Woes to the Babylonians

Habakkuk 2:6-20

God gave five woes in conjunction with the insult and wrongs done to his people and their God.  As one reads the verses it is like reading a proverb, this is the first of the Woes. “Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, with scoffing and riddles for him, and say, “Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own— for how long? — and loads himself with pledges!”  Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble?  Then you will be spoil for them.  Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.”

It sure sounds as if the Babylonians are mounting up a debt they will not be able to repay, and yet it is going to be required of them. The second Woe is found in verses 9-11; “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm!  You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life.  For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.”

It is of interest that those who have been in slavery or killed by Babylon do not have a voice to cry out to the Lord, but the stone and the beam they have taken are crying out to the Lord.  The third Woe is much the same, it is about bloodshed and injustice of slave labor, but God will deal with Babylon when the Persians topple them.  “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity!  Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire, and nations weary themselves for nothing? For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Let’s look at the four Woes in verses 15-17, “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink— you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!  You will have your fill of shame instead of glory.  Drink, yourself, and show your uncircumcision!  The cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter shame will come upon your glory!  The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, as will the destruction of the beasts that terrified them, for the blood of man and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell in them.

One of the tools Babylon used to make the people submit and offer little or no resistance in breaking their will was they would degrade and humiliate the conquered people.  And the fifth Woe was about the worship of Marduk, their god, but the problem was that it was a piece of wood, a lifeless idol that could not speak and had no power.  Whereas the Jewish people had the living God, Yahweh, and He would have the last word.  The fifth Woe,  “What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies?  For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise!  Can this teach?  Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.  But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice