Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Habakkuk · About this commentary
Woe to Him Who Increases What Is Not His
Habakkuk 2:5-8
5 Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous: an arrogant man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol; he is like death and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations and heaps to himself all peoples. · WEB
The nations Babylon plundered take up a taunt-song against it, and the first verse of that song asks the prophet's own question back.
The arrogant man is described first: never satisfied, enlarging his appetite like Sheol, gathering all nations to himself. Appetite is the diagnosis, and the woes that follow are its five symptoms.
Then the form changes. All these — the plundered peoples — take up a parable and a taunting proverb against him. The rest of the chapter is not God speaking directly but the victims' song, quoted. And the first woe ends with two words that answer chapter 1: how long. Habakkuk had cried it at God in Habakkuk 1:2; here the nations cry it about Babylon, and the phrase has changed hands.
The sentence fits the crime exactly. Because you plundered many nations, the remnant of the peoples will plunder you. Debtors rise up suddenly; the creditor becomes the victim. The charge is stated three ways — men's blood, violence to the land, violence to the city and all who dwell in it — and that triple phrase will return almost word for word at the fourth woe.
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