Homilist Habakkuk 2:9-11 Woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high… I. THE NATIONAL WRONGS here indicated. 1. Coveting the possessions of others. "Woe to him that coveteth an evil coveteousness to his house." "An evil covetousness"? There is a good covetousness. We are commanded to "covet earnestly the best gifts." But to hunger for those things which are not our own, but the property of others, and that for our own gratification and aggrandisement, is that which is prohibited in the Decalogue. 2. Trusting in false securities. So "that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil." The image is from an eagle (Job 29:37). 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. 3. Sinning against the soul. "And hast sinned against thy soul," or against thyself. Indeed, all wrong is a sin against oneself — a sin against the laws of reason, conscience, and happiness. 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 wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." Their guilty conscience will endow the dead materials of their own dwelling with the tongue to denounce in thunder their deeds of rapacity and blood. Startling personification this! "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 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. (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. 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. No intelligent personal witness is required to prove a sinner's guilt. All the scenes of his conscious life vocalise his guilt. (Homilist.) 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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