Habakkuk’s complaint
12 Are you not from everlasting,[i] O Lord my God, my Holy One? You shall not die.[ii] O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. 13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at the treacherous[iii] and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?
A. People as prey: 14 You make people like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.
B. Net/dragnet: 15 He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.
B1. Net/dragnet: 16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.
A1. People as prey: 17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?
Habakkuk waits
2:1 I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what he[iv] will answer concerning my complaint.
The Lord’s answer: Judgment is coming
2 And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. 3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end – it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.
A. The arrogant: 4 Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him
B. The righteous: but the righteous shall live by his faith.
A1. The arrogant: 5 Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”
Five woes
6 Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say:
1. For taking the goods of others: “Woe[v] to him who heaps up what is not his own – for how long? – and loads himself with pledges!” 7 Will not your debtors suddenly arise,[vi] and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them. 8 Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for[vii] the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.
2. For killing others to make themselves secure: 9 “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm! 10 You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. 11 For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.
3. For building an empire through killing: 12 “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity! 13 Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? 14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
4. For violence that shamed people:
A. Wrath: 15 “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink – you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!
B. Shame/glory:16 You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.
C. You drink: Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision! The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you,
B1. Shame/glory: and utter shame will come upon your glory!
A1. Violence: 17 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.
5. For idolatry:
A. Idol teach? They are silent: 18 “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!
B. Those who speak to idols: 19 Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise!
A1. Idol teach? Be silent before God: Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. 20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
[i] “Everlasting” and “shall not die” (green) form an inclusion with “killing nations” and “forever” in v. 17.
[ii] According to ancient Hebrew tradition the original text had “you,” but this was changed to “we” out of respect for God.
[iii] As opposed to the ESV’s “traitors.”
[iv] This makes the most sense of the flow of the text and the apparent synonymous parallelism between “what he will say” and “what he will answer.” (See the Peshitta). If “what I will answer” is retained then the meaning must be what he will answer to the people after hearing what God says to him.
[v] Each section has the word “woe,” although in the fifth section it is displaced to the middle.
[vi] “arise” and “awake” (purple) forms and inclusion with “awake” and “arise in v. 19.
[vii] Each woe section ends with a “for” statement, except the last ends with a “but” statement.
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