Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Habakkuk 2:18
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Fifth and last strophe. - Hab 2:18. "What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath carved it; the molten image and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his image trusteth in him to make dumb idols? Hab 2:19. Woe to him that saith to the wood, Wake up; Awake, to the hard stone. Should it teach? Behold, it is encased in gold and silver, and there is nothing of breath in its inside. Hab 2:20. But Jehovah is in His holy temple: let all the world be silent before Him." This concluding strophe does not commence, like the preceding ones, with hōi, but with the thought which prepares the way for the woe, and is attached to what goes before to strengthen the threat, all hope of help being cut off from the Chaldaean. Like all the rest of the heathen, the Chaldaean also trusted in the power of his gods. This confidence the prophet overthrows in Hab 2:18 : "What use is it?" equivalent to "The idol is of no use" (cf. Jer 2:11; Isa 44:9-10). The force of this question still continues in massēkhâh: "Of what use is the molten image?" Pesel is an image carved out of wood or stone; massēkhâh an image cast in metal. הועיל is the perfect, expressing a truth founded upon experience, as a fact: What profit has it ever brought? Mōreh sheqer (the teacher of lies) is not the priest or prophet of the idols, after the analogy of Mic 3:11 and Isa 9:14; for that would not suit the following explanatory clause, in which עליו (in him) points back to mōreh sheqer: "that the maker of idols trusteth in him (the teacher of lies)." Consequently the mōreh sheqer must be the idol itself; and it is so designated in contrast with the true God, the teacher in the highest sense (cf. Job 36:22). The idol is a teacher of lying, inasmuch as it sustains the delusion, partly by itself and partly through its priests, that it is God, and can do what men expect from God; whereas it is nothing more than a dumb nonentity ('elı̄l 'illēm: compare εἴδωλα ἄφωνα, Co1 12:2). Therefore woe be to him who expects help from such lifeless wood or image of stone. עץ is the block of wood shaped into an idol. Hâqı̄tsâh, awake! sc. to my help, as men pray to the living God ( Psa 35:23; Psa 44:24; Psa 59:6; Isa 51:9). הוּא יורה is a question of astonishment at such a delusion. This is required by the following sentence: it is even encased in gold. Tâphas: generally to grasp; here to set in gold, to encase in gold plate (zâhâbh is an accusative). כּל אין: there is not at all. רוּח, breath, the spirit of life (cf. Jer 10:14). Hab 2:18 and Hab 2:19 contain a concise summary of the reproaches heaped upon idolatry in Isa 44:9-20; but they are formed quite independently, without any evident allusions to that passage. In Hab 2:20 the contrast is drawn between the dumb lifeless idols and the living God, who is enthroned in His holy temple, i.e., not the earthly temple at Jerusalem, but the heavenly temple, or the temple as the throne of the divine glory ( Isa 66:1), as in Mic 1:2, whence God will appear to judge the world, and to manifest His holiness upon the earth, by the destruction of the earthly powers that rise up against Him. This thought is implied in the words, "He is in His holy temple," inasmuch as the holy temple is the palace in which He is enthroned as Lord and Ruler of the whole world, and from which He observes the conduct of men ( Psa 11:4). Therefore the whole earth, i.e., all the population of the earth, is to be still before Him, i.e., to submit silently…
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