Expositor's Bible Commentary (Nicoll)
Habakkuk 2:5-20
The dramatic piece Habakkuk 1:2; Habakkuk 2:1 is succeeded by a series of fine taunt-songs, starting after an introduction from Habakkuk 2:6 b, then Habakkuk 2:9, Habakkuk 2:11, Habakkuk 2:15, and Habakkuk 2:18, and each opening with "Woe!" Their subject is, if we take Budde's interpretation of the dramatic piece, the Assyrian and not the Chaldean tyrant. The text, as we shall see when we come to it, is corrupt. Some words are manifestly wrong, and the rhythm must have suffered beyond restoration. In all probability these fine lyric Woes, or at least as many of them as are authentic-for there is doubt about one or two-were of equal length. Whether they all originally had the refrain now attached to two is more doubtful.
Hitzig suspected the authenticity of some parts of this series of songs. Stade and Kuenen have gone further and denied the genuineness of Habakkuk 2:9. But this is with little reason. As Budde says, a series of Woes was to be expected here by a prophet who follows so much the example of Isaiah Isaiah 5:8 ff., Isaiah 10:1, etc. In spite of Kuenen's objection, Habakkuk 2:9 would not be strange of the Chaldean, but they suit the Assyrian better. Habakkuk 2:12 are doubtful: Habakkuk 2:12 recalls Micah 3:10 is a repetition of Jeremiah 51:58, Habakkuk 2:14 is a variant of Isaiah 40:9. Very likely Jeremiah 51:58, a late passage, is borrowed from this passage; yet the addition used here, "Are not these things from the Lord of Hosts?" looks as if it noted a citation. Habakkuk 2:15 are very suitable to the Assyrian; there is no reason to take them from Habakkuk. The final song, Habakkuk 2:18, has its Woe at the beginning of its second verse, and closely resembles the language of later prophets. Moreover the refrain forms a suitable close at the end of Habakkuk 2:17. Habakkuk 2:20 is a quotation from Zephaniah, perhaps another sign of the composite character of the end of this chapter. Some take it to have been inserted as an introduction to the theophany in chapter 3.
Smend has drawn up a defense of the whole passage, if Habakkuk 2:9, which he deems not only to stand in a natural relation to Habakkuk 2:4, but to be indispensable to them. That the passage quotes from other prophets, he holds to be no proof against its authenticity. If we break off with Habakkuk 2:8, he thinks that we must impute to Habakkuk the opinion that the wrongs of the world are chiefly avenged by human means-a conclusion which is not to be expected after Habbakkuk 1- Habakkuk 2:1 ff.
TYRANNY IS SUICIDE
IN the style of his master Isaiah, Habakkuk follows up his "Vision" with a series of lyrics on the same subject: Habakkuk 2:5. They are taunt-songs, the most of them beginning with "Woe unto," addressed to the heathen oppressor. Perhaps they were all at first of equal length, and it has been suggested that the striking refrain in which two of them close:-
"For men's blood, and earth's waste, Cities and their inhabitants-"
was once attached to each of the others as well. But the text has been too much altered, besides suffering several interpolation, to permit of its restoration, and we can only reproduce these taunts as they now run in the Hebrew text. There are several quotations (not necessarily an argument against Habakkuk's authorship); but, as a whole, the expression is original, and there are some lines of especial force and freshness. Habakkuk 2:5 a are properly an introduction, the first Woe commencing with Habakkuk 2:6 b.
The belief which inspires these songs is very simple. Tyranny is intolerable. In the nature of things it cannot endure, but works out its own penalties. By oppressing so many nations, the tyrant is preparing the instruments of his own destruction. As he treats them, so in time shall they treat him. He is like a debtor who increases the number of his creditors. Some day they shall rise up and exact from him the last penny. So that in cutting off others he is "but forfeiting his own life." The very, violence done to nature, the deforesting of Lebanon for instance, and the vast hunting of wild beasts, shall recoil on him. This line of thought is exceedingly interesting. We have already seen in prophecy, and especially in Isaiah, the beginnings of Hebrew Wisdom-the attempt to uncover the moral processes of life and express a philosophy of history But hardly anywhere have we found so complete an absence of all reference to the direct interference of God Himself in the punishment of the tyrant; for "the cup of Jehovah's right hand" in ver. 16 is simply the survival of an ancient metaphor These "proverbs" or "taunt-songs," in conformity with the proverbs of the later Wisdom, dwell only upon the inherent tendency to decay of all injustice. Tyranny, they assert, and history ever since has affirmed their truthfulness-tyranny is suicide.
The last of the taunt-songs, which treats of the different subject of idolatry, is probably, as we have seen, not from Habakkuk's hand, but of a later
INTRODUCTION TO THE TAUNT-SONGS
"For treacherous, An arrogant fellow, and is not Who opens his desire wide as Sheol; He is like death, unsatisfied; And hath swept to himself all the nations, And gathered to him all peoples. Shall not these, all of them, take up a proverb upon him, And a taunt-song against him? and say":-
FIRST TAUNT-SONG. Habakkuk 2:6
"Woe unto him who multiplies what is not his own, -How long?-And loads him with debts! Shall not thy creditors rise up, And thy troublers awake, And thou be for spoil to them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, All the rest of the peoples shall spoil thee. For men's blood, and earth's waste, Cities and all their inhabitants."
SECOND TAUNT-SONG. Habakkuk 2:9
"Woe unto him that gains evil gain for his house, To set high his nest, to save him from the grasp of calamity! Thou hast planned shame for thy house; Thou hast cut off many people, While forfeiting thine own life. For the stone shall cry out from the wall, And the lath from the timber answer it."
THIRD TAUNT-SONG. Habakkuk 2:12
"Woe unto him that builds a city in blood, Micah 3:10 And stablishes a town in iniquity Jeremiah 22:13 Lo, is it not from Jehovah of hosts, That the nations shall toil for smoke, And the peoples wear themselves out for nought? But earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, Like the waters that cover the sea".
FOURTH TAUNT-SONG. Habakkuk 2:15
"Woe unto him that gives his neighbor to drink, From the cup of his wrath till he be drunken, That he may gloat on his nakedness! Thou art sated with shame-not with glory; Drink also thou, and stagger. Comes round to thee the cup of Jehovah's right hand, And foul shame on thy glory. For the violence to Lebanon shall cover thee, The destruction of the beasts shall affray thee. For men's blood, and earth's waste, Cities and all their inhabitants."
FIFTH TAUNT-SONG. Habakkuk 2:18
"What boots an image, when its artist has graven it, A cast-image and lie-oracle, that its molder has trusted upon it, Making dumb idols? Woe to him that saith to a block, Awake! To a dumb stone, Arise! Can it teach? Lo, it with gold and silver; There is no breath at all in the heart of it. But Jehovah is in His Holy Temple: Silence before Him, all the earth."