Habakkuk2chapter 2

Habakkuk 2:1-2

Habakkuk answers his own complaint by taking up a watchman's post, I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, choosing to wait rather than argue further with heaven. The Lord's reply comes as an order to write, that he may run that readeth it, the vision set on tables plainly enough that a runner could read it without breaking stride. Henry and Keil read the command as answering the prophet's impatience with permanence, a vision built to outlast the crisis it addresses and to be legible to anyone who comes after.

Habakkuk 2:3-4

The vision is yet for an appointed time... though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry sets delay itself inside certainty, a promise that outlasts patience without failing it. Then comes the sentence the Reformation stood on, the just shall live by his faith, quoted at Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38, set against the soul lifted up that is not upright in him. Calvin and Keil read the contrast as the whole book's center, pride that trusts itself against faith that simply lives, and Luther's own tower experience is bound to this verse in Reformation history, the sentence read there as it stands here.

Habakkuk 2:5-6

The tyrant's appetite is named plainly, transgresseth by wine... enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, gathering nations the way death gathers the dead. The nations he has swallowed answer back in a taunting proverb, woe to him that increaseth that which is not his and ladeth himself with thick clay, wealth built on plunder called out as a burden rather than a treasure. Gill and Pusey read the five woes that follow as the nations' own funeral song sung over Babylon in advance, poetic justice pronounced before the empire falls.

Habakkuk 2:7-8

Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee turns the woe into a sentence, the very nations Babylon spoiled becoming its plunderers in turn, for thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee. Because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land begins a refrain that runs through the rest of the chapter, the same charge answered on the same ground it was committed. Keil and Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown read the reversal as the day of the Lord's own law stated plainly, the measure a nation metes out returned to it in kind.

Habakkuk 2:9-11

The second woe indicts the house built on plunder, coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, safety sought in height and wealth rather than righteousness. Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people turns the builder's ambition into his own household's disgrace. The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it personifies the very building materials as witnesses against the blood that funded them. Henry and Clarke read the image as the created order itself refusing to stay silent over injustice, stones crying out where men will not.

Habakkuk 2:12-14

The third woe, buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity, is answered by a question rather than only a curse, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire... for very vanity, empire building exposed as fuel for a fire that consumes its own builders. Against that vanity stands the chapter's brightest verse, the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea, matched almost word for word at Isaiah 11:9, a shared formula the bench names rather than one prophet borrowing from another. Keil and Pusey read the verse as the answer standing over every woe in the chapter, Babylon's violence measured against a glory that will finally cover the whole earth the way water covers its bed.

Habakkuk 2:15-17

The fourth woe turns from war to a uniquely ugly image, giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness, humiliation added to conquest. The woe answers in kind, thou art filled with shame for glory, and the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, the violence of Lebanon closing in to cover the empire that once stripped its cedar forests for its own building projects. Gill and Henry read the drunkenness imagery as deliberately reversing the humiliation Babylon inflicted on conquered kings, the cup passed back to the one who first poured it.

Habakkuk 2:18-20

The fifth and last woe turns from the tyrant to his gods, what profiteth the graven image... a teacher of lies, an idol carved by the same hands that trust it, laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. Against dumb stone the chapter sets the true God's address, but the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him, the whole created order called to stand quiet before the only throne that answers. Wesley and Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown read the closing verse as the vision's true resting point, every woe against Babylon's idols settled simply by the fact that the real God is enthroned and listening, which chapter 3 turns into prayer.