Commentary - Habakkuk 2:12-14

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Habakkuk, we are in the middle of a series of five woes that God pronounces against the Chaldeans. Having answered the prophet's complaint about using a wicked nation to chastise His own people, God now makes it plain that this instrument of judgment will in no way escape judgment itself. This particular woe, the third in the series, focuses on the foundational sin of all godless empires: they are built on blood and injustice. They are established with violence and maintained through oppression. But God, the Lord of hosts, has built a self-destruct mechanism into the very fabric of such enterprises. Their labor is destined for the fire, their striving for nothingness. And this divine frustration of man's proud projects is not an end in itself. It serves a glorious, ultimate purpose: the complete and total saturation of the entire world with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh. The failure of man's bloody cities makes way for the triumph of the City of God.

So the structure is simple but profound. We have a denunciation of a particular sin (v. 12), the divine verdict on the outcome of that sin (v. 13), and the ultimate purpose behind that verdict (v. 14). It is a movement from the particular evil of Babylon to the universal glory of God. This is how God always works. He takes the arrogant, self-aggrandizing projects of men and turns them into the foundation for a far greater project of His own. The bonfire of the wicked becomes the beacon that illuminates His glory for all the world to see.

Outline

Context In Habakkuk

To understand these verses, we have to remember where we are in the book. Habakkuk has lodged two complaints. First, why does God tolerate the sin of Judah? God answers: I am sending the Babylonians. This leads to the second, more pointed complaint: how can a holy God use a nation far more wicked than Judah to execute His justice? God's answer begins in chapter 2, and He tells the prophet to write the vision down so plainly that a man on the run can read it (Hab. 2:2). The heart of that vision is that the just will live by his faith (Hab. 2:4). He must trust God's timing and God's methods. The rest of the chapter unpacks the practical outworking of this. The proud man, the Babylonian, will not endure. God then details, through these five woes, precisely how Babylon's comeuppance will arrive. Our passage, verses 12-14, is the third of these woes. It follows the woe against extortion and precedes the woe against shaming one's neighbor. It is a central indictment against the very foundation of the Babylonian empire, and by extension, all empires built on the same godless principles.

Commentary

Habakkuk 2:12

"Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed And founds a town with injustice!"

The prophet pronounces a curse, a "Woe," upon the quintessential activity of proud and ambitious man: city-building. From Cain, who built a city and named it after his son, to the men at Babel, who sought to make a name for themselves, the city has often been the symbol of man's attempt to secure his own existence and legacy apart from God. And how are these cities of man so often built? With bloodshed and injustice. The foundation stones are corpses, and the mortar is mixed with the tears of the oppressed. This was certainly true of Babylon, an empire built through brutal conquest and maintained by slavery and extortion. They built magnificent structures, but the cost was tallied in human lives. God sees the blood that has seeped into the foundations. He sees the crookedness, the injustice, in every wall and street. And He says, "Woe." This is not just a building code violation. This is a capital crime against the Most High, who is the defender of the fatherless and the avenger of innocent blood.

Habakkuk 2:13

"Is it not, behold, from Yahweh of hosts That peoples toil for fire, And nations grow weary for nothing?"

Here is the divine logic behind the woe. The prophet asks a rhetorical question, the answer to which is a resounding yes. Where does this built-in futility come from? It is "from Yahweh of hosts." This is not bad luck, or poor planning, or an unfortunate turn of historical events. It is a direct, sovereign decree from the Commander of Heaven's armies. He has ordained that all this frantic, bloody, unjust labor will ultimately serve one purpose: to become fuel for the fire of His judgment. The peoples under Babylon's thumb "toil for fire." They are building a magnificent funeral pyre, and they don't even know it. The nations "grow weary for nothing." All their striving, their conquests, their architectural marvels, it all amounts to vanity, a chasing after the wind. God has woven a principle of combustion into the moral fabric of the universe. Anything built with blood and injustice is highly flammable. And Yahweh of hosts is the one who holds the match.

Habakkuk 2:14

"For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, As the waters cover the sea."

This is one of the most magnificent verses in all of Scripture, and it provides the ultimate reason for the woe and the futility. Why does God bother to burn down the bloody cities of men? He does it to clear the ground for something infinitely better. The destruction of Babylon is not the end of the story. It is the prelude to a global revelation. The word "For" connects this promise directly to the preceding verse. The nations weary themselves for nothing precisely so that God's great something can be revealed. And what is that something? The whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of God's glory. This is not a partial filling, not a spotty presence. It is a total, comprehensive saturation, as complete and undeniable as the waters cover the sea. You cannot find a dry spot at the bottom of the ocean, and the day is coming when you will not be able to find a spot on this globe that is not drenched in the knowledge of God's glory. This is the great postmillennial promise. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the instrument by which this glory is made known, and as the Church fulfills the Great Commission, this knowledge advances. The collapse of every Babel, every Babylon, is simply the Lord of hosts clearing away the rubble to make way for the unstoppable tide of His glory.

Application

First, we must learn to see the world as God sees it. We are often impressed by the Babylons of our own day. We see the towering skyscrapers, the military might, the cultural influence, and we are tempted to think that these things are permanent, that they are the real story. But God tells us to look at the foundations. Are they built on bloodshed? On the industrial-scale murder of the unborn? Are they founded on injustice? On lies, theft, and sexual chaos? If so, then we can know with certainty that all their toiling is for the fire. We should not fear them, and we should not envy them. Their doom is written.

Second, we must labor for that which is not for the fire. If the godless toil for nothing, then the righteous must toil for that which is everything. We are called to be builders also, but we are building a different kind of city, a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:5), the household of God. We build with the gospel, with discipleship, with faithful obedience, with deeds of love and justice. This is the work that endures, the work that is not consumed by the fire but is rather refined by it.

Lastly, we must be consumed with a passion for God's ultimate purpose. Our central motivation in all that we do ought to be the prayer of this text: that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of His glory. This is not a pipe dream. It is a divine promise from Yahweh of hosts. This should fuel our evangelism, our cultural engagement, our prayers, and our hope. When we see the Babylons of our age shaking, we should not despair. We should lift up our heads, knowing that God is simply clearing the ground. The tide is coming in, and nothing can stop it.