Habakkuk 2:5

2:5 Indeed, wine will betray the proud, restless man! ¹ 

His appetite ²  is as big as Sheol’s; ³ 

like death, he is never satisfied.

He gathers ⁴  all the nations;

he seizes ⁵  all peoples.

Habakkuk 2:19

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ⁶  –

he who says ⁷  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ⁸ 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

Habakkuk 3:13

3:13 You march out to deliver your people,

to deliver your special servant. ⁹ 

You strike the leader of the wicked nation, ¹⁰ 

laying him open from the lower body to the neck. ¹¹  Selah.

[2:5]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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.

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “he gathers for himself.”

[2:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “he collects for himself.”

[2:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:19]  ⁷ tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ⁸ tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).

[3:13]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “you strike the head from the house of wickedness.”

[3:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “laying bare [from] foundation to neck.”