Habakkuk 2:6-20
Notes
Transcript
The many woes
The many woes
Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say,
“Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own—
for how long?—
and loads himself with pledges!”
Will not your debtors suddenly arise,
and those awake who will make you tremble?
Then you will be spoil for them.
Because you have plundered many nations,
all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who dwell in them.
The first question is who are ‘these' and ‘him' The plural pronoun is the nations generally. The singular ‘him' is the reference back to verse 5 of the enemy Babylon.
The language sounds half like a warning but it's really more of a condemnation sprinkled with incredulous questions. Clearly there is a problem with Babylon heaping up the treasures of the nations for themselves by nefarious means. The pledges mean they're taking loans thave a security for the poor that might have been their coat. This could be literal in that they had some national debt with other countries, or that they were looting others creating this debt of sorts. Eventually this will come back to them. Those debts will come calling. There has been a hint that the wicked will be paid back with the same wickedness they perform. Here it's fairly explicit and they're gonna owe interest on that debt… they'll be plundered by the ones they oppressed. This same principle is re-iterated in Gal 6:7
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
Don't despair when it appears the wicked prosper.
“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house,
to set his nest on high,
to be safe from the reach of harm!
You have devised shame for your house
by cutting off many peoples;
you have forfeited your life.
For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the beam from the woodwork respond.
The best of intentions done by evil? Hardly. This is the Pablo Escobar principle. Run your evil empire so you can be set off and think you're safe. You get your Hippo colleciton running and the only thing that's still thriving is the hippos. He's dead.
“gets evil gain" is referring to a cheating business practice. Like loaded scales, or in this case making a “bad cut" like selling someone a 7ft long board and cutting it at six and a half feet. In dramatic fashion the stone and wood cry out at the wrong doing. This isn’t new we saw it in Micah 6:1–2 “Hear what the Lord says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel.” Where mountains are witnesses. Here is much the same idea that the injustice is so bad that even the inanimate object will have to cry out.
Third woe
“Woe to him who builds a town with blood
and founds a city on iniquity!
Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts
that peoples labor merely for fire,
and nations weary themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
The response to building an empire on blood and sin and spreading it all over the earth is… The knownledge of the glory of the LORD? spread out like water is on a sea… what? What happens to the people who do that is a response from God that will make people all of the world talk about Him… Like telling your kid I’m gonna whoop you so bad the whole school will hear you cry.
Something else is different about the third woe. The first two are woe to him, then switch to you did bad things… this third never changes to the second person. Then we get a response of what God does, not what will “happen” or what the other nations will do to them.
Fourth woe
“Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink—
you pour out your wrath and make them drunk,
in order to gaze at their nakedness!
You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.
Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision!
The cup in the Lord’s right hand
will come around to you,
and utter shame will come upon your glory!
The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them,
for the blood of man and violence to the earth,
to cities and all who dwell in them.
There is some discussion on what the pour out your wrath, or mix in your venom, whatever your translation says in vs 15 there. It could be adding an extra intoxicant like the alcohol where they drop in a venomous snake into the bottle and when it dies it’s venom is release into the liquor which some thought was hallucinogenic (most likely just marketing like the Mezcal worm in tequila or the scorpion in some liquors.) or if it’s just showing the malicious intention from the beginning. The exploitation of people is egregious either way. You might have noticed though that we did get back to the same pattern of woe to him and then going to the second person ‘you will have your fill of shame’ it makes us go back and think about what was up with #3… let’s come back to that after we see all of them.
Final Woe is #5 Here we start oddly enough with a preface to lead us in.
“What profit is an idol
when its maker has shaped it,
a metal image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in his own creation
when he makes speechless idols!
Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;
to a silent stone, Arise!
Can this teach?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in it.
But the Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth keep silence before him.”
This woe is against the one who makes idols. If you notice this one is like #3 where we never switch to the second person but instead we are told The Lord is in his holy temple.
So lets recap our 5 woes
Woe to the loan shark / exploiter / thief
Woe to the cheating businessman
Woe to the killer who thrives on sin
Woe to the date rapist / blackmailer
Woe to the idol maker
1,2,4 are bad but they aren’t responded to directly by God. Literarily deals with the people through something else. 3 and 5 however are two of the worst sins. Idolatry #1, Murder #2.
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