God’s purpose was soon to be fulfilled
2
📚I will stand my watch 📖, and place myself on the fortifications,
and will look to see what
he will say to me,
and what answer I should give
when I am rebuked.
2 📚And the LORD answered me,
and said, “Write the vision 📖,
and make it plain on tablets,
that he who reads it may run.
3 📚For the vision is yet for
the appointed time,
but in the end it will speak,
and not lie.
Even though it delays, wait for it 📖,
because it will surely come,
it will not delay 📖.
4 📚“See the proud one 📖.
His soul is not upright in him.
But the righteous will live
by his faith 📖.
Punishment on the proud and wicked whether Babylonians or His own people
5 📚And indeed, because he transgresses
through wine 📖,
he is a proud man, and
does not stay at home.
He enlarges his desire as hell 📖,
and, like death, cannot be satisfied,
but gathers for himself all nations,
and heaps up for himself all people 📖.
6 📚Shall not all these make up
a parable about him,
and take up a taunting
proverb 📖 against him,
and say, ‘Woe 📖 to him who piles up
what is not his!
And to him who loads himself down
with the weight of pledges 📖.’
But for how long?
7 📚Will not those who will bite you
rise up suddenly,
and those who will trouble you awake?
And you become booty for them?
8 📚Because you have plundered
many nations,
all the remainder of the peoples
will plunder you,
because of men’s blood, and
the violence of the land,
of the city, and of all who live in it.
2:7-8 The oppressed will rise up and overcome their oppressor. Other nations will treat Babylon as Babylon treated them.⚜
9 📚“Woe to him who covets ill-gotten
gain for his house,
that he may set his nest on high,
that he may be delivered
from the reach of calamity!
10 📚“You have devised a shameful thing
for your house,
cutting off many people,
and sinning against
your own soul.
11 📚For the stone will cry out
of the wall,
and the beam from the timbers
will answer it.
2:9-11 Like Babylon, individuals sometimes think that by lies, deceit or force they can make themselves secure for the future. Little do they realize that the methods they use to escape ruin will inevitably lead them to ruin. “Cry out” (v 11) – Babylon was built by riches plundered from other nations. The very walls of the city would testify against it. In the same way do not the walls and beams of many houses all over our land cry out against their owners?⚜
12 📚“Woe to him who builds a town
by bloodshed,
and establishes a city
by wickedness!
13 📚See, is it not of the LORD of hosts
that the peoples labour
for the fire,
and the nations exhaust themselves
for nothing?
2:12-13 Towns, cities, and empires can be built by violence and sinful methods, but they will all come to nothing in the end. Only what is done through God and for God and by God will endure. Compare 1 John 2:16-17.⚜
14 📚For the earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the glory
of the LORD,
as the waters cover the sea.
2:14 Num 14:21; Isa 11:9. This will come about only when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of Christ – Rev 11:15; Dan 2:34-35.⚜
15 📚“Woe to him who gives drink
to his neighbour,
who puts your bottle to him,
and makes him drunk also,
that you may look on their
nakedness!
2:15 This may refer to the methods Babylon used to strip neighboring nations of their wealth.⚜
16 📚You are filled with shame instead
of glory. Drink, you also, and be
counted as uncircumcised 📖.
The cup from the LORD’s right hand
will come around to you,
and utter disgrace will cover
your glory.
2:16 God would treat Babylon as it treated others (compare Ps 18:25-26). God would give Babylon a “cup” to drink which would make it stagger and fall and lie in nakedness and shame, stripped of its power, its wealth, and its glory. Compare Jer 25:15-16, 27, 28.⚜
17 📚For the violence done
to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and the destruction of beasts
which made them afraid,
and because of men’s blood,
and because of violence done
to the land, to the city,
and to all who live in it.
2:17 Apparently the Babylonians had been very severe in their treatment of Lebanon.⚜
18 📚“What profit is an idol when its
maker has carved it,
or a cast metal image,
a teacher of lies?
For the maker trusts in his
own handiwork,
making idols which cannot speak.
19 📚Woe to him who says to
a piece of wood,
‘Awake!’, to a mute stone,
‘Arise!’ Can it teach?
See, it is overlaid
with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in it.
2:5-19 God describes the character of Babylon and speaks of its downfall – vs 6-8,17. He would use Babylon to punish His people (Hab 1:6), but this did not mean that He favored Babylon over them. He would deal with Babylon too at the proper time. This is God’s answer to Habakkuk.⚜
2:18-19 Compare Ps 115:4-8; Isa 40:18-22; 41:29; 44:9-20. Babylon was full of idols – Jer 50:38; the people trusted in the work of their own hands, not in God. This would be a cause of terrible “woe” to them. Observe that an idol is a “teacher of lies” – it lies to people about the nature of God and how to receive divine help. Compare Rom 1:25.⚜
20 📚But the LORD is in his
holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence
before him”.
2:20 Idols cannot speak but God can. From His holy temple in heaven He has been pronouncing judgments on the wicked of the earth. Let men be quiet and listen and learn from Him.⚜