Discovery BoxHabakkuk 2:15
Context2:15 “You who force your neighbor to drink wine 1 are as good as dead 2 –
you who make others intoxicated by forcing them to drink from the bowl of your furious anger, 3
so you can look at their genitals. 4
Habakkuk 2:5
Context2:5 Indeed, wine will betray the proud, restless man! 5
His appetite 6 is as big as Sheol’s; 7
like death, he is never satisfied.
He gathers 8 all the nations;
he seizes 9 all peoples.
[2:15] 1 tn No direct object is present after “drink” in the Hebrew text. “Wine” is implied, however, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
[2:15] 2 tn On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.
[2:15] 3 tc Heb “pouring out your anger and also making drunk”; or “pouring out your anger and [by] rage making drunk.” The present translation assumes that the final khet (ח) on מְסַפֵּחַ (misapeakh, “pouring”) is dittographic and that the form should actually be read מִסַּף (missaf, “from a bowl”).
[2:15] 4 tn Heb “their nakedness,” a euphemism.
[2:5] 5 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] 6 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] 7 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.
