Discovery BoxHabakkuk 2:16
Context2:16 But you will become drunk 1 with shame, not majesty. 2
Now it is your turn to drink and expose your uncircumcised foreskin! 3
The cup of wine in the Lord’s right hand 4 is coming to you,
and disgrace will replace your majestic glory!
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.
[2:16] 1 tn Heb “are filled.” The translation assumes the verbal form is a perfect of certitude, emphasizing the certainty of Babylon’s coming judgment, which will reduce the majestic empire to shame and humiliation.
[2:16] 3 tc Heb “drink, even you, and show the foreskin.” Instead of הֵעָרֵל (he’arel, “show the foreskin”) one of the Dead Sea scrolls has הֵרָעֵל (hera’el, “stumble”). This reading also has support from several ancient versions and is followed by the NEB (“you too shall drink until you stagger”) and NRSV (“Drink, you yourself, and stagger”). For a defense of the Hebrew text, see P. D. Miller, Jr., Sin and Judgment in the Prophets, 63-64.
[2:16] 4 sn The Lord’s right hand represents his military power. He will force the Babylonians to experience the same humiliating defeat they inflicted on others.
[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.
