1 At my watch I will stand
and I will station myself
on the rampart;
and I will keep watch to see what he will say about me,
and what I will answer when
I am reprimanded.
2 And YHWH answered me and said:
Write down a revelation
and document it on tablets
so that one will run who reads it.
3 For still there is a revelation for the
appointed time,
and it is a testifier to
the end; and it does not lie.
If it lingers, wait for it,
for it will surely come, it will not be late.
4 Look, swollen, not judicious is his appetite
within him,
but the righteous: in his
faithfulness he will live.
5 And furthermore, the wine deals treacherously;
a proud man will not abide.
Indeed, he is like the death and is not sated.
He
gathers to himself all the nations
and collects to himself all the peoples.
Verse 1 employs what appears to be formal, official language,
such as might be used in a court setting.
Verse 2 stresses not the legibility of the writing but the importance
of the content and its official nature.
The use of the plural “tablets” is best explained as a
reference to duplicates, ensuring the documentation of the witness.
Running is regularly associated with messengers, as,
e.g., in 1 Sam. 4:12; 2 Sam 18:19; Jer. 23:21; 51:31; Zech. 2:8 (Eng. 2:4).
It is possible that an earlier version of verse 4 asked, “Consider the doer: Is not his
desire in him right?” in a reference back to 1:5-6. See my “An Emendation of Hab
2:4a in the light of Hab 1:5,” JHS 13/11 (2013). The LXX offers a
significantly different text, “if he/it should draw back, my soul has no
pleasure in him/it” (with variations surrounding the positioning of the
personal pronoun). The Targum similarly offers two contrasting responses to the
prophecy, “Behold, the wicked think that all these things are not so, but the
righteous shall live by the truth of them.”
The
debate about the reference of the pronoun (his/its) with faithfulness is of
little consequence as far as the
underlying dynamics are concerned: The loyalty of the righteous rests on the
dependability of YHWH which finds expression in the reliability of the revelation. The righteous will
live because they faithfully cling to the reliability of the revelation given
by a faithful God.
Likewise,
the contrast between (a) the “righteous by faithfulness” shall live, and (b) the
righteous shall “live by faithfulness” may be smaller conceptually than syntactically.
The revelation is not given in
answer to the question how someone becomes righteous but in answer to the
question how the righteous can live in the face of brutal assault. The
expression “by faithfulness” therefore surely goes with “live” but there is little
doubt that any who abandon faithfulness would no longer be considered “righteous”
in accordance with this prophecy and it would be no overstatement to say that in
Habakkuk the righteous are characterised by faithfulness, even if this is not
the precise statement being made in this verse.
The
word translated “faithfulness,” when applied to the character and conduct of
persons, including God, elsewhere carries the notion of “honesty, integrity, dependability,
steadfastness,” i.e. trustworthiness more than trustfulness. The promise does
not so much call the arrogant to repent and adopt faith in God but urges those
who put their trust in God to continue to do so. In other words, it calls for faithfulness
in keeping faith, as it were. It does not address the temptation to imitate Babylonian greed and
arrogance but the temptation to give up trust in God in the face of the earlier
prophecy’s (1:5-11) disastrous outcome in the Babylonian devastations and
Torah’s inability to tackle injustice (1:4).
Verse 5 originally may have referred to “presumption”
dealing treacherously – a true statement in this context, as is the statement
that “wealth is treacherous” (1QpHab, cf. Prov. 13:11; 28:8). But “wine” is a
suitable object for developing the metaphor of the previous verse. It is is
treacherous because at first it gratifies the drinker, increasing elation, but
consumed in greater quantities turns against drinkers and leads to their downfall
(cf. Prov. 23:32). Drunkenness is an apt image for someone whose unbounded
appetite will lead to their downfall.
The Babylonians are not named but there can be
no doubt who is in view as being in the process of gathering and collecting
nations. He – the empire embodied in its
ruler – is the glutton who like death will always be hungry for more. He is a
proud man who will not be able to enjoy living in rest and peace. He is the one
whose intoxication will be his downfall.
