5 And moreover, the wine is treacherous: he is a proud man, and keepeth not at rest, he enlargeth his desire as Sheol, and he is like death and cannot be satisfied; and he assembleth unto him all nations, and gathereth unto him all peoples.
Sheol and destruction are insatiable; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
Wine is a scorner, strong drink is raging; and whoso erreth thereby is not wise.
Woe unto them that, rising early in the morning, run after strong drink; that linger till twilight, [till] wine inflameth them! And harp and lyre, tambour and flute, and wine are in their banquets; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, nor do they see the operation of his hands.
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This also is vanity.
It is not for kings, Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for rulers [to say], Where is the strong drink? -- lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the children of affliction.
Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who contentions? Who complaining? Who wounds without cause? Who redness of eyes? -- They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to try mixed wine. Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth in the cup, and goeth down smoothly: at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall speak froward things;
For Jehovah is high; but he looketh upon the lowly, and the proud he knoweth afar off.
Thou hast indeed smitten Edom, and thy heart has lifted thee up: boast thyself, and abide at home; for why shouldest thou contend with misfortune, that thou shouldest fall, thou, and Judah with thee?
But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit hardened unto presumption, he was deposed from the throne of his kingdom, and they took his glory from him; and he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the Most High God ruleth over the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou, Belshazzar, his son, hast not humbled thy heart, although thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of the heavens; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy nobles, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:
But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, God sets himself against [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] lowly.
and to seek earnestly to be quiet and mind your own affairs, and work with your [own] hands, even as we charged you,
Because thou hast plundered many nations, all the rest of the peoples shall plunder thee; because of men's blood, and for the violence [done] to the land, to the city, and all that dwell therein. Woe to him that getteth iniquitous gain to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the grasp of evil! Thou hast devised shame to thy house, by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thine own soul.
Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright within him: but the just shall live by his faith.
What do ye imagine against Jehovah? He will make a full end: trouble shall not rise up the second time. Though they be tangled together [as] thorns, and be as drenched from their drink, they shall be devoured as dry stubble, completely.
there is a generation, -- how lofty are their eyes, how their eyelids are lifted up! -- a generation whose teeth are swords, and their jaw-teeth knives, to devour the afflicted from off the earth, and the needy from [among] men. The leech hath two daughters: Give, give. There are three [things] never satisfied; four which say not, It is enough: -- Sheol, and the barren womb; the earth which is not filled with water, and the fire which saith not, It is enough.
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his nobles, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, might drink in them. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
When they are heated, I will prepare their drink, and I will make them drunken, that they may exult, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah.
Call together the archers against Babylon, all those that bend the bow: encamp against her round about; let there be no escaping: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath acted proudly against Jehovah, against the Holy One of Israel.
And I took the cup at Jehovah's hand, and made all the nations to drink, to whom Jehovah had sent me: Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a waste, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gazah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod; Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon; and all the kings of Tyre, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles that are beyond the sea; Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that have the corners [of their beard] cut off; and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert; and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth; and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink, and be drunken, and vomit, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword that I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Ye shall certainly drink. For behold, I begin to bring evil on the city that is called by my name, and should ye be altogether unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished; for I call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith Jehovah of hosts.
behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith Jehovah, and [I will send] to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about; and I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual wastes.
We have heard of the arrogance of Moab, -- [he is] very proud, -- of his pride, and his arrogance, and his wrath: his pratings are vain.
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee; they shall consider thee, [saying,] Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that shook kingdoms; [that] made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; [that] dismissed not his prisoners homewards?
But he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; for it is in his heart to extirpate and cut off nations not a few. For he saith, Are not my princes all kings? Is not Calno as Karkemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, -- and their graven images exceeded those of Jerusalem and Samaria, -- shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her images? And it shall come to pass, when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and upon Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stoutness of heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done [it], and by my wisdom, for I am intelligent; and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and, like a valiant man, I have brought down them that sit [on thrones];
Woe unto them that are mighty for drinking wine, and men valiant to mix strong drink; who justify the wicked for a bribe, and turn away the righteousness of the righteous from them!
Woe unto them that add house to house, that join field to field, until there is no more room, and that ye dwell yourselves alone in the midst of the land!
The lofty eyes of man shall be brought low, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day. For there shall be a day of Jehovah of hosts upon everything proud and lofty, and upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Habakkuk 2
Commentary on Habakkuk 2 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 2
In this chapter we have an answer expected by the prophet (v. 1), and returned by the Spirit of God, to the complaints which the prophet made of the violences and victories of the Chaldeans in the close of the foregoing chapter. The answer is,
Hab 2:1-4
Here,
Hab 2:5-14
The prophet having had orders to write the vision, and the people to wait for the accomplishment of it, the vision itself follows; and it is, as divers other prophecies we have met with, the burden of Babylon and Babylon's king, the same that was said to pass over and offend, ch. 1:11. It reads the doom, some think, of Nebuchadnezzar, who was principally active in the destruction of Jerusalem, or of that monarchy, or of the whole kingdom of the Chaldeans, or of all such proud and oppressive powers as bear hard upon any people, especially upon God's people. Observe,
Hab 2:15-20
The three foregoing articles, upon which the woes here are grounded, are very near akin to each other. The criminals charged by them are oppressors and extortioners, that raise estates by rapine and injustice; and it is mentioned here again (v. 17), the very same that was said v. 8, for that is the crime upon which the greatest stress is laid; it is because of men's blood, innocent blood, barbarously and unjustly shed, which is a provoking crying thing; it is for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein, which God will certainly reckon for, sooner or later, as the asserter of right and the avenger of wrong.
But here are two articles more, of a different nature, which carry a woe to all those in general to whom they belong, and particularly to the Babylonian monarchs, by whom the people of God were taken and held captives.