Habakkuk 2:13

Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) In the very fire . . . for very vanity. The preposition is the same in both clauses, and means “for an equivalent in.” The sense is sufficiently conveyed if we render “labour only for the fire . . . weary themselves all for nothing.” The same expressions occur in Jeremiah’s denunciation of Babylon (Jeremiah 51:58). Both prophets predict that Jehovah shall render all this compulsory service fruitless. Jeremiah adds the explanatory clauses, “the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:5-14 The prophet reads the doom of all proud and oppressive powers that bear hard upon God's people. The lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, are the entangling snares of men; and we find him that led Israel captive, himself led captive by each of these. No more of what we have is to be reckoned ours, than what we come honestly by. Riches are but clay, thick clay; what are gold and silver but white and yellow earth? Those who travel through thick clay, are hindered and dirtied in their journey; so are those who go through the world in the midst of abundance of wealth. And what fools are those that burden themselves with continual care about it; with a great deal of guilt in getting, saving, and spending it, and with a heavy account which they must give another day! They overload themselves with this thick clay, and so sink themselves down into destruction and perdition. See what will be the end hereof; what is gotten by violence from others, others shall take away by violence. Covetousness brings disquiet and uneasiness into a family; he that is greedy of gain troubles his own house; what is worse, it brings the curse of God upon all the affairs of it. There is a lawful gain, which, by the blessing of God, may be a comfort to a house; but what is got by fraud and injustice, will bring poverty and ruin upon a family. Yet that is not the worst; Thou hast sinned against thine own soul, hast endangered it. Those who wrong their neighbours, do much greater wrong to their own souls. If the sinner thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with art and contrivance, the riches and possessions he heaped together will witness against him. There are not greater drudges in the world than those who are slaves to mere wordly pursuits. And what comes of it? They find themselves disappointed of it, and disappointed in it; they will own it is worse than vanity, it is vexation of spirit. By staining and sinking earthly glory, God manifests and magnifies his own glory, and fills the earth with the knowledge of it, as plentifully as waters cover the sea, which are deep, and spread far and wide.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that (the) people (nations) shall labor - o

In (for) the very fire - literally, to suffice the fire? By God's appointment, the end of all their labor is for the fire, what may suffice it to consume. This is the whole result of their labor; and so it is as if they had toiled for this; they built ceiled palaces and gorgeous buildings, only for the fire to consume them.

And the peoples shall weary themselves for very vanity - They wearied themselves, and what was their reward? What had they to suffice and fill them? "Emptiness." This is "from the Lord of hosts," whom all the armies of heaven obey and all creatures stand at His command against the ungodly, and in whose Hand are all the hosts of earth, and so the oppressor's also, to turn as He wills.

Near upon the first stage of the fulfillment, Jeremiah reinforces the words with the name of Babylon; Jeremiah 51:58 : "Thus saith the Lord of hosts! The broad walls of Babylon, shall be utterly destroyed, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labor in vain (for vanity), and the folk in (for) the fire, and they shall be weary."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. is it not of the Lord of hosts—Jehovah, who has at His command all the hosts of heaven and earth, is the righteous author of Babylon's destruction. "Shall not God have His turn, when cruel rapacious men have triumphed so long, though He seem now to be still?" [Calvin].

people … labour in the … fire … weary themselves for … vanity—The Chaldeans labor at what is to be food for the fire, namely, their city and fortresses which shall be burnt. Jer 51:58 adopts the same phraseology to express the vanity of the Chaldean's labor on Babylon, as doomed to the flames.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Behold: the prophet calls for attention, and that we observe who it is will execute vengeance on bloody cities and kingdoms. Babylon is a mighty city, and the kingdom is over-match to any kingdom, and perhaps it may be thought none can give Babylon blood to drink, or kindle a fire in her, that shall consume her.

Is it not of the Lord of hosts? though men cannot, the Lord of hosts can; and is not this vengeance his? will not he repay?

The people shall labour in the very fire; either Babylonians and their confederates labour for that the fire shall consume; or the adversaries of Babylon shall be able to endure a service for God against Babylon hot as if they laboured in the fire. Either literally taken or figuratively will well consist with the text.

The people, either Medes and Persians against Babylon, or the Chaldeans for Babylon, shall weary themselves, spend their strength and life, for very vanity; the one to preserve what shall never profit them, which they laid up in vain, the other to destroy all (though they lose their booty by destroying it) in the fire; yet all this from the Lord of hosts, justly punishing Babylon for all her cruelties.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts?.... That which follows; the judgments of God upon the bloody city, which they that labour to prevent labour in vain. So the Targum,

"lo, strong and mighty blows or judgments come from the Lord of hosts;''

the mighty God, the Lord of armies, whose hand when stretched out none can turn back; he does what he pleases, and none can hinder him; when the decree is gone forth from him, it is in vain to attempt to stop it:

that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity? words of the same import, and expressed in much the same language, were used of the destruction of literal Babylon by fire, and of the vain attempts of the Chaldeans in labouring and wearying themselves to quench it, Jeremiah 51:58 and here of mystical Babylon, and the vanity of the people of it, in labouring to support it by their wars, for recovering the holy land from the Turks, and against the Waldenses, Hussites, and Bohemians; for, notwithstanding all their successes, and the vast number of persons slain by them, yet they could never prevail so as to root out the kingdom and interest of Christ: and their city and state shall fall, and they will not be able to uphold it; and a considerable blow and shock it received at the time of the Reformation; and this great city Babylon will be destroyed by fire, which its best friends cannot prevent; even the ten kings that have given their kingdom to the beast will hate the whore, and burn her with fire; and those antichristian kings that will continue friends to her, when they see her burning, will find it in vain to attempt to help her, and will stand afar off lamenting her case, Revelation 17:16. Kimchi begins here to see that this section and paragraph does not belong to Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, but to the times of the Messiah; and interprets it of the vengeance of God that shall come upon all the nations that come along with Gog against Jerusalem in the latter day; but he is mistaken: it designs what will come on mystical Babylon; so Abarbinel owns, that, from Habakkuk 2:12, what is said belongs to the Roman empire, which he calls the kingdom of Edom.

Geneva Study Bible

Behold, is it not from the {k} LORD of hosts that the people shall labour only for fire, and the nations shall weary themselves for nothing?

(k) Meaning, that God will not defer his vengeance long, but will come and destroy all their labours, as though they were consumed with fire.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. people … in the very fire] peoples shall labour for the fire. Those great cities of the heathen world on which the peoples labour are destined to become the prey of the fire.

people … for very vanity] the nations shall weary themselves for vanity, or, for nought, in vain. The great buildings on whose construction the nations exhaust themselves are doomed to annihilation. This is the decree of the Lord of Hosts. The words with some difference occur again, Jeremiah 51:58, with special reference to Babylon. The passage is scarcely a quotation from Jer., neither do the words, Behold, is it not, &c., imply that it is a quotation from some other source. Cf. 2 Chronicles 25:26, where the peculiar phrase occurs again.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Is it not of the Lord of hosts? Hath not God ordained that this, about to be mentioned, should be the issue of all this evil splendour? That the people shall labour in the very fire; rather, that the peoples labour for the fire; i.e. that the Chaldees and such like nations expended all this toil on cities and fortresses only to supply food for fire, which, the prophet sees, will be their end (Isaiah 40:16). Jeremiah (Jeremiah 51:58) applies these and the following words to the destruction of Babylon. This is indeed to weary themselves for very vanity. Babylon, when it was finally taken, was given over to fire and sword (comp. Jeremiah 50:32; Jeremiah 51:30, etc.). Habakkuk 2:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The third woe refers to the building of cities with the blood and property of strangers. Habakkuk 2:12. "Woe to him who buildeth cities with blood, and foundeth castles with injustice. Habakkuk 2:14. For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea." The earnest endeavour of the Chaldaean to found his dynasty in permanency through evil gain, manifested itself also in the building of cities with the blood and sweat of the subjugated nations. עיר and קריה are synonymous, and are used in the singular with indefinite generality, like קריה in Habakkuk 2:8. The preposition ב, attached to דּמים and עולה, denotes the means employed to attain the end, as in Micah 3:10 and Jeremiah 22:13. This was murder, bloodshed, transportation, and tyranny of every kind. Kōnēn is not a participle with the Mem dropped, but a perfect; the address, which was opened with a participle, being continued in the finite tense (cf. Ewald, 350, a). With Habakkuk 2:13 the address takes a different turn from that which it has in the preceding woes. Whereas there the woe is always more fully expanded in the central verse by an exposition of the wrong, we have here a statement that it is of Jehovah, i.e., is ordered or inflicted by Him, that the nations weary themselves for the fire. The ו before יינעוּ introduces the declaration of what it is that comes from Jehovah. הלוא הנּה (is it not? behold!) are connected together, as in 2 Chronicles 25:26, to point to what follows as something great that was floating before the mind of the prophet. בּדי אשׁ, literally, for the need of the fire (compare Nahum 2:13 and Isaiah 40:16). They labour for the fire, i.e., that the fire may devour the cities that have been built with severe exertion, which exhausts the strength of the nations. So far they weary themselves for vanity, since the buildings are one day to fall into ruins, or be destroyed. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 51:58) has very suitably applied these words to the destruction of Babylon. This wearying of themselves for vanity is determined by Jehovah, for (Habakkuk 2:14) the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah. That this may be the case, the kingdom of the world, which is hostile to the Lord and His glory, must be destroyed. This promise therefore involves a threat directed against the Chaldaean. His usurped glory shall be destroyed, that the glory of Jehovah of Sabaoth, i.e., of the God of the universe, may fill the whole earth. The thought in Habakkuk 2:14 is formed after Isaiah 11:9, with trifling alterations, partly substantial, partly only formal. The choice of the niphal תּפּלא instead of the מלאה of Isaiah refers to the actual fact, and is induced in both passages by the different turn given to the thought. In Isaiah, for example, this thought closes the description of the glory and blessedness of the Messianic kingdom in its perfected state. The earth is then full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the peace throughout all nature which has already been promised is one fruit of that knowledge. In Habakkuk, on the other hand, this knowledge is only secured through the overthrow of the kingdom of the world, and consequently only thereby will the earth be filled with it, and that not with the knowledge of Jehovah (as in Isaiah), but with the knowledge of His glory (כּבוד יי), which is manifested in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (Isaiah 2:12-21; Isaiah 6:3, compared with the primary passage, Numbers 14:21). כּבוד יי is "the δόξα of Jehovah, which includes His right of majesty over the whole earth" (Delitzsch). יכסּוּ על־ים is altered in form, but not in sense, from the ליּם מכסּים of Isaiah; and יכסּוּ is to be taken relatively, since כ is only used as a preposition before a noun or participle, and not like a conjunction before a whole sentence (comp. Ewald, 360, a, with 337, c). לדער is an infinitive, not a noun, with the preposition ל; for מלא, ימּלא is construed with the accus. rei, lit., the earth will be filled with the acknowledging. The water of the sea is a figure denoting overflowing abundance.