Proverbs 26:11

26:11 Like a dog that returns to its vomit, ¹ 

so a fool repeats his folly. ² 

Jeremiah 48:26

48:26 “Moab has vaunted itself against me.

So make him drunk with the wine of my wrath ³ 

until he splashes ⁴  around in his own vomit,

until others treat him as a laughingstock.

Habakkuk 2:15-16

2:15 “You who force your neighbor to drink wine ⁵  are as good as dead ⁶  –

you who make others intoxicated by forcing them to drink from the bowl of your furious anger, ⁷ 

so you can look at their genitals. ⁸ 

2:16 But you will become drunk ⁹  with shame, not majesty. ¹⁰ 

Now it is your turn to drink and expose your uncircumcised foreskin! ¹¹ 

The cup of wine in the Lord’s right hand ¹²  is coming to you,

and disgrace will replace your majestic glory!

[26:11]  ¹ sn The simile is graphic and debasing (cf. 2 Peter 2:22).

[26:11]  ² sn The point is clear: Fools repeat their disgusting mistakes, or to put it another way, whenever we repeat our disgusting mistakes we are fools. The proverb is affirming that no matter how many times a fool is warned, he never learns.

[48:26]  ³ tn Heb “Make him drunk because he has magnified himself against the Lord.” The first person has again been adopted for consistency within a speech of the Lord. Almost all of the commentaries relate the figure of drunkenness to the figure of drinking the cup of God’s wrath spelled out in Jer 25 where reference is made at one point to the nations drinking, staggering, vomiting, and falling (25:27 and see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 316, for a full list of references to this figure including this passage and 49:12-13; 51:6-10, 39, 57).

[48:26]  ⁴ tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. It is usually used of clapping the hands or the thigh in helpless anger or disgust. Hence J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 321) paraphrases “shall vomit helplessly.” HALOT 722 s.v. II סָפַק relates this to an Aramaic word and see a homonym meaning “vomit” or “spew out.” The translation is that of BDB 706 s.v. סָפַק Qal.3, “splash (fall with a splash),” from the same root that refers to slapping or clapping the thigh.

[2:15]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:15]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “their nakedness,” a euphemism.

[2:16]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Or “glory.”

[2:16]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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.