to the artifices with which he overpowers them, "the cunning with which he entices them into his alliance, to put them to shame" (Delitzsch). But he has thereby simply prepared shame for himself, which will fall back upon him (Hab 2:16). The perfect שׂבעתּ does not apply prophetically to the certain future; but, as in the earlier strophes (Hab 2:8 and Hab 2:10) which are formed in a similar manner, to what the Chald:aean has done, to bring upon himself the punishment mentioned in what follows. The shame with which he has satisfied himself is the shamefulness of his conduct; and שׂבע, to satisfy himself, is equivalent to revelling in shame. מכּבוד, far away from honour, i.e., and not in honour. מן is the negative, as in Psa 52:5, in the sense of ולא, with which it alternates in Hos 6:6. For this he is now also to drink the cup of wrath, so as to fall down intoxicated, and show himself as having a foreskin, i.e., as uncircumcised ( הערל from ערלה ). This goblet Jehovah will hand to him. Tissōbh, he will turn. על (upon thee, or to thee). This is said, because the cup which the Chald:aean had reached to other nations was also handed over to him by Jehovah. The nations have hitherto been obliged to drink it out of the hand of the Chald:aean. Now it is his turn, and he must drink it out of the hand of Jehovah (see Jer 25:26). וקיקלון, and shameful vomiting, (sc., יהיה) will be over thine honour, i.e., will cover over thine honour or glory, i.e., will destroy thee. The ἁπ. λεγ. קיקלון is formed from the pilpal קלקל from קלל, and softened down from קלקלון, and signifies extreme or the greatest contempt. This form of the word, however, is chosen for the sake of the play upon קיא קלון, vomiting of shame, vomitus ignominiae (Vulg.; cf. קיא צאה in Isa 28:8), and in order that, when the word was heard, it should call up the subordinate meaning, which suggests itself the more naturally, because excessive drinking is followed by vomiting (cf. Jer 25:26-27).
This threat is explained in Hab 2:17, in the statement that the wickedness practised by the Chald:aean on Lebanon and its beasts will cover or fall back upon itself. Lebanon with its beasts is taken by most commentators allegorically, as a figurative representation of the holy land and its inhabitants. But although it may be pleaded, in support of this view, that Lebanon, and indeed the summit of its cedar forest, is used in Jer 22:6 as a symbol of the royal family of Judaea, and in Jer 22:23 as a figure denoting Jerusalem, and that in Isa 37:24, and probably also in Zac 11:1, the mountains of Lebanon, as the northern frontier of the Israelitish land, are mentioned synecdochically for the land itself, and the hewing of its cedars and cypresses may be a figurative representation of the devastation of the land and its inhabitants; these passages do not, for all that, furnish any conclusive evidence of the correctness of this view, inasmuch as in Isa 10:33-34, Lebanon with its forest is also a figure employed to denote the grand Assyrian army and its leaders, and in Isa 60:13 is a symbol of the great men of the earth generally; whilst in the verse before us, the allusion to the Israelitish land and nation is neither indicated, nor even favoured, by the context of the words. Apart, for example, from the fact that such a thought as this, "the wickedness committed upon the holy land will cover thee, because of the wickedness committed upon the earth," not only appears lame, but would be very difficult to sustain on biblical grounds, inasmuch as the wickedness committed upon the earth and its inhabitants would be declared to be a greater crime than that committed upon the land and people of the Lord; this view does not answer to the train of thought in the whole of the ode, since the previous strophes do not contain any special allusion to the devastation of the holy land, or the subjugation and ill-treatment of the holy people, but simply to the plundering of many nations, and the gain forced out of their sweat and blood, as being the great crime of the Chald:aean (cf. Hab 2:8, Hab 2:10, Hab 2:13), for which he would be visited with retribution and destruction. Consequently we must take the words literally, as referring to the wickedness practised by the Chald:aean upon nature and the animal world, as the glorious creation of God, represented by the cedars and cypresses of Lebanon, and the animals living in the forests upon those mountains. Not satisfied with robbing men and nations, and with oppressing and ill-treating them, the Chald:aean committed wickedness upon the cedars and cypresses also, and the wild animals of Lebanon, cutting down the wood either for military purposes or for state buildings, so that the wild animals were unsparingly exterminated. There is a parallel to this in Isa 14:8, where the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon rejoice at the fall of the Chald:aean, because they will be no more hewn down. Shōd behēmōth, devastation upon (among) the animals (with the gen. obj., as in Isa 22:4 and Psa 12:6). יחיתן is a relative clause, and the subject, shōd, the devastation which terrified the animals. The form יחיתן for יחתּן, from יחת, hiphil of חתת, is anomalous, the syllable with dagesh being resolved into an extended one, like התימך for התמּך in Isa 33:1; and the tsere of the final syllable is exchanged for pathach because of the pause, as, for example, in התעלּם in Psa 55:2 (see Olshausen, Gramm. p. 576). There is no necessity to alter it into יחיתך (Ewald and Olshausen after the lxx, Syr., and Vulg.), and it only weakens the idea of the talio. The second hemistich is repeated as a refrain from Hab 2:8. Habakkuk 2:18 tHab 2::18 Fifth and last strophe. - Hab 2:18. "What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath carved it; the molten image and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his image trusteth in him to make dumb idols? Hab 2:19. Woe to him that saith to the wood, Wake up; Awake, to the hard stone. Should it teach? Behold, it is encased in gold and silver, and there is nothing of breath in its inside. Hab 2:20. But Jehovah is in His holy temple: let all the world be silent before Him." This concluding strophe does not commence, like the preceding ones, with hōi, but with the thought which prepares the way for the woe, and is attached to what goes before to strengthen the threat, all hope of help being cut off from the Chald:aean. Like all the rest of the heathen, the Chald:aean also trusted in the power of his gods. This confidence the prophet overthrows in Hab 2:18 : "What use is it?" equivalent to "The idol is of no use" (cf. Jer 2:11; Isa 44:9-10). The force of this question still continues in massēkhâh: "Of what use is the molten image?" Pesel is an image carved out of wood or stone; massēkhâh an image cast in metal. הועיל is the perfect, expressing a truth founded upon experience, as a fact: What profit has it ever brought? Mōreh sheqer (the teacher of lies) is not the priest or prophet of the idols, after the analogy of Mic 3:11 and Isa 9:14; for that would not suit the following explanatory clause, in which עליו (in him) points back to mōreh sheqer: "that the maker of idols trusteth in him (the teacher of lies)." Consequently the mōreh sheqer must be the idol itself; and it is so designated in contrast with the true God, the teacher in the highest sense (cf. Job 36:22). The idol is a teacher of lying, inasmuch as it sustains the delusion, partly by itself and partly through its priests, that it is God, and can do what men expect from God; whereas it is nothing more than a dumb nonentity ('elı̄l 'illēm: compare εἴδωλα ἄφωνα, Co1 12:2). Therefore woe be to him who expects help from such lifeless wood or image of stone. עץ is the block of wood shaped into an idol. Hâqı̄tsâh, awake! sc. to my help, as men pray to the living God (Psa 35:23; Psa 44:24; Psa 59:6; Isa 51:9). הוּא יורה is a question of astonishment at such a delusion. This is required by the following sentence: it is even encased in gold. Tâphas: generally to grasp; here to set in gold, to encase in gold plate (zâhâbh is an accusative). כּל אין: there is not at all. רוּח, breath, the spirit of life (cf. Jer 10:14). Hab 2:18 and Hab 2:19 contain a concise summary of the reproaches heaped upon idolatry in Isa 44:9-20; but they are formed quite independently, without any evident allusions to that passage. In Hab 2:20 the contrast is drawn between the dumb lifeless idols and the living God, who is enthroned in His holy temple, i.e., not the earthly temple at Jerusalem, but the heavenly temple, or the temple as the throne of the divine glory (Isa 66:1), as in Mic 1:2, whence God will appear to judge the world, and to manifest His holiness upon the earth, by the destruction of the earthly powers that rise up against Him. This thought is implied in the words, "He is in His holy temple," inasmuch as the holy temple is the palace in which He is enthroned as Lord and Ruler of the whole world, and from which He observes the conduct of men (Psa 11:4). Therefore the whole earth, i.e., all the population of the earth, is to be still before Him, i.e., to submit silently to Him, and wait for His judgment. Compare Zep 1:7 and Zac 2:13, where the same command is borrowed from this passage, and referred to the expectation of judgment. חס is hardly an imper. apoc. of הסה, but an interjection, from which the verb hâsâh is formed. But if the whole earth must keep silence when He appears as Judge, it is all over with the Chald:aean also, with all his glory and might. Next: Habakkuk Chapter 3
tHab 2::5
Yea also, because (e) he transgresseth by wine, [he is] a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and [is] as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth to him all nations, and heapeth to him all people: (e) He compares the proud and covetous man to a drunkard that is without reason and sense, whom God will punish and make a laughing stock to all the world: and this he speaks for the comfort of the godly, and against the Chald:eans. Habakkuk 2:6
tHab 2::1
I will stand upon my watch,.... These are the words of the prophet: so the Targum introduces them, "the prophet said;'' and this he said in character as a watchman, as all the prophets were: as a watchman takes the proper place he watches in and looks out, especially in time of danger and distress, if he can spy anyone bringing tidings, that he may receive it, and notify it to the people that have appointed him a watchman; so the prophet retired from the world, and gave himself up to meditation and prayer, and put himself in a waiting posture; looking up to the Lord, and expecting an answer to his expostulations with him, concerning the success of the enemies of God's people, and the calamities that were like to come upon them, that he might report it to them; see Isa 21:8, and set me upon the tower; a place of eminence, from which he could behold an object at a distance: it signifies a strait place, in which he was as one besieged; and may be an emblem of the straits and difficulties he was in, which he wanted to be extricated out of: the thoughts of his heart troubled him; he had a great many objections that rose up in his mind against the providences that were like to attend his people; he was beset with the temptations of Satan, and surrounded with objectors to what he had delivered, concerning the Chald:eans being raised up by God to the destruction of the Jewish nation; and, amidst these difficulties, he sets himself to reading the word of God, and meditation on it, to pray to God for instruction and information in this matter; as Asaph, in a like case, went into the sanctuary of the Lord, where he got satisfaction, Psa 73:2 as well as it may be expressive of the confidence he had in God, in his covenant and promises, which were as a fortress and strong tower to him; in short, he kept his place, he was found in the way of his duty, in the performance of his office, and was humbly and patiently waiting on God, to know more of his mind and will, and acquaint the people with it. And will watch to see what he will say unto me; or "in me" (n); that is, what the Lord would say unto him, either outwardly by an audible voice; or inwardly by impressing things upon his mind; or in a vision by the Spirit of prophecy, as Kimchi; so David, "the Spirit of the Lord spoke by me", or "in me", Sa2 23:2 he was determined to wait patiently for an answer, and to continue in the present posture, and constantly attend to every motion and dictate of the Spirit of God, and take particular notice of what should be suggested to him: and what I shall answer when I am reproved; either by the Lord, for using so much freedom and boldness in expostulations and reasonings with him, who is under no obligation to give an account of his matters unto the children of men; or by others, how he should be able to satisfy his own mind, and remove the scruples, doubts, and objections, that arose there against the providence of God, in prospering the wicked, and afflicting the righteous, and repel the temptation he was under to quarrel with God, and arraign his proceedings; and how he should answer the objections that his people made, both against his prophecies, and the providence of God, for which they reproved him; or, however, he expected they would. The Targum is, "and what will be returned to my request.'' (n) "in me", Pagninus, Montanus, Drusius, Tarnovius, Van Till, Burkius. Habakkuk 2:2 tHab 2::3
For the vision is yet for an appointed time,.... Not the present vision only, but vision or prophecy in general: it was a doubt that arose in the minds of the prophet and other good men, upon the notice given that the Chald:eans would be raised up to the destruction of the Jews; that then the law of God would cease, his worship would not continue; vision and prophecy would be no more; it would be all over with the doctrine of the law and the prophets: now in answer to this, and to remove this doubt, they are assured that vision or prophecy should "yet", or still, continue, and even "to the appointed time"; the time fixed for the continuance of it, notwithstanding the people of the Jews should be carried captive into another land: and accordingly so it was; there were prophets, as Daniel and Ezekiel, in the time of the captivity; and, after it, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; yea, the law and the prophets were until John; for vision and prophecy were to be sealed up by the Messiah, and not before; see Luk 16:16 it was true indeed with respect to the present vision or prophecy concerning the Messiah, that that was not to be fulfilled presently; there was some considerable time first to elapse; there was a time appointed for the accomplishment of it, and it would remain till that time, and then be most surely fulfilled; which would be before the sceptre departed from Judah, while the second temple was yet standing, and when Daniel's seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, were come; which were the limited, determined, and appointed time for the Messiah's coming, the time appointed of the Father, the fulness of time; so there was an appointed time for his coming to take vengeance on the Jewish nation, for their rejection of him, to which the apostle applies these words, Heb 10:37 and also for his spiritual coming, to visit his people in a gracious way; there is a set time to favour Zion and her children; as well as there is a day fixed for his second coming, or coming to judgment. But at the end it shall speak, and not lie; or rather, "he shall speak" (y); and so in the following clauses it should be rendered, not "it", but "he"; and so the apostle has taught us to interpret it of a person, and not a thing, Heb 10:37 that is, "at the end" of the time appointed, or at the end of the Jewish state, both civil and ecclesiastic, the Messiah should appear, as he did, which is called the end of the world, Co1 10:11 when a new world began, the world to come, the Gospel dispensation, of which Christ is said to be the Father, in the Greek version of Isa 9:6 see Heb 2:5 and being come, he shall "speak"; or, as it may be rendered, "at the end thereof" shall be "the speaker", or "preacher" (z); that shall publish and proclaim the glad tidings of the Gospel; and this agrees with Christ, the Logos, or Word of God, the great Prophet that should be raised up in the church, the teacher sent of God, the Wonderful Counsellor, and faithful witness; who spoke out the whole mind and will of God; published the everlasting Gospel; delivered out the doctrines of grace and truth; and spoke such words of grace as never man did, and with such power and authority as the Scribes and Pharisees did not. Some render the words, "and he shall break forth as the morning" (a); so the word is used in Sol 2:17 and so the Septuagint version, "he shall arise at the end"; like the rising sun: this agrees with Christ, the day spring from on high, and whose coming is said to be as the morning, Luk 1:78 and when he should thus appear, and exercise his prophetic office, he should "not lie"; this is the character of God himself, as opposed to a mere man, who is subject to lying and deceit; and suits well with Christ, who is truly God, and not a mere man; and answers to his character in prophecy and fact, that there was no guile in his mouth and lips, Isa 53:4 and fitly describes him as a preacher, who is truth itself; taught the way of God in truth; spoke the word of truth, the Gospel of our salvation; and no lie is of the truth; and who is infallible in all his doctrines, and does not and cannot deceive any; all his words are to be depended upon as faithful and true. Though it tarry, wait for it; or "though he tarry, wait for him"; not that he really would or did tarry; but he might seem to do so, not coming so soon as the Old Testament saints expected, and as they wished for and desired; it was a long time from the first promise of him; and sometimes the saints were ready to give it up, and their hearts to sink and faint, because it was seemingly deferred. This shows that this prophecy does not respect the Babylonish captivity; for that had no seeming delay, but, as soon as ever the seventy years were up, there was a deliverance from it; but the Messiah's coming was long expected, and seemed to be deferred, and the patience of the saints was almost wore out; but they are here encouraged, when this was the case, still to wait for him, as good old Simeon and others did, about the time of his coming; and so his spiritual and second coming should be waited patiently for, though they may seem to be delayed. Because it will surely come, it will not tarry; or "for he that is to come", or "is coming, will come (b), and not tarry"; beyond the appointed time. This is a periphrasis of the Messiah; for, being so often spoken of as to come, it became a description of him, "he that is to come"; see Mat 11:3 and as it was foretold he would come, so assuredly he would come, and not stay a moment longer than the time appointed of the Father; in which fulness of time God sent him, and he came, Gal 4:3. The person here prophesied of is not Jeremiah, as Jarchi, but the Messiah; and this is acknowledged by some Jewish writers, ancient and modern; and removes the doubt and objection that might arise from the Chald:eans coming upon the Jews, and carrying them captive, as if the promise of the Messiah would fail, whereas it would not. In the Talmud (c), they say, "God does not renew his world till after seven thousand years; another says five thousand. R. Nathan says, this Scripture penetrates and descends into the abyss; i.e. fixes no particular time; "the vision is for an appointed time", &c.; not as our Rabbins, who inquire the meaning of a time, and times, and half a time; what then is meant, "but at the end it shall speak", and "not lie?" Let them burst that compute the times, who used to say when the time comes, and he cometh not, he will never come; but wait for him, as it is said, "if he tarry, wait for him": perhaps you will say, we wait, but he does not wait; this may be an instruction to you what he says, "therefore the Lord waiteth to be gracious", &c.'' Maimonides says (d), their twelfth fundamental article of faith is, the days of the Messiah; that is, to believe, and be firmly persuaded, that he will come, nor will he tarry; "if he tarry, wait for him": though, he observes, this Scripture does not fix the certain time; nor is it to be so expounded, so as to gather from thence the exact time of his coming. This they do not choose to own, though it does, because the time is long ago elapsed. Abarbinel (e) owns that this vision is different from that in the preceding verse Hab 2:2, which concerns the second temple, but this another redemption; and would have it that the words may be explained thus, he that shall come will come at the time appointed, which is mentioned; and, after his coming, the King Messiah shall not tarry from coming to redeem you; which, though a wrong sense, shows his conviction of the prophecy belonging to the Messiah. So Abendana (f) says, our Rabbins understand this, "at the end it shall speak", of the end of our redemption from this captivity in which we now are; and in this way it appears right to explain it, for the prophet was complaining of the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar; and the Lord answers him, that he should write the vision of the destruction of Babylon, which should be at the end of seventy years; and said, do not wonder that I prolong to Babylon seventy years, for "yet the vision is for an appointed time": as if he should say, yet there is a vision for times afar off, "and at the end it shall speak": in all which there are plain traces of the sense the ancient synagogue put on this text, though now perverted, to favour their hypothesis of the Messiah being yet to come and save them. (y) "idque ille loquetur", Castalio. (z) "Praeco erit in fine", Cocceius; "et praeco aderit in fine", Van Till. (a) , Sept. (b) "quia veniens veniet", V. L.; "veniendo veniet", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Van Till, Burkius. (c) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 97. 2. (d) In Pocock. Porta Mosis, p. 176. (e) Mashmia Jeshua, fol. 64. 1. (f) Not. in Miclol Yophi in loc. Vid. Caphtor Uperah, fol. 6. 4. & 45. 1. 2. Habakkuk 2:4 tHab 2::5
Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine,.... Or rather, "how much less" or "more (o), wine dealing treacherously": or "a man of wine", as Aben Ezra supplies it; that is, a winebibber, as Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it: and the sense in connection with the preceding verse Hab 2:4 is, if a Jew, elated with his works of righteousness, his soul is not right in him, "how much less" a drunken, treacherous, proud, and ambitious heathen? if the Scribes and Pharisees, who expected the coming of the Messiah, yet withdrew from him, and opposed themselves unto him when come, "how much more" will such persons set themselves against him and his interest, thus described? by whom are meant, not the Babylonian monarchs, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and the Chald:eans, as usually interpreted, though there are many things in the account applicable to them; but this is breaking the thread of the prophecy, which carries on the account of the enemies of Christ, and of his kingdom, from his first to his second coming; whereas to interpret this prophecy of the Chald:eans is to go back to times before the first coming of Christ; nor does it seem necessary to say anything more concerning them, since the people of God might be satisfied that these would be in their turn destroyed, and they delivered from them; and that they, the Jews, could not be cut off as a people, since the promise of the Messiah, as springing from them, is firmly established; and it is so strongly asserted, that he should come at the appointed time, and not tarry: after which the prophet goes on to observe two different sorts of people among the Jews; one sort proud and vain glorious, who opposed themselves to Christ when he came; the other sort true believers in him, who lived by faith upon him: so things would stand among the Jews when Christ came, and so they did; there was a separation among them on his account: next the prophet proceeds to observe another sort of enemies to Christ and his interest among the heathens, which was not to be wondered at, and therefore introduced by a comparative particle, "how much more" or "less"; and who must be removed to make way for his kingdom and glory in the latter day, manifestly pointed at in Hab 2:14 now who can these be but the Romans, both Pagan and Papal in succession? and with these and their rulers, civil and ecclesiastical, do the characters given as well agree as with the Babylonian monarchy, and the Chald:eans, or better and therefore, after Cocceius and Van Till I shall choose to interpret the whole of them; and it is well known that several of the Roman emperors were greatly given to luxury and intemperance, the first character they stand described by in the text. Tiberius was greatly addicted to this vice; and, because of his greediness after wine (p), used to be called Biberius Caldius Mero, instead of Tiberius Claudius Nero; his successor Caligula spent the immense riches Tiberius had gathered together in less than a year's time in luxury and intemperance (q); and Claudius, that succeeded him, scarce ever went out of his doors but he was drunk (r); and Nero, who came after him to the empire, was of unusual luxury and sumptuousness, as the historian says (s); he used to keep on his banquets from the middle of the day to the middle of the night (t); to say nothing of Domitian, Commodus, and other emperors that followed after them: and these men were deceitful and treacherous, both to their friends and enemies; and it is no wonder that such as these should oppose themselves to the kingdom and interest of Christ, as they did. Kimchi interprets this of Nebuchadnezzar; and Jarchi of Belshazzar; and most interpreters think it refers to his drinking in the vessels of the temple, Dan 5:2, he is a proud man; the Roman emperors were excessively proud, like the unjust judge, neither feared God, nor regarded man; nay, set up themselves for gods, and required divine worship to be given them. Caius Caligula claimed divine majesty to himself, and set himself up to be worshipped among his brother gods; he built a temple to his own deity, and appointed priests and sacrifices; and placed a golden image of himself in it, and clothed it every day with such a garment as he himself wore (u); he also set up his own image in the temple at Jerusalem. Nero suffered himself to be called lord and god by Tiridates king of the Armenians, with bended knees, and hands lift up to heaven. Domitian and Aurelianus took the same titles as Nero did; and Dioclesian would be worshipped as a god, and called himself the brother of the sun and moon; and no marvel that such men as these should be enemies to Christ, and persecutors of his people: neither keepeth at home; or "dwells not in the fold" (w); in the sheepfold of Christ, in his church, being none of his sheep, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel; and so it denotes a infidel, an heathen; a fit character for the Pagan emperors, who had no habitation in the house of God. Kimchi interprets it of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom not being continued; or of his being driven from his habitation, his palace, from among men, to live with beasts; but it is the character, and not the punishment, of the person that is here pointed at: who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied; death and the grave, though such vast numbers are continually slain by the one, and laid in the other, yet are never satisfied; see Pro 27:20. This describes the insatiable thirst of the Roman emperors after honour, riches, and universal monarchy; who were never satisfied with what they obtained: but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people; that is, subdued them, and made them provinces of the Roman empire, and tributary to it, even almost all the then known world; hence the Roman empire is called the whole world, Luk 2:1 so Agrippa, in his orations to the Jews, mentions all nations as subject to the Romans (x). (o) "quanto magis", Calvin, Drusius, Tarnovius, Cocceius, Van Till, Burkius. (p) Suetonius in Vita Tiberii, c. 42. (q) Ib. Vita Caligulae, c. 37. (r) Ib. Vita Claudii, c. 33. (s) Eutrop. Hist. Rom. l. 7. (t) Suetonius in Vita Neronis, c. 27. (u) Suetonius in Vita Caligulae, c. 22. (w) "qui non habitat; quod de mansionibus ovium imprimius dicitur", Cocceius; "qui non inhabitat grata", Van Till. (x) Apud Joseph de Bello Jud. l. 2. c. 16. sect. 4. Habakkuk 2:6 tHab 2::13
Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts?.... That which follows; the judgments of God upon the bloody city, which they that labour to prevent labour in vain. So the Targum, "lo, strong and mighty blows or judgments come from the Lord of hosts;'' the mighty God, the Lord of armies, whose hand when stretched out none can turn back; he does what he pleases, and none can hinder him; when the decree is gone forth from him, it is in vain to attempt to stop it: that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity? words of the same import, and expressed in much the same language, were used of the destruction of literal Babylon by fire, and of the vain attempts of the Chald:eans in labouring and wearying themselves to quench it, Jer 51:58 and here of mystical Babylon, and the vanity of the people of it, in labouring to support it by their wars, for recovering the holy land from the Turks, and against the Waldenses, Hussites, and Bohemians; for, notwithstanding all their successes, and the vast number of persons slain by them, yet they could never prevail so as to root out the kingdom and interest of Christ: and their city and state shall fall, and they will not be able to uphold it; and a considerable blow and shock it received at the time of the Reformation; and this great city Babylon will be destroyed by fire, which its best friends cannot prevent; even the ten kings that have given their kingdom to the beast will hate the whore, and burn her with fire; and those antichristian kings that will continue friends to her, when they see her burning, will find it in vain to attempt to help her, and will stand afar off lamenting her case, Rev 17:16. Kimchi begins here to see that this section and paragraph does not belong to Nebuchadnezzar and the Chald:eans, but to the times of the Messiah; and interprets it of the vengeance of God that shall come upon all the nations that come along with Gog against Jerusalem in the latter day; but he is mistaken: it designs what will come on mystical Babylon; so Abarbinel owns, that, from Hab 2:12, what is said belongs to the Roman empire, which he calls the kingdom of Edom. Habakkuk 2:14
tHab 2::8
Of the land - Of the whole land of Chald:ea. The city - Babylon. Habakkuk 2:9
hab 2:0
In this chapter we have an answer expected by the prophet (Hab 2:1), and returned by the Spirit of God, to the complaints which the prophet made of the violences and victories of the Chald:eans in the close of the foregoing chapter. The answer is, I. That after God has served his own purposes by the prevailing power of the Chald:eans, has tried the faith and patience of his people, and distinguished between the hypocrites and the sincere among them, he will reckon with the Chald:eans, will humble and bring down, not only that proud monarch Nebuchadnezzar, but that proud monarchy, for their boundless and insatiable thirst after dominion and wealth, for which they themselves should at length be made a prey (Hab 2:2-8). II. That not they only, but all other sinners like them, should perish under a divine woe. 1. Those that are covetous, are greedy of wealth and honours (Hab 2:9, Hab 2:11). 2. Those that are injurious and oppressive, and raise estates by wrong and rapine (Hab 2:12-14). 3. Those that promote drunkenness that they may expose their neighbours to shame (Hab 2:15-17). 4. Those that worship idols (Hab 2:18-20). Habakkuk 2:1
tHab 2::1 Here, I. The prophet humbly gives his attendance upon God (Hab 2:1): "I will stand upon my watch, as a sentinel on the walls of a besieged city, or on the borders of an invaded country, that is very solicitous to gain intelligence. I will look up, will look round, will look within, and watch to see what he will say unto me, will listen attentively to the words of his mouth and carefully observe the steps of his providence, that I may not lose the least hint of instruction or direction. I will watch to see what he will say in me" (so it may be read), "what the Spirit of prophecy in me will dictate to me, by way of answer to my complaints." Even in a ordinary way, God not only speaks to us by his word, but speaks in us by our own consciences, whispering to us, This is the way, walk in it; and we must attend to the voice of God in both. The prophet's standing upon his tower, or high place, intimates his prudence, in making use of the helps and means he had within his reach to know the mind of God, and to be instructed concerning it. Those that expect to hear from God must withdraw from the world, and get above it, must raise their attention, fix their thought, study the scriptures, consult experiences and the experienced, continue instant in prayer, and thus set themselves upon the tower. His standing upon his watch intimates his patience, his constancy and resolution; he will wait the time, and weather the point, as a watchman does, but he will have an answer; he will know what God will say to him, not only for his own satisfaction, but to enable him as a prophet to give satisfaction to others, and answer their exceptions, when he is reproved or argued with. Herein the prophet is an example to us. 1. When we are tossed and perplexed with doubts concerning the methods of Providence, are tempted to think that it is fate, or fortune, and not a wise God, that governs the world, or that the church is abandoned, and God's covenant with his people cancelled and laid aside, then we must take pains to furnish ourselves with considerations proper to clear this matter; we must stand upon our watch against the temptation, that it may not get ground upon us, must set ourselves upon the tower, to see if we can discover that which will silence the temptation and solve the objected difficulties, must do as the psalmist, consider the days of old and make a diligent search (Psa 77:6), must go into the sanctuary of God, and there labour to understand the end of these things (Psa 73:17); we must not give way to our doubts, but struggle to make the best of our way out of them. 2. When we have been at prayer, pouring out our complaints and requests before God, we must carefully observe what answers God gives by his word, his Spirit, and his providences, to our humble representations; when David says, I will direct my prayer unto thee, as an arrow to the mark, he adds, I will look up, will look after my prayer, as a man does after the arrow he has shot, Psa 5:3. We must hear what God the Lord will speak, Psa 85:8. 3. When we go to read and hear the word of God, and so to consult the lively oracles, we must set ourselves to observe what God will thereby say unto us, to suit our case, what word of conviction, caution, counsel, and comfort, he will bring to our souls, that we may receive it, and submit to the power of it, and may consider what we shall answer, what returns we shall make to the word of God, when we are reproved by it. 4. When we are attacked by such as quarrel with God and his providence as the prophet here seems to have been - beset, besieged, as in a tower, by hosts of objectors - we should consider how to answer them, fetch our instructions from God, hear what he says to us for our satisfaction, and have that ready to say to others, when we are reproved, to satisfy them, as a reason of the hope that is in us (Pe1 3:15), and beg of God a mouth and wisdom, and that it may be given us in that same hour what we shall speak.
II. God graciously gives him the meeting; for he will not disappoint the believing expectations of his people that wait to hear what he will say unto them, but will speak peace, will answer them with good words and comfortable words, Zac 1:13. The prophet had complained of the prevalence of the Chald:eans, which God had given him a prospect of; now, to pacify him concerning it, he here gives him a further prospect of their fall and ruin, as Isaiah, before this, when he had foretold the captivity in Babylon, foretold also the destruction of Babylon. Now, this great and important event being made known to him by a vision, care is taken to publish the vision, and transmit it to the generations to come, who should see the accomplishment of it.
1. The prophet must write the vision, Hab 2:2. Thus, when St. John had a vision of the New Jerusalem, he was ordered to write, Rev 21:5. He must write it, that he might imprint it on his own mind, and make it more clear to himself, but especially that it might be notified to those in distant places and transmitted to those in future ages. What is handed down by tradition is easily mistaken and liable to corruption; but what is written is reduced to a certainty, and preserved safe and pure. We have reason to bless God for written visions, that God has written to us the great things of his prophets as well as of his law. He must write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, must write it legibly, in large characters, so that he who runs may read it, that those who will not allow themselves leisure to read it deliberately may not avoid a cursory view of it. Probably, the prophets were wont to write some of the most remarkable of their predictions in tables, and to hang them up in the temple, Isa 8:1. Now the prophet is told to write this very plain. Note, Those who are employed in preaching the word of God should study plainness as much as may be, so as to make themselves intelligible to the meanest capacities. The things of our everlasting peace, which God has written to us, are made plain, they are all plain to him that understands (Pro 8:9), and they are published with authority; God himself has prefixed his imprimatur to them; he has said, Make them plain.
2. The people must wait for the accomplishment of the vision (Hab 2:3): "The vision is yet for an appointed time to come. You shall now be told of your deliverance by the breaking of the Chald:eans' power, and that the time of it is fixed in the counsel and decree of God. There is an appointed time, but it is not near; it is yet to be deferred a great while;" and that comes in here as a reason why it must be written, that it may be reviewed afterwards and the event compared with it. Note, God has an appointed time for his appointed work, and will be sure to do the work when the time comes; it is not for us to anticipate his appointments, but to wait his time. And it is a great encouragement to wait with patience, that, though the promised favour be deferred long, it will come at last, and be an abundant recompence to us for our waiting: At the end it shall speak and not lie. We shall not be disappointed of it, for it will come at the time appointed; nor shall we be disappointed in it, for it will fully answer our believing expectations. The promise may seem silent a great while, but at the end it shall speak; and therefore, though it tarry longer than we expected, yet we must continue waiting for it, being assured it will come, and willing to tarry until it does come. The day that God has set for the deliverance of his people, and the destruction of his and their enemies, is a day, (1.) That will surely come at last; it is never adjourned sine die - without fixing another day, but it will without fail come at the fixed time and the fittest time. (2.) It will not tarry, for God is not slack, as some count slackness (Pe2 3:9); though it tarry past our time, yet it does not tarry past God's time, which is always the best time.
3. This vision, the accomplishment of which is so long waited for, will be such an exercise of faith and patience as will try and discover men what they are, Hab 2:4. (1.) There are some who will proudly disdain this vision, whose hearts are so lifted up that they scorn to take notice of it; if God will work for them immediately, they will thank him, but they will not give him credit; their hearts are lifted up towards vanity, and, since God puts them off, they will shift for themselves and not be beholden to him; they think their own hands sufficient for them, and God's promise is to them an insignificant thing. That man's soul that is thus lifted up is not upright in him; it is not right with God, is not as it should be. Those that either distrust or despise God's all-sufficiency will not walk uprightly with him, Gen 17:1. But, (2.) Those who are truly good, and whose hearts are upright with God, will value the promise, and venture their all upon it; and, in confidence of the truth of it, will keep close to God and duty in the most difficult trying times, and will then live comfortably in communion with God, dependence on him, and expectation of him. The just shall live by faith; during the captivity good people shall support themselves, and live comfortably, by faith in these precious promises, while the performance of them is deferred. The just shall live by his faith, by that faith which he acts upon the word of God. This is quoted in the New Testament (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38), for the proof of the great doctrine of justification by faith only and of the influence which the grace of faith has upon the Christian life. Those that are made just by faith shall live, shall be happy here and for ever; while they are here, they live by it; when they come to heaven faith shall be swallowed up in vision. Habakkuk 2:5 tHab 2::5 The prophet having had orders to write the vision, and the people to wait for the accomplishment of it, the vision itself follows; and it is, as divers other prophecies we have met with, the burden of Babylon and Babylon's king, the same that was said to pass over and offend, Hab 1:11. It reads the doom, some think, of Nebuchadnezzar, who was principally active in the destruction of Jerusalem, or of that monarchy, or of the whole kingdom of the Chald:eans, or of all such proud and oppressive powers as bear hard upon any people, especially upon God's people. Observe,
I. The charge laid down against this enemy, upon which the sentence is grounded, Hab 1:5. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, are the entangling snares of men, and great men especially; and we find him that led Israel captive himself led captive by each of these. For, 1. He is sensual and voluptuous, and given to his pleasures: He transgresses by wine. Drunkenness is itself a transgression, and is the cause of abundance of transgression. We read of those that err through wine, Isa 28:7. Belshazzar (in whom particularly this prophecy had its accomplishment) was in the height of his transgression by wine when the hand-writing upon the wall signed the warrant for his immediate execution, pursuant to this sentence, Dan 5:1. 2. He is haughty and imperious: He is a proud man, and his pride is a certain presage of his fall coming on. If great men be proud men, the great God will make them know he is above them. His transgressing by wine is made the cause of his arrogance and insolence: therefore he is a proud man. When a man is drunk, though he makes himself as mean as a beast, yet he thinks himself as great as a king, and prides himself in that by which he shames himself. We find the crown of pride upon the head of the drunkards of Ephraim, and a woe to both, Isa 28:1. 3. He is covetous and greedy of wealth, and this is the effect of his pride; he thinks himself worthy to enjoy all, and therefore makes it his business to engross all. The Chald:ean monarchy aimed to be a universal one. He keeps not at home, is not content with his own, which he has an incontestable title to, but thinks it too little, and so enjoys it not, nor takes the comfort he might in his own palace, in his own dominion. His sin is his punishment, his ambition is his perpetual uneasiness. Though the home be a palace, yet to a discontented mind it is a prison. He enlarges his desire as hell, or the grave, which daily receives the body of the dead, and yet still cries, Give, give; he is as death, which continues to devour, and cannot be satisfied. Note, It is the sin and folly of many who have a great deal of the wealth of this world that they do not know when they have enough, but the more they have the more they would have, and the more eager they are for it. And it is just with God that the desires which are insatiable should still be unsatisfied; it is the doom passed on those that love silver that they shall never be satisfied with it, Ecc 5:10. Those that will not be content with their allotments shall not have the comfort of their achievements. This proud prince is still gathering to him all nations, and heaping to him all people, invading their rights, seizing their properties, and they must not be unless they will be his, and under his command. One nation will not satisfy him unless he has another, and then another, and all at last; as those in a lower sphere, to gratify the same inordinate desire, lay house to house, and field to field, that they may be placed alone in the earth, Isa 5:8. And it is hard to say which is more to be pitied, the folly of such ambitious princes as place their honour in enlarging their dominions, and not in ruling them well, or the misery of those nations that are harassed and pulled to pieces by them.
II. The sentence passed upon him (Hab 2:6): Shall not all these take up a parable against him? His doom is,
1. That, since pride has been his sin, disgrace and dishonour shall be his punishment, and he shall be loaded with contempt, shall be laughed at and despised by all about him, as those that look big, and aim high, deserve to be, and commonly are, when they are brought down and baffled.
2. That, since he has been abusive to his neighbours, those very persons whom he has abused shall be the instruments of his disgrace: All those shall take up a taunting proverb against him. They shall have the pleasure of insulting over him and he the shame of being trampled upon by them. Those that shall triumph in the fall of this great tyrant are here furnished with a parable, and a taunting proverb, to take up against him. He shall say (he that draws up the insulting ditty shall say thus), Ho, he that increases that which is not his! Aha! what has become of him now? So it may be read in a taunting way. Or, He shall say, that is, the just, who lives by his faith, he to whom the vision is written and made plain, with the help of that shall say this, shall foretel the enemy's fall, even when he sees him flourishing, and suddenly curse his habitation, even when he is taking root, Job 5:3. He shall indeed denounce woes against him.
(1.) Here is a woe against him for increasing his own possessions by invading his neighbour's rights, Hab 2:6-8. He increases that which is not his, but other people's. Note, No more of what we have is to be reckoned ours than what we came honestly by; nor will it long be ours, for wealth gotten by vanity will be diminished. Let not those that thrive in the world be too forward to bless themselves in it, for, if they do not thrive lawfully, they are under a woe. See here, [1.] What this prosperous prince is doing; he is lading himself with thick clay. Riches are but clay, thick clay; what are gold and silver but white and yellow earth? Those that travel through thick clay are both retarded and dirtied in their journey; so are those that go through the world in the midst of an abundance of the wealth of it; but, as if that were not enough, what fools are those that load themselves with it, as if this trash would be their treasure! They burden themselves with continual care about it, with a great deal of guilt in getting, saving, and spending it, and with a heavy account which they must give of it another day. They overload their ship with this thick clay, and so sink it and themselves into destruction and perdition. [2.] See what people say of him, while he is thus increasing his wealth; they cry, "How long? How long will it be ere he has enough?" They cry to God, "How long wilt thou suffer this proud oppressor to trouble the nations?" Or they say to one another, "See how long it will last, how long he will be able to keep what he gets thus dishonestly." They dare not speak out, but we know what they mean when they say, How long? [3.] See what will be in the end hereof. What he has got by violence from others, others shall take by violence from him. The Medes and Persians shall make a prey of the Chald:eans, as they have done of other nations, Hab 2:7, Hab 2:8. "There shall be those that will bite thee and vex thee; those from whom thou didst not fear any danger, that seemed asleep, shall rise up and awake to be a plague to thee. They shall rise up suddenly when thou are most secure, and least prepared to receive the shock and ward off the blow. Shall they not rise up suddenly? No doubt they shall, and thou thyself hast reason to expect it, to be dealt with as thou hast dealt with others, that thou shalt be for booties unto them, as others have been unto thee, that, according to the law of retaliation, as thou hast spoiled many nations so thou shalt thyself be spoiled (Hab 2:8); all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee." The king of Babylon thought he had brought all the nations round about him so low that none of them would be able to make reprisals upon him; but though they were but a remnant of people, a very few left, yet these shall be sufficient to spoil him, when God has such a controversy with him, First, For men's blood, and the thousands of lives that have been sacrificed to his ambition and revenge, especially for the blood of Israelites, which is in a special manner precious to God. Secondly, For the violence of the land, his laying waste so many countries, and destroying the fruits of the earth, especially in the land of Israel. Thirdly, For the violence of the city, the many cities that he had turned into ruinous heaps, especially Jerusalem the holy city, and of all that dwelt therein, who were ruined by him. Note, The violence done by proud men to advance and enrich themselves will be called over again (and must be accounted for) another day, by him to whom vengeance belongs.
(2.) Here is a woe against him for coveting still more, and aiming to be still higher, Hab 2:9-11. The crime for which this woe is denounced is much the same with that in the foregoing article - an insatiable desire of wealth and honour; it is coveting an evil covetousness to his house, that is, grasping at an abundance for his family. Note, Covetousness is a very evil thing in a family; it brings disquiet and uneasiness into it (he that is greedy of gain troubles his own house), and, which is worse, it brings the curse of God upon it and upon all the affairs of it. Woe to him that gains an evil gain; so the margin reads it. There is a lawful gain, which by the blessing of God may be a comfort to a house (a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children), but what is got by fraud and injustice is ill-got, and will be poor gain, will not only do no good to a family, but will bring poverty and ruin upon it. Now observe, [1.] What this covetous wretch aims at; it is to set his nest on high, to raise his family to some greater dignity than it had before arrived at, or to set it, as he apprehends, out of the reach of danger, that he may be delivered from the power of evil, that it may not be in the power of the worst of his enemies to do him a mischief nor so much as to disturb his repose. Note, It is common for men to pretend it as an excuse for their covetousness and ambition that they only consult their own safety, and aim to secure themselves; and yet they do but deceive themselves when they think their wealth will be a strong city to them, and a high wall, for it is so only in their own conceit, Pro 18:11. [2.] What he will get by it: Thou hast consulted, not safety, but shame, to thy house, by cutting off many people, Hab 2:10. Note, An estate raised by iniquity is a scandal to a family. Those that cut off, or undermine, others, to make room for themselves, that impoverish others to enrich themselves, do but consult shame to their houses, and fasten upon them a mark of infamy. Yet that is not the worst of it: "Thou hast sinned against thy own soul, hast brought that under guilt and wrath, and endangered that." Note, Those that do wrong to their neighbour do a much greater wrong to their own souls. But if the sinner pleads, Not guilty, and thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with so much art and contrivance that they cannot be proved upon him, let him know that if there be no other witnesses against him the stone shall cry out of the wall against him, and the beam out of the timber in the roof shall answer it, shall second it, shall witness it, that the money and materials wherewith he built the house were unjustly gotten, Hab 2:11. The stones and timber cry to heaven for vengeance, as the whole creation groans under the sin of man and waits to be delivered from that bondage of corruption.
(3.) Here is a woe against him for building a town and a city by blood and extortion (Hab 2:12): He builds a town, and is him-self lord of it; he establishes a city, and makes it his royal seat. So Nebuchadnezzar did (Dan 4:30): Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom? But it is built with the blood of his own subjects, whom he has oppressed, and the blood of his neighbours, whom he has unjustly invaded; it is established by iniquity, by the unrighteous laws that are made for the security of it. Woe to him that does so; for the towns and cities thus built can never be established; they will fall, and their founders be buried in the ruins of them. Babylon, which was built by blood and iniquity, did not continue long; its day soon came to fall; and then this woe took effect, when that prophecy, which is expressed as a history (Isa 21:9), proved a history indeed: Babylon has fallen, has fallen! And the destruction of that city was, [1.] The shame of the Chald:eans, who had taken so much pains, and were at such a vast expense, to fortify it (Hab 2:13): Is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people who have laboured so hard to defend that city shall labour in the very fire, shall see the out-works which they confided in the strength of set on fire, and shall labour in vain to save them? Or they, in their pursuits of worldly wealth and honour, put themselves to great fatigue, and ran a great hazard, as those that labour in the fire do. The worst that can be said of the labourers in God's vineyards is that they have borne the burden and heat of the day (Mat 20:12); but those that are eager in their worldly pursuits labour in the very fire, make themselves perfect slaves to their lusts. There is not a greater drudge in the world than he that is under the power of reigning covetousness. And what comes of it? Though they take a world of pains they are but poorly paid for it; for, after all, they weary themselves for very vanity; they were told it was vanity, and when they find themselves disappointed of it, and disappointed in it, they will own it is worse than vanity, it is vexation of spirit. [2.] It was the honour of God, as a God of impartial justice and irresistible power; for by the ruin of the Chald:ean monarchy (which all the world could not but take notice of) the earth was filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, Hab 2:14. The Lord is known by these judgments which he executes, especially when he is pleased to look upon proud men and abase them, for he thereby proves himself to be God alone, Job 40:11, Job 40:12. See what good God brings out of the staining and sinking of earthly glory; he thereby manifests and magnifies his own glory, and fills the earth with the knowledge of it as plentifully as the waters cover the sea, which lie deep, spread far, and shall not be dried up until time shall be no more. Such is the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ given by the gospel (Co2 4:6), and such was the knowledge of his glory by the miraculous ruin of Babylon. Note, Such as will not be taught the knowledge of God's glory by the judgments of his mouth shall be made to know and acknowledge it by the judgments of his hand. Habakkuk 2:15 tHab 2::15 The three foregoing articles, upon which the woes here are grounded, are very near akin to each other. The criminals charged by them are oppressors and extortioners, that raise estates by rapine and injustice; and it is mentioned here again (Hab 2:17), the very same that was said Hab 2:8, for that is the crime upon which the greatest stress is laid; it is because of men's blood, innocent blood, barbarously and unjustly shed, which is a provoking crying thing; it is for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein, which God will certainly reckon for, sooner or later, as the asserter of right and the avenger of wrong.
But here are two articles more, of a different nature, which carry a woe to all those in general to whom they belong, and particularly to the Babylonian monarchs, by whom the people of God were taken and held captives.
I. The promoters of drunkenness stand here impeached and condemned. Belshazzar was one of those; he was so, remarkably that very night that the prophecy of this chapter was fulfilled in the period of his life and kingdom, when he drank wine before a thousand of his lords (Dan 5:1), began the healths, and forced them to pledge him. And perhaps it was one reason why the succeeding monarchs of Persia made it a law of their kingdom that in drinking none should compel, but they should do according to every man's pleasure (as we find, Est 1:8), because they had seen in the kings of Babylon the mischievous consequences of forcing healths and making people drunk. But the woe here stands firm and very fearful against all those, whoever they are, who are guilty of this sin at any time, and in any place, from the stately palace (where that was) to the paltry ale-house. Observe,
1. Who the sinner is that is here articled against; it is he that makes his neighbour drunk, Hab 2:15. To give a neighbour drink who is in want, who is thirsty and poor, though it be but a cup of cold water to a disciple, in the name of a disciple, to give drink to weary traveller, nay, and to give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that are heavy of heart, is a piece of charity which is required of us, and shall be recompensed to us. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. But to give a neighbour drink who has enough already, and more than enough, with design to intoxicate him, that he may expose himself, may talk foolishly, and make himself ridiculous, may disclose his own secret concerns, or be drawn in to agree to a bad bargain for himself - this is abominable wickedness; and those who are guilty of it, who make a practice of it, and take a pride and pleasure in it, are rebels against God in heaven, and his sacred laws, factors for the devil in hell, and his cursed interests, and enemies to men on earth, and their honour and welfare; they are like the son of Nebat, who sinned and made Israel to sin. To entice others to drunkenness, to put the bottle to them, that they may be allured to it by its charms, by looking on the wine when it is red and gives its colour in the cup, or to force them to it, obliging them by the rules of the club (and club-laws indeed they are) to drink so many glasses, and so filled, is to do what we can, and perhaps more than we know of, towards the murder both of soul and body; and those that do so have a great deal to answer for.
2. What the sentence is that is here passed upon him. There is a woe to him (Hab 2:15), and a punishment (Hab 2:16) that shall answer to the sin. (1.) Does he put the cup of drunkenness into the hand of his neighbour? The cup of fury, the cup of trembling, the cup of the Lord's right hand, shall be turned unto him; the power of God shall be armed against him. That cup which had gone round among the nations, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, and a hissing, which had made them stumble and fall, so that they could rise no more, shall at length be put into the hand of the king of Babylon, as was foretold, Jer 25:15, Jer 25:16, Jer 25:18, Jer 25:26, Jer 25:27. Thus the New Testament Babylon, which had made the nations drunk with the cup of her fornications, shall have blood given her to drink, for she is worthy, Rev 18:3, Rev 18:6. (2.) Does he take a pleasure in putting his neighbour to shame? He shall himself be loaded with contempt: "Thou art filled with shame for glory, with shame instead of glory, or art filled now with shame more than ever thou wast with glory; and the glory thou hast been filled with shall but serve to make thy shame the more grievous to thyself, and the more ignominious in the eyes of others. Thou also shalt drink of the cup of trembling, and shalt expose thyself by thy fear and cowardice, which shall be as the uncovering of thy nakedness, to thy shame; and all about thee shall load thee with disgrace, for shameful spewing shall be on thy glory, on that which thou hast most prided thyself in, thy dignity, wealth, and dominion; those whom thou hast made drunk shall themselves spew upon it. For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts (Hab 2:17); thou shalt be hunted and run down with as much violence as ever any wild beasts in Lebanon were, shall be spoiled as they are, and thy fall made a sport of; for thou art as one of the beasts that made them afraid, and therefore they triumph when they have got the mastery of thee." Or, "It is because of the violence thou hast done to Lebanon, that is, the land of Israel (Deu 3:25) and the temple (Zac 11:1), that God now reckons with thee; that is the sin that now covers thee."
II. The promoters of idolatry stand here impeached and condemned; and this also was a sin that Babylon was notoriously guilty of; it was the mother of harlots. Belshazzar, in his revels, praised his idols. And for this, here is a woe against them, and in them against all others that do likewise, particularly the New Testament Babylon. Now see here,
1. What they do to promote idolatry; they are mad upon their idols; so the Chald:eans are said to be, Jer 50:38. For, (1.) They have a great variety of idols, their graven images and molten images, that people may take their choice, which they like best. (2.) They are very nice and curious in the framing of them: The maker of the work has performed his part admirably well, the fashioner of his fashion (so it is in the margin), that contrived the model in the most significant manner. (3.) They are at great expense in beautifying and adorning them: They lay them over with gold and silver; because these are things people love and dote upon wherever they meet with them, they dress up their idols in them, the more effectually to court the adoration of the children of this world. (4.) They have great expectations from them: The maker of the work trusts therein as his god, puts a confidence in it, and gives honour to it as his god. The worshippers of God give honour to him, by offering up their prayers to him, and waiting to receive instructions and directions from him; and these honours they give to their idols. [1.] They pray to them: They say to the wood, Awake for our relief, "awake to hear our prayers;" and to the dumb stone, "Arise, and save us," as the church prays to her God, Awake, O Lord! arise, Psa 44:23. They own their image to be a god by praying to it. Deliver me, for thou art my God, Isa 44:17. Deos qui rogat ille facit - That to which a man addresses petitions is to him a god. [2.] They consult them as oracles, and expect to be directed and dictated to by them: They say to the dumb stone, though it cannot speak, yet it shall teach. What the wicked demon, or no less wicked priest, speaks to them from the image, they receive with the utmost veneration, as of divine authority, and are ready to be governed by it. Thus is idolatry planted and propagated under the specious show of religion and devotion.
2. How the extreme folly of this is exposed. God, by Isaiah, when he foretold the deliverance of his people out of Babylon, largely showed the shameful stupidity and sottishness of idolaters, and so he does here by the prophet, on the like occasion. (1.) Their images, when they have made them, are but mere matter, which is the meanest lowest rank of being; and all the expense they are at upon them cannot advance them one step above that. They are wholly void both of sense and reason, lifeless and speechless (the idol is a dumb idol, a dumb stone, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it), so that the most minute animal, that has but breath and motion, is more excellent then they. They have not so much as the spirit of a beast. (2.) It is not in their power to do their worshippers any good (Hab 2:18): What profits the graven image? Though it be mere matter, if it were cast into some other form it might be serviceable to some purpose or other of human life; but, as it is made a god of, it is of no profit at all, nor can do its worshippers the least kindness. Nay, (3.) It is so far from profiting them that it puts a cheat upon them, and keeps them under the power of a strong delusion; they say, It shall teach, but it is a teacher of lies; for it represents God as having a body, as being finite, visible, and dependent, whereas he is a Spirit, infinite, invisible, and independent, and it confirms those that become vain in their imaginations in the false notions they have of God, and makes the idea of God to be a precarious thing, and what every man pleases. If we may say to the works of our hands, You are our gods, we may say so to any of the creatures of our own fancy, though the chimera be ever so extravagant. An image is a doctrine of vanities; it is falsehood, and a work of errors, Jer 10:8, Jer 10:14, Jer 10:15. It is therefore easy to see what the religion of those is, and what they aim at, who recommend those teachers of lies as laymen's books, which they are to study and govern themselves by, when they have locked up from them the book of the scriptures in an unknown tongue.
3. How the people of God triumph in him, and therewith support themselves, when the idolaters thus shame themselves (Hab 2:20): But the Lord is in his holy temple. (1.) Our rock is not as their rock, Deu 32:31. Theirs are dumb idols; ours is Jehovah, a living God, who is what he is, and not, as theirs, what men please to make him. He is in his holy temple in heaven, the residence of his glory, where we have access to him in the way, not which we have invented, but which he himself has instituted. Compare Psa 115:3, But our God is in the heavens, and Psa 11:4. (2.) The multitude of their gods which they set up, and take so much pains to support, cannot thrust out our God; he is, and will be, in his holy temple still, and glorious in holiness. They have laid waste his temple at Jerusalem; but he has a temple above that is out of the reach of their rage and malice, but within the reach of his people's faith and prayers. (3.) Our God will make all the world silent before him, will strike the idolaters as dumb as their idols, convincing them of their folly, and covering them with shame. He will silence the fury of the oppressors, and check their rage against his people. (4.) It is the duty of his people to attend him with silent adorings (Psa 65:1), and patiently to wait for his appearing to save them in his own way and time. Be still, and know that he is God, Zac 2:13. Next: Habakkuk Chapter 3
hab 2:0
Overview
Hab 2:1, Unto Habakkuk, waiting for an answer, is shewn that he must wait by faith; Hab 2:5, The judgment upon the Chald:ean for unsatiableness, Hab 2:9, for covetousness, Hab 2:12. for cruelty, Hab 2:15. for drunkenness, Hab 2:18. and for idolatry. Habakkuk 2:1
tHab 2::1
THE PROPHET, WAITING EARNESTLY FOR AN ANSWER TO HIS COMPLAINTS (FIRST CHAPTER), RECEIVES A REVELATION, WHICH IS TO BE FULFILLED, NOT IMMEDIATELY, YET IN DUE TIME, AND IS THEREFORE TO BE WAITED FOR IN FAITH: THE CHALD:EANS SHALL BE PUNISHED FOR THEIR CRUEL RAPACITY, NOR CAN THEIR FALSE GODS AVERT THE JUDGMENT OF JEHOVAH, THE ONLY TRUE GOD. (Hab. 2:1-20)stand upon . . . watch--that is, watch-post. The prophets often compare themselves, awaiting the revelations of Jehovah with earnest patience, to watchmen on an eminence watching with intent eye all that comes within their view (Isa 21:8, Isa 21:11; Jer 6:17; Eze 3:17; Eze 33:2-3; compare Psa 5:3; Psa 85:8). The "watch-post" is the withdrawal of the whole soul from earthly, and fixing it on heavenly, things. The accumulation of synonyms, "stand open . . . watch . . . set me upon . . . tower . . . watch to see" implies persevering fixity of attention. what he will say unto me--in answer to my complaints (Hab 1:13). Literally, "in me," God speaking, not to the prophet's outward ear, but inwardly. When we have prayed to God, we must observe what answers God gives by His word, His Spirit, and His providences. what I shall answer when I am reproved--what answer I am to make to the reproof which I anticipate from God on account of the liberty of my expostulation with Him. MAURER translates, "What I am to answer in respect to my complaint against Jehovah" (Hab 1:12-17).
Habakkuk 2:2 tHab 2::4
his soul which is lifted up--the Chald:ean's [MAURER]. The unbelieving Jew's [HENDERSON]. is not upright in him--that is, is not accounted upright in God's sight; in antithesis to "shall live." So Heb 10:38, which with inspired authority applies the general sense to the particular case which Paul had in view, "If any man draw back (one result of being 'lifted up' with overweening arrogancy), my soul shall have no pleasure in him." the just shall live by his faith--the Jewish nation, as opposed to the unbelieving Chald:ean (compare Hab 2:5, &c.; Hab 1:6, &c.; Hab 1:13) [MAURER]. HENDERSON'S view is that the believing Jew is meant, as opposed to the unbelieving Jew (compare Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11). The believing Jew, though God's promise tarry, will wait for it; the unbelieving "draws back," as Heb 10:38 expresses it. The sense, in MAURER'S view, which accords better with the context (Hab 2:5, &c.). is: the Chald:ean, though for a time seeming to prosper, yet being lifted up with haughty unbelief (Hab 1:11, Hab 1:16), is not upright; that is, has no right stability of soul resting on God, to ensure permanence of prosperity; hence, though for a time executing God's judgments, he at last becomes "lifted up" so as to attribute to his own power what is the work of God, and in this sense "draws back" (Heb 10:38), becoming thereby a type of all backsliders who thereby incur God's displeasure; as the believing Jew is of all who wait for God's promises with patient faith, and so "live" (stand accepted) before God. The Hebrew accents induce BENGEL to translate, "he who is just by his faith shall live." Other manuscripts read the accents as English Version, which agrees better with Hebrew syntax.
Habakkuk 2:5 tHab 2::5
Yea also, because--additional reason why the Jews may look for God punishing their Chald:ean foe, namely, because . . . he is a proud man--rather, this clause continues the reason for the Jews expecting the punishment of the Chald:eans, "because he transgresseth by wine (a besetting sin of Babylon, compare Dan. 5:1-31, and CURTIUS [5.1]), being a proud man." Love of wine often begets a proud contempt of divine things, as in Belshazzar's case, which was the immediate cause of the fall of Babylon (Dan 5:2-4, Dan 5:30; compare Pro 20:1; Pro 30:9; Pro 31:5). enlargeth his desire as hell--the grave, or the unseen world, which is "never full" (Pro 27:20; Pro 30:16; Isa 5:14). The Chald:eans under Nebuchadnezzar were filled with an insatiable desire of conquest. Another reason for their punishment.
Habakkuk 2:6 tHab 2::6
Shall not all these--the "nations" and "peoples" (Hab 2:5) "heaped unto him" by the Chald:ean. take up a parable--a derisive song. Habakkuk follows Isaiah (Isa 14:4) and Micah (Mic 2:4) in the phraseology. against him--when dislodged from his former eminence. Woe--The "derisive song" here begins, and continues to the end of the chapter. It is a symmetrical whole, and consists of five stanzas, the first three consisting of three verses each, the fourth of four verses, and the last of two. Each stanza has its own subject, and all except the last begin with "Woe"; and all have a closing verse introduced with "for," "because," or "but." how long?--how long destined to retain his ill-gotten gains? But for a short time, as his fall now proves [MAURER]. "Covetousness is the greatest bane to men. For they who invade others' goods, often lose even their own" [MENANDER]. CALVIN makes "how long?" to be the cry of those groaning under the Chald:ean oppression while it still lasted: How long shall such oppression be permitted to continue? But it is plainly part of the derisive song, after the Chald:ean tyranny had passed away. ladeth himself with thick clay--namely, gold and silver dug out of the "clay," of which they are a part. The covetous man in heaping them together is only lading himself with a clay burden, as he dares not enjoy them, and is always anxious about them. LEE and FULLER translate the Hebrew as a reduplicated single noun, and not two words, "an accumulation of pledges" (Deu 24:10-13). The Chald:ean is compared to a harsh usurer, and his ill-gotten treasures to heaps of pledges in the hands of a usurer.
Habakkuk 2:7 tHab 2::7
suddenly--the answer to the question, "How long?" (Hab 2:6). bite--often used of usury; so favoring LEE'S rendering (Hab 2:6). As the Chald:ean, like a usurer, oppressed others, so other nations shall, like usurers, take pledges of, that is, spoil, him.
Habakkuk 2:8 tHab 2::9
coveteth an evil covetousness--that is, a covetousness so surpassingly evil as to be fatal to himself. to his house--greedily seizing enormous wealth, not merely for himself, but for his family, to which it is destined to be fatal. The very same "evil covetousness" that was the cause of Jehoiakim's being given up to the Chald:ean oppressor (Jer 22:13) shall be the cause of the Chald:ean's own destruction. set his nest on high-- (Num 24:21; Jer 49:16; Oba 1:4). The image is from an eagle (Job 39:27). The royal citadel is meant. The Chald:ean built high towers, like the Babel founders, to "be delivered from the power of evil" (Gen 11:4).
Habakkuk 2:10 tHab 2::13
is it not of the Lord of hosts--JEHOVAH, who has at His command all the hosts of heaven and earth, is the righteous author of Babylon's destruction. "Shall not God have His turn, when cruel rapacious men have triumphed so long, though He seem now to be still?" [CALVIN]. people . . . labour in the . . . fire . . . weary themselves for . . . vanity--The Chald:eans labor at what is to be food for the fire, namely, their city and fortresses which shall be burnt. Jer 51:58 adopts the same phraseology to express the vanity of the Chald:ean's labor on Babylon, as doomed to the flames.
Habakkuk 2:14 tHab 2::14
Adapted from Isa 11:9. Here the sense is, "The Jews shall be restored and the temple rebuilt, so that God's glory in saving His people, and punishing their Chald:ean foe, shall be manifested throughout the world," of which the Babylonian empire formed the greatest part; a type of the ultimate full manifestation of His glory in the final salvation of Israel and His Church, and the destruction of all their foes. waters cover the sea--namely, the bottom of the sea; the sea-bed.
Habakkuk 2:15 tHab 2::15
giveth . . . neighbour drink . . . puttest . . . bottle to him--literally, "skin," as the Easterns use "bottles" of skin for wine. MAURER, from a different Hebrew root, translates, "that pourest in thy wrath." English Version keeps up the metaphor better. It is not enough for thee to be "drunken" thyself, unless thou canst lead others into the same state. The thing meant is, that the Chald:ean king, with his insatiable desires (a kind of intoxication), allured neighboring states into the same mad thirst for war to obtain booty, and then at last exposed them to loss and shame (compare Isa 51:17; Oba 1:16). An appropriate image of Babylon, which at last fell during a drunken revel (Dan. 5:1-31). that thou mayest look on their nakedness!--with light, like Ham of old (Gen 9:22).
Habakkuk 2:16