13 Behold, is it not of Jehovah of hosts that the peoples labour for the fire, and the nations weary themselves in vain?
And Jehovah said, Behold, the people is one, and have all one language; and this have they begun to do. And now will they be hindered in nothing that they meditate doing. Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. And Jehovah scattered them thence over the face of the whole earth. And they left off building the city. Therefore was its name called Babel; because Jehovah there confounded the language of the whole earth. And Jehovah scattered them thence over the face of the whole earth.
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; and the counsel of the wily is carried headlong: They meet with darkness in a the daytime, and grope at midday as in the night.
{A Song of degrees. Of Solomon.} Unless Jehovah build the house, in vain do its builders labour in it; unless Jehovah keep the city, the keeper watcheth in vain: It is vain for you to rise up early, to lie down late, to eat the bread of sorrows: so to his beloved one he giveth sleep.
The isles saw [it], and feared; the ends of the earth trembled: they drew near, and came. They helped every one his neighbour, and [each] said to his brother, Take courage. And the artizan encouraged the founder, he that smootheth [with] the hammer him that smiteth on the anvil, saying of the soldering, It is good; and he fasteneth it with nails, that it be not moved. But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend
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.