Habakuk 3:13
Konteks3:13 You march out to deliver your people,
to deliver your special servant. 1
You strike the leader of the wicked nation, 2
laying him open from the lower body to the neck. 3 Selah.
Habakuk 2:10
Konteks2:10 Your schemes will bring shame to your house.
Because you destroyed many nations, you will self-destruct. 4
Habakuk 2:9
Konteks2:9 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 2:20
Konteks2:20 But the Lord is in his majestic palace. 7
The whole earth is speechless in his presence!” 8
Habakuk 2:11
Konteks2:11 For the stones in the walls will cry out,
and the wooden rafters will answer back. 9
Habakuk 2:5
Konteks2:5 Indeed, wine will betray the proud, restless man! 10
His appetite 11 is as big as Sheol’s; 12
like death, he is never satisfied.
He gathers 13 all the nations;
he seizes 14 all peoples.
[3:13] 1 tn Heb “anointed one.” In light of the parallelism with “your people” in the preceding line this could refer to Israel, but elsewhere the Lord’s anointed one is always an individual. The Davidic king is the more likely referent here.
[3:13] 2 tn Heb “you strike the head from the house of wickedness.”
[3:13] 3 tn Heb “laying bare [from] foundation to neck.”
[2:10] 4 tn Heb “you planned shame for your house, cutting off many nations, and sinning [against] your life.”
[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.
[2:20] 7 tn Or “holy temple.” The
[2:20] 8 tn Or “Be quiet before him, all the earth!”
[2:11] 9 sn The house mentioned in vv. 9-10 represents the Babylonian empire, which became great through imperialism. Here the materials of this “house” (the stones in the walls, the wooden rafters) are personified as witnesses who testify that the occupants have built the house through wealth stolen from others.
[2:5] 10 tn Heb “Indeed wine betrays a proud man and he does not dwell.” The meaning of the last verb, “dwell,” is uncertain. Many take it as a denominative of the noun נָוָה (navah, “dwelling place”). In this case it would carry the idea, “he does not settle down,” and would picture the drunkard as restless (cf. NIV “never at rest”; NASB “does not stay at home”). Some relate the verb to an Arabic cognate and translate the phrase as “he will not succeed, reach his goal.”
[2:5] sn The Babylonian tyrant is the proud, restless man described in this line as the last line of the verse, with its reference to the conquest of the nations, makes clear. Wine is probably a metaphor for imperialistic success. The more success the Babylonians experience, the more greedy they become just as a drunkard wants more and more wine to satisfy his thirst. But eventually this greed will lead to their downfall, for God will not tolerate such imperialism and will judge the Babylonians appropriately (vv. 6-20).
[2:5] 11 tn Heb “who opens wide like Sheol his throat.” Here נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is understood in a physical sense, meaning “throat,” which in turn is figurative for the appetite. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 11-12.
[2:5] 12 sn Sheol is the proper name of the subterranean world which was regarded as the land of the dead. In ancient Canaanite thought Death was a powerful god whose appetite was never satisfied. In the OT Sheol/Death, though not deified, is personified as greedy and as having a voracious appetite. See Prov 30:15-16; Isa 5:14; also see L. I. J. Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World, 168.
