Habakuk 2:2

The Lord Assures Habakkuk

2:2 The Lord responded: ¹ 

“Write down this message! ²  Record it legibly on tablets,

so the one who announces ³  it may read it easily. ⁴ 

Habakuk 2:19

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ⁵  –

he who says ⁶  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ⁷ 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

[2:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord answered and said.” The redundant expression “answered and said” has been simplified in the translation as “responded.”

[2:2]  ² tn Heb “[the] vision.”

[2:2]  ³ tn Or “reads from.”

[2:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “might run,” which here probably means “run [through it quickly with one’s eyes],” that is, read it easily.

[2:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:19]  ⁶ tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ⁷ tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).