CRITICAL NOTES.]
Habakkuk 2:12. Woe] the third. Town] Babylon, rebuilt and enlarged by spoils of blood (Daniel 4:30).
Habakkuk 2:13. Fire] Lit. to suffice the fire; conflagration and depopulation the result of all labour and fatigue.
Habakkuk 2:14. For] God has determined this result; usurped glory must be destroyed that his glory may spread (Isaiah 11:9). Waters] Surpassing abundance. This predictive of the gospel times.
HOMILETICS
THE CITY OF BLOOD.—Habakkuk 2:12-14
The third stanza, naturally suggested by the preceding verse, describes the method by which they carried out their ambitious ends. They might pretend public good, and seek to establish popular government; but the wealth of the kingdom was gained by bloody wars, and the city enlarged by captive tribes from other nations. “They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.”
I. The city was built with wrong materials. It was built with blood. God’s people and heathen nations were oppressed, compelled to serve the king, and labour on the fortifications. All private fortunes gained by cruelty, all empires and greatness built and defended in contempt for God, and by the blood of men, are established by iniquity. They may impose upon the outward eye, seem strong and majestic, but they are inwardly rotten; will decay and fall to ruins. “Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not.”
II. The builders of the city laboured in vain.
1. God frustrated their aims. Human skill cannot succeed when God is opposed. In the Church and in the world, nothing can hinder his purposes. He is Lord of Hosts, whom the armies of heaven and the agencies of earth obey. As in building Babel of old so now can he confound the design, and frustrate the efforts, of men. “Behold, is it not of the Lord of Hosts?”
2. God consumed their materials. They toiled and were disappointed. They built the city, and reared splendid palaces, only for the fire. They laboured, with intense energy and pride, to accomplish their own ends, but they “wearied themselves for very vanity.” Men fatigue themselves in pursuit of wealth and honour, weary themselves in sin, and the result is consumed in the fire. “The people shall labour in vain (for vanity) and the folk in (for) the fire, and they shall be weary.”
III. The city shall eventually be destroyed. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.” God will be known by the judgments which he executes upon wrong-doers. All violence and injustice, like that of Babylon and Antichrist, will be overturned. The name of God will be read in the punishment of the wicked, and the deliverance of his people. The glory of God, obscured by oppression and cruelty, in due time will shine forth from the clouds, and fill the earth with its splendour. “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”
A GLORIOUS DAY.—Habakkuk 2:14
“For” indicates the reason for the sentence pronounced. God had determined to manifest his glory in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (cf. Isaiah 2:12-21; Isaiah 6:3; Numbers 14:21).
I. The blessing predicted. “The knowledge of the glory of the Lord.” God is glorious in character and procedure. And of this glory he is so jealous that he will not give it to another (Isaiah 42:8). The glory here is the revelation of impartial justice and irresistible power; a manifestation condemning sin and honouring truth. Not only the glory, but the knowledge of it, shall fill the earth. Men shall recognize it, see mercy and judgment, and learn that, “verily, there is a reward for the righteous: verily, he is a God that judgeth in the earth.”
II. The method of revealing this blessing. In the connection of the words, we learn that God reveals and magnifies his glory, when sin is prevalent, and human glory is decayed. In the destruction of Babylon and all the powers that resemble it, and in the deliverance and restoration of the Jews, we see the glory of God. But this is only a type of the destruction of error and the spread of Gospel truth. Both judgment and mercy are requisite to fill the earth with the glory of the Lord. Everything hostile to him, and the interests of his people, must be destroyed. The kingdom of Christ set up. and the earth illuminated with his glory (Revelation 18:1).
III. The measure in which this blessing is bestowed. “As the waters cover the sea.” This indicates—
1. Depth. God’s judgments are a mighty deep, and the knowledge of them shall not be superficial. The nations shall feel them, and be convicted by the revelation of the Divine glory.
2. Abundance. The waters cover the sea, and spread far and wide. This knowledge will fill the earth.
3. Permanence. The waters of the sea abide, can never be exhausted nor diminished. Knowledge is increasing, the Gospel is spreading, and the bright day is predicted when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Psalms 72:19; Isaiah 11:9).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Habakkuk 2:13. Labour in the very fire. Labour which fatigues; labour in vain; labour opposed to God. Sin is labour—the gain is vanity. Then why not observe who causes this? “It is the Lord that bringeth all the labours of the ungodly to loss and vanity, that when they come to thrash their crop of travail, they find nothing but straw and chaff. To express his power to do this he is here called the God of Hosts, for all things serve him, and he resisteth the proud. He layeth their honours in the dust; he disperseth their riches; he spoileth them of all their treasures: he that exalted them made them low; he that gave to them taketh away. They had need to be made to see this; therefore he saith, Is it not of the Lord?” [Marbury].
Habakkuk 2:14. The words of God in this text are full of marrow and fatness, for God is rich in mercy, so he dilateth his favours.
1. In the latitude, all the earth over.
2. In the plenitude, the earth shall be filled.
3. In the magnitude, the knowledge of God’s glory.
4. In the profundity, as the waters cover the sea.
I. The thing to be done. The earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. His moral excellences—holiness, righteousness, and grace: his natural perfections—power, wisdom, omniscience, and omnipotence to be made known. II. The necessity of doing it. God is seen in the physical universe, and in the powers of the human mind; but sin, like a mist, hides the glory. No intellectual effort, no human light whatever, can do the work. God must shine in Christ, shine into the world, and into the soul, “to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:6). III. Will it ever be done? How dark the days of the prophet! How improbable the present signs! Yet how much has been done already! Sufficient to guarantee future success. God himself has pledged his word. “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
“So, Jesus, let thy kingdom come;
Then sin and hell’s terrific gloom
Shall at its brightness flee away,—
The dawn of an eternal day.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Habakkuk 2:12-13. Vanity. To so small a purpose is it to have an erected face towards heaven, and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth, eating dust, as doth the serpent [Bacon]. The empire of the world is but a crust to be thrown to a dog [Luther].
Habakkuk 2:14. Glory. It is one of the greatest praises of God’s wisdom, that he can turn the evil of men to his own glory [Bp. Hall].