Habakuk 2:2

The Lord Assures Habakkuk

2:2 The Lord responded: ¹ 

“Write down this message! ²  Record it legibly on tablets,

so the one who announces ³  it may read it easily. ⁴ 

Habakuk 2:9

2:9 The one who builds his house by unjust gain is as good as dead. ⁵ 

He does this so he can build his nest way up high

and escape the clutches of disaster. ⁶ 

Habakuk 2:13

2:13 Be sure of this! The Lord who commands armies has decreed:

The nations’ efforts will go up in smoke;

their exhausting work will be for nothing. ⁷ 

[2:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord answered and said.” The redundant expression “answered and said” has been simplified in the translation as “responded.”

[2:2]  ² tn Heb “[the] vision.”

[2:2]  ³ tn Or “reads from.”

[2:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “might run,” which here probably means “run [through it quickly with one’s eyes],” that is, read it easily.

[2:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who profits unjustly by evil unjust gain for his house.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “to place his nest in the heights in order to escape from the hand of disaster.”

[2:9]  sn Here the Babylonians are compared to a bird, perhaps an eagle, that builds its nest in an inaccessible high place where predators cannot reach it.

[2:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “Is it not, look, from the Lord of hosts that the nations work hard for fire, and the peoples are exhausted for nothing?”