Habakkuk 2:6-20

The Five Woes of God (Habakkuk 2:6).

God now outlines to Habakkuk how He is going to finally punish Babylon for what it is, and the wonderful blessing to the whole world which will come from His actions, fully justifying in the long run His use of the Babylonians to chasten Israel.

There are here five woes (and we should note the way in which they can personally apply to us):

· Woe to the plunderer, the one who makes himself rich at the expense of others.

· Woe to the greedy and proud, the one who wants only to build up more and more for himself of wealth and status.

· Woe to the one who builds up great cities at the cost of the blood and enslavement of men and women. That is in our terms one who builds up his own assets at the expense of others.

· Woe to the one who makes people drunk so that they behave foolishly, giving them cheap wine so that they expose their follies. The initial thought is of the bribing and leading astray of nations, but it equally applies on the personal level.

· Woe to the one who goes after idols. Or indeed anything that takes away their thoughts from the living God.

All these of course included and represented Babylon and its king. They are a picture of a desire for wealth and glory at any price, without any regard for the victims.

And there are five who bear witness against him (in the same way as our works will testify against us at the last Day).

· The land and treasure he has purloined, (compare James 5:1).

· The high palace in which he glories (compare Daniel 4:30).

· The great city which he has built.

· The violence done to those who have suffered at his hand.

· The lifeless idols without breath in them in which he trusted.

And there are five consequences. These bring out two things. Firstly that whatever a man sows he will also reap, and secondly that God often uses man's perfidy in order to bring about His own purposes. Thus he describes:

· The retaliation and vengeance on him of those who have been dispossessed.

· The crying out of the stones and timber drawing attention to his overweening pride.

· The filling of the earth with the knowledge of the glory of YHWH because of what God has done in bringing down Babylon.

· The chastisement of Judah and Jerusalem because they have followed the way of Babylon.

· The revealing of YHWH in His holy temple with all the earth silent before Him in awe, as all Babylon's idols have proved to be worthless and lifeless.

Should not Habakkuk then recognise that these ends make worthwhile all that has gone before? These are God's explanation to Habakkuk of the reason for His using Babylon as the chastener.

One question that immediately raises its head as we look at the five woes is as to who the speakers are. ‘Shall not all these take up a saying against him --.?' Who then are ‘all these? The probable answer it that it is Habakkuk himself speaking on behalf of the nations, not strictly as they would speak, but as he ideally sees them as speaking. He is speaking on their behalf as though they saw things from God's viewpoint.

Let us now consider in detail the five woes.