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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Habakkuk 2:9 - 2:9
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The second woe is pronounced upon the wickedness of the Chaldaean, in establishing for himself a permanent settlement through godless gain. Hab 2:9. “Woe to him who getteth a godless gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to save himself from the hand of calamity. Hab 2:10. Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, destruction of many nations, and involvest thy soul in guilt. Hab 2:11. For the stone out of the wall will cry, and the spar out of the wood will answer it.” To the Chaldaean's thirst for robbery and plunder there is attached quite simply the base avarice through which he seeks to procure strength and durability for his house. בָּצַע בֶּצַע, to get gain, has in itself the subordinate idea of unrighteous gain or sinful covetousness, since בָּצַע denotes cutting or breaking something off from another's property, though here it is still further strengthened by the predicate רַע, evil (gain). בֵּיתוֹ (his house) is not the palace, but the royal house of the Chaldaean, his dynasty, as Hab 2:10 clearly shows, where בַּיִת evidently denotes the king's family, including the king himself. How far he makes בֶּצַע for his family, is more precisely defined by לָשׂוּם וגו. קִנּוֹ, his (the Chaldaean's) nest, is neither his capital nor his palace or royal castle; but the setting up of his nest on high is a figure denoting the founding of his government, and securing it against attacks. As the eagle builds its nest on high, to protect it from harm (cf. Job 39:27), so does the Chaldaean seek to elevate and strengthen his rule by robbery and plunder, that it may never be wrested from his family again. We might here think of the buildings erected by Nebuchadnezzar for the fortification of Babylon, and also of the building of the royal palace (see Berosus in Hos. c. Ap. i. 19). We must not limit the figurative expression to this, however, but must rather refer it to all that the Chaldaean did to establish his rule. This is called the setting on high of his nest, to characterize it as an emanation from his pride, and the lofty thoughts of his heart. For the figure of the nest, see Num 24:21; Oba 1:4; Jer 49:16. His intention in doing this is to save himself from the hand of adversity. רָע is not masculine, the evil man; but neuter, adversity, or “the hostile fate, which, so far as its ultimate cause is God (Isa 45:7), is inevitable and irreversible” (Delitzsch). In Hab 2:10 the result of his heaping up of evil gain is announced: he has consulted shame to his house. יָעַץ, to form a resolution. His determination to establish his house, and make it firm and lofty by evil gain, will bring shame to his house, and instead of honour and lasting glory, only shame and ruin. קְצוֹת, which has been variously rendered, cannot be the plural of the noun קָצֶה, “the ends of many nations,” since it is impossible to attach any intelligent meaning to this. It is rather the infinitive of the verb קָצָה, the occurrence of which Hitzig can only dispute by an arbitrary alteration of the text in four different passages, and is equivalent to קָצַץ, to cut off, hew off, which occurs in the piel in 2Ki 10:32 and Pro 26:6, but in the kal only here. The infinitive construct does not stand for the inf. abs., or for לִקְצוֹת, exscindendo, but is used substantively, and is governed by יָעַצְתָּ, which still retains its force from the previous clause. Thou hast consulted (resolved upon) the cutting off, or destruction, of many nations. וְחוֹטֵא, and sinnest against thy soul thereby, i.e., bringest retribution upon thyself, throwest away thine own life. On the use of the participle in the sense of the second person without אַתָּה, see at Hab 1:5. חָטָא, with the accusative of the person, as in Pro 20:2 and Pro 8:36, instead of חָטָא בְנַפְשׁוֹ. The participle is used, because the reference is to a present, which will only be completed in the future (Hitzig and Delitzsch). The reason for this verdict, and also for the hōi which stands at the head of this strophe, follows in Hab 2:11. The stone out of the wall and the spar out of the woodwork will cry, sc. because of the wickedness which thou hast practised in connected with thy buildings (Hab 1:2), or for vengeance (Gen 4:10), because they have been stolen, or obtained from stolen property. The apparently proverbial expression of the crying of stones is applied in a different way in Luk 19:40. קִיר does not mean the wall of a room here, but, as distinguished from עֵץ, the outside wall, and עֵץ, the woodwork or beams of the buildings. The ἁπ. λεγ. כָּפִיס, lit., that which binds, from כפס in the Syriac and Targum, to bind, is, according to Jerome, “the beam which is placed in the middle of any building to hold the walls together, and is generally called ἱμάντωσις by the Greeks.” The explanations given by Suidas is, δέσις ξύλων ἐμβαλλομένων ἐν τοῖς οἰκοδομήσασι, hence rafters or beams. יַעֲנֶנָּה, will answer, sc. the stone, i.e., join in its crying (cf. Isa 34:14).