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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - Habakkuk 2:5 - 2:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Because he transgresseth by wine - From the present translation, it is not easy to see either reason or meaning in the first clause of this verse. Newcome translates, “Moreover, as a mighty man transgresseth through wine, he is proud, and remaineth not at rest.” Houbigant thus: “For he, though he be a despiser, and powerful, and proud, yet shall he not have rest.”
Nebuchadnezzar is here represented in his usual character, proud, haughty, and ambitious; inebriated with his successes, and determined on more extensive conquests; and, like the grave, can never have enough: yet, after the subjugation of many peoples and nations, he shall be brought down, and become so despicable that he shall be a proverb of reproach, and be taunted and scorned by all those whom he had before enslaved.
And cannot be satisfied - When he has obtained all that is within his reach, he wishes for more; and becomes miserable, because any limits are opposed to his insatiable ambition. It is said of Alexander: -
Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis;
Aestuat infelix angusto limite mundi.
Juv. Sat. 10:168.
One world sufficed not Alexander’s mind;
Coop’d up, he seem’d on earth and seas confined.
And the poet justly ridicules him, because at last the sarcophagus was found too large for his body!