The Lord pronounced taunts or mocking statements on the Babylonians announcing that they would receive judgment for their sins. This taunt song consists of five stanzas of three verses each. Five woes follow. Each woe is "an interjection of distress pronounced in the face of disaster or in view of coming judgment (cf. Isa. 3:11; 5:11; 10:5; et al.)."27
2:6 Because of the Babylonians' sins it was inevitable that the righteous would taunt and mock them. They would pronounce woe on them for increasing what was not theirs just to have more and for making themselves rich by charging exorbitant interest on loans. How long would this go on, they asked themselves (cf. 1:2). When would God judge Babylon?
2:7 Those from whom Babylon had stolen would surely rise up and rebel when they woke up to what was going on. Then they would turn the tables and Babylon would become plunder for them. This happened when the Medes and Persians rose up and overthrew Babylon in 539 B.C.
2:8 Babylon would suffer the same punishment it had inflicted on other nations (cf. Prov. 22:8; Gal. 6:7). Its survivors would loot it because it had looted other peoples. Babylon's pillaging had involved human bloodshed and ethical wrong ("violence") done to the land of Canaan and to the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants.
2:9 Babylon used its unjust acquisitions to build a secure place for itself that they thought would be safe from all calamity (cf. Gen. 11:4). It built a strong and rich dynasty (house) so it would be self-sufficient.
Saving to protect oneself from large future expenses is not wrong in itself, but to build a fortune so one will not have to trust in anyone else is saving with the wrong attitude (cf. James 5:1-6).
2:10 It was shameful for the Babylonians to destroy other peoples (cf. vv. 5, 8). By doing so they were sinning against themselves. That is, they were doing something that would eventually bring destruction on themselves.
2:11 The stones and woodwork taken from other nations to build the Babylonians' fortresses and palaces would serve as visual witnesses to the sinful invasions that brought them to Babylon. They would testify to the guilt of the Babylonians in the day that Yahweh would bring Babylon to judgment. Ostentatious buildings and cities make statements about their builders.
2:12 The Babylonians could expect distress because they had built their cities at the expense of the lives of their enemies. We speak of "blood money"as money obtained by making others suffer, even shedding their blood. Babylon was built with "blood money"and the blood, sweat, and tears of enslaved people. It was a town founded on injustice; without injustice it could not have become what it had become.
2:13 This is the center of this taunt song structurally. It is significant that this verse focuses on almighty Yahweh, the Judge. His assessment was that the Babylonians' hard work was in vain; all their labor would amount to nothing. Their works would turn out to be fuel for fire that would burn them up, the fire of His judgment (cf. Jer. 51:58).
2:14 Rather than the earth being filled with the glory of Babylon, it will one day be filled with knowledge of God's glory, as comprehensively as the waters cover the sea (cf. Num. 14:21; Ps. 72:19; Isa. 6:3; 11:9; Jer. 31:34). This has yet to be. It refers to the ultimate destruction of Babylon in the eschatological future (cf. Rev. 16:19-18:24).
The Babylon in view in the Book of Habakkuk was mainly the Neo-Babylonian Empire, but ever since Babel (Gen. 11:1-9) "Babylon"had a symbolic meaning as well. It represented all ungodly peoples who rose up in self-reliance to glorify themselves and reach heaven by their own works. God destroyed the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 B.C., but what Babylon represents will continue until God destroys it when Jesus Christ returns to the earth to set up His new order in the Millennium.
2:15 God would judge Babylon because the Babylonians had deceived their neighbor nations with the result that they were able to take advantage of them. The Babylonians had behaved like a man who gets a woman drunk so she will lose her self-control and he can then undress her. That the Babylonians took advantage of their victims sexually is implied in the illustration as is their love for wine.
2:16 As they had made their neighbors drunk, so the Lord would give them a cup of judgment that would make them drunk. Yahweh's right hand is a figure for His strong personal retribution, giving back in kind what the person being judged had given (cf. Isa. 51:17-23; Jer. 25:15-17; Lam. 4:21; Matt. 20:22; 26:42; 1 Cor. 11:29). Having swallowed the cup's contents the Babylonians would disgrace themselves rather than honoring and glorifying themselves as they did presently. Their future disgrace contrasts with Yahweh's future glory (v. 14). They would expose their own nakedness as they had exposed the nakedness of others (v. 15). Nakedness involves vulnerability as well as shame (cf. Gen. 9:21-25). The Lord pictured Babylon as a contemptible, naked drunk who had lost his self-control and the respect of everyone including himself.
2:17 Babylon's violence (ethical and moral injustice) would come back to cover him because he had rapaciously stripped Lebanon of its vegetation and animals. However bloodshed in Lebanon's main town and the slaughter of its inhabitants was an even more serious crime. "Lebanon"is probably a synecdoche for Israel, as it is elsewhere (cf. 2 Kings 14:9; Jer. 22:6, 23), and "the town"most likely refers to Jerusalem.
2:18 Habakkuk, like other prophets, saw through the folly of idolatry and exposed it (cf. Isa. 41:7; 44:9-20; 45:16, 20; 46:1-2, 6-7; Jer. 10:8-16). An idol carved by human hands cannot help its maker because anyone who creates is always greater than his creation. Images really become teachers of falsehood since their existence implies a lie, namely, that they can help humans. An idol-carver trusts in his own handiwork by making it. Idols cannot even speak much less provide help (cf. Rom. 1:22-25).
"Modern people in their sophistications may regard themselves as free from the obvious folly of idolatry. What educated, self-respecting person would be deluded into expecting special powers to emanate from the form of an antiquated Idol? Yet the new covenant Scriptures make it plain that covetousness isidolatry (Eph. 5:5). Whenever a person's desire looks to the creature rather than the Creator, he is guilty of the same kind of foolishness. An insatiable desire for things not rightly possessed assumes that things can satisfy rather than God himself. Whenever a person sets his priorities on the things made rather than on the Maker of things, he is guilty of idolatry."28
2:19 The Lord pronounced woe on those who ignorantly tried to coax their dumb idols, wood or stone perhaps overlaid with gold or silver, to speak (cf. 1 Kings 18:26-29). No matter what they looked like or out of what material they were made they were still only lifeless objects of art. How foolish it was to look to one of these as one's teacher or guide!
2:20 In contrast to lifeless idols stands the living and true God. Yahweh abode in His heavenly temple, not in the works of human hands. Therefore all the earth, everything in it, should be quiet before Him out of respect and awe (fear; cf. v. 1; 3:16). There is no need to try and coax Him to come to life or to speak (cf. v. 19). The implication of Yahweh's majestic sovereignty is that He would take care of Babylon; the Israelites did not have to concern themselves with that (cf. 3:16).
"God sometimes uses evil people to accomplish His larger purpose in life. But He never condones evil, and those who do evil He holds acccountable for their actions."29
