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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Habakkuk 2:12 - 2:12
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The third woe refers to the building of cities with the blood and property of strangers. Hab 2:12. “Woe to him who buildeth cities with blood, and foundeth castles with injustice. Hab 2:14. For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.” The earnest endeavour of the Chaldaean to found his dynasty in permanency through evil gain, manifested itself also in the building of cities with the blood and sweat of the subjugated nations. עִיר and קִרְיָה are synonymous, and are used in the singular with indefinite generality, like קִרְיָה in Hab 2:8. The preposition ב, attached to דָּמִים and עַוְלָה, denotes the means employed to attain the end, as in Mic 3:10 and Jer 22:13. This was murder, bloodshed, transportation, and tyranny of every kind. Kōnēn is not a participle with the Mem dropped, but a perfect; the address, which was opened with a participle, being continued in the finite tense (cf. Ewald, §350, a). With Hab 2:13 the address takes a different turn from that which it has in the preceding woes. Whereas there the woe is always more fully expanded in the central verse by an exposition of the wrong, we have here a statement that it is of Jehovah, i.e., is ordered or inflicted by Him, that the nations weary themselves for the fire. The ו before יְינְעוּ introduces the declaration of what it is that comes from Jehovah. הֲלוֹא הִנֵּה (is it not? behold!) are connected together, as in 2Ch 25:26, to point to what follows as something great that was floating before the mind of the prophet. בְּדֵי אֵשׁ, literally, for the need of the fire (compare Nah 2:13 and Isa 40:16). They labour for the fire, i.e., that the fire may devour the cities that have been built with severe exertion, which exhausts the strength of the nations. So far they weary themselves for vanity, since the buildings are one day to fall into ruins, or be destroyed. Jeremiah (Jer 51:58) has very suitably applied these words to the destruction of Babylon. This wearying of themselves for vanity is determined by Jehovah, for (Hab 2:14) the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah. That this may be the case, the kingdom of the world, which is hostile to the Lord and His glory, must be destroyed. This promise therefore involves a threat directed against the Chaldaean. His usurped glory shall be destroyed, that the glory of Jehovah of Sabaoth, i.e., of the God of the universe, may fill the whole earth. The thought in Hab 2:14 is formed after Isa 11:9, with trifling alterations, partly substantial, partly only formal. The choice of the niphal תִּפָּלֵא instead of the מָֽלְאָה of Isaiah refers to the actual fact, and is induced in both passages by the different turn given to the thought. In Isaiah, for example, this thought closes the description of the glory and blessedness of the Messianic kingdom in its perfected state. The earth is then full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the peace throughout all nature which has already been promised is one fruit of that knowledge. In Habakkuk, on the other hand, this knowledge is only secured through the overthrow of the kingdom of the world, and consequently only thereby will the earth be filled with it, and that not with the knowledge of Jehovah (as in Isaiah), but with the knowledge of His glory (כְּבוֹד יי), which is manifested in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (Isa 2:12-21; Isa 6:3, compared with the primary passage, Num 14:21). כְּבוֹד יי is “the δόξα of Jehovah, which includes His right of majesty over the whole earth” (Delitzsch). יְכַסּוּ עַל־יָם is altered in form, but not in sense, from the לַיָּם מְכַסִּים of Isaiah; and יְכַסּוּ is to be taken relatively, since כְ is only used as a preposition before a noun or participle, and not like a conjunction before a whole sentence (comp. Ewald, §360, a, with §337, c). לָדַעַר is an infinitive, not a noun, with the preposition ל; for מָלֵא, יִמָּלֵא is construed with the accus. rei, lit., the earth will be filled with the acknowledging. The water of the sea is a figure denoting overflowing abundance.