Habakkuk 2:9-11 Woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high… Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Notice - I. THE NATIONAL WRONGS HERE INDICATED. 1. Coveting the possessions of others. "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house!" "An evil covetousness!" There is a good covetousness. We are commanded to "covet earnestly the best gifts" (1 Corinthians 12:31). But to hunger for those things which are not our own, but the property of others, and that for our own gratification and aggrandizement, is the sin which is prohibited in the Decalogue, which is denounced in the Gospel as a cardinal sin, and which is represented as excluding from the kingdom of heaven. The covetous man is a thief in spirit and in reality. 2. Trusting in false securities. So "that he may set his nest on high, that he maybe delivered from the power of evil." The image is from an eagle (Job 39:27). The royal citadel is meant. The Chaldeans built high towers like the Babel founders, to be delivered from the power of evil. They sought protection, not in the Creator but in the creature, not in moral means but in material. Thus foolishly nations have always acted and are still acting; they trust to armies and to navies, not to righteousness, truth, and God. A moral character built on justice, purity, and universal benevolence is the only right and safe defence of nations. "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest against the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord" (Obadiah 1:4). 3. Sinning against the soul. "And hast sinned against thy soul," or against thyself. Indeed, all wrong is a sin against one's self - a sin against the laws of reason, conscience, and happiness. "He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul." Such are some of the wrongs implied by these verses. Alas! they are not confined to Babylon or to any of the ancient kingdoms. They are too rife amongst all the modern kingdoms of the earth. II. THE NATIONAL WOES HERE INDICATED. "Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house!" etc. What is the woe connected with these evils? It is contained in these words, "The stone shall cry out of the wail, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." Their guilty conscience will endow the dead materials of their own dwellings with the tongue to denounce in thunder their deeds of rapacity and blood. Startling personification this! The very stones of thy palace and the beams out of the timber shall testify. "Note," says Matthew Henry, "those that do wrong to their neighbour do a much greater wrong to their own souls. But if the sinner pleads, 'Not guilty,' and thinks he has managed his frauds and violence with so much art and contrivance that they cannot be proved upon him, let him know that if there be no other witnesses against him, the stone shall cry out of the wall against him, and the beam out of the timber in the roof shall answer it, shall second it, shall witness it, that the money and materials wherewith he built the house were unjustly gotten (ver. 11). The stones and timber shall cry to Heaven for vengeance, as the whole creation groans under the sin of man, and waits to be delivered from that bondage of corruption. Observe: 1. That mind gives to all the objects that once impressed it a mystic power of suggestion. Who has not felt this? Who does not feel it every day? The tree, the house, the street, the lane, the stream, the meadow, the mountain, that once touched our consciousness, seldom fail to start thoughts in us whenever we are brought into contact with them again. It seems as if the mind gave part of itself to all the objects that once impressed it. When we revisit, after years of absence, the scenes of childhood, all the objects which impressed us in those early days seem to beat out and revive the thoughts and feelings of our young hearts. Hence, when we leave a place which in person we may never revisit, we are still tied to it by an indissoluble bond. Nay, we carry it with us and reproduce it in memory. 2. That mind gives to those objects that impressed us when in the commission of any sin a terrible power to start remorseful memories. This is a fact of which, alas! all are conscious. And hence those stones and timbers, stolen from other people, that went to build the palaces, temples, and mansions in Babylon, would not fail to speak in thunder to the guilty consciences of those who obtained them by violence or fraud. No intelligent personal witness is required to prove a sinner's guilt. All the scenes of his conscious life vocalize his guilt. - D.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! |
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