Habakuk 2:6
Konteks2:6 “But all these nations will someday taunt him 1
and ridicule him with proverbial sayings: 2
‘The one who accumulates what does not belong to him is as good as dead 3
(How long will this go on?) 4 –
he who gets rich by extortion!’ 5
Habakuk 2:18
Konteks2:18 What good 6 is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? 7
What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? 8
Why would its creator place his trust in it 9
and make 10 such mute, worthless things?
[2:6] 1 tn Heb “Will not these, all of them, take up a taunt against him…?” The rhetorical question assumes the response, “Yes, they will.” The present translation brings out the rhetorical force of the question by rendering it as an affirmation.
[2:6] 2 tn Heb “and a mocking song, riddles, against him? And one will say.”
[2:6] 3 tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who increases [what is] not his.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe,” “ah”) was used in funeral laments and carries the connotation of death.
[2:6] 4 tn This question is interjected parenthetically, perhaps to express rhetorically the pain and despair felt by the Babylonians’ victims.
[2:6] 5 tn Heb “and the one who makes himself heavy [i.e., wealthy] [by] debts.” Though only appearing in the first line, the term הוֹי (hoy) is to be understood as elliptical in the second line.
[2:18] 6 tn Or “of what value.”
[2:18] 7 tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.
[2:18] 8 tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.
[2:18] 9 tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.
