Bible Mountain Essay on Habakkuk 2:15-17
Our society frequently warns people about the risk of being taken advantage of while drunk. Young ladies especially are warned about the danger of a male spiking their drink. While there may be penalties for spiking someone’s drink, prevention usually focuses on teaching people how not to be a victim.
In contrast, today’s passage focuses on the perpetrators. Habakkuk contains a woe against those who use alcohol to take advantage of other people. Yahweh does not look kindly on those who turn people into victims.
Watch the video to learn more or scroll down to read the transcript.
Transcript:
Alcohol brings many pleasures to many people. A can of beer can help someone relax at the end of a long day. A glass of wine can add just the right flavor to a meal. Alcohol can settle a stomach.
Alcohol is also a danger. Beer and wine cause drunkenness, which causes people to lose control and do stupid things. The biggest risk with alcohol is that every little bit of alcohol causes a little loss of control and is a step towards drunkenness.
Since alcohol leads to drunkenness, some people use alcohol to take advantage of people. They give free beer or wine to their target in order to get them drunk. Once their target has lost control, they can be taken advantage of physically and sexually, or perhaps be persuaded to divulge secrets that can be used against them.
Our society frequently warns people about the risk of being taken advantage of while drunk. Young ladies especially are warned about the danger of a male spiking their drink. While there may be penalties for spiking someone’s drink, prevention usually focuses on teaching people how not to be a victim.
In contrast, today’s passage focuses on the perpetrators. Habakkuk contains a woe against those who use alcohol to take advantage of other people. Yahweh does not look kindly on those who turn people into victims.
The beginning of Habakkuk is a dialogue between Habakkuk and Yahweh in which Habakkuk asked Yahweh why He allows the actions of evil people. Yahweh assured Habakkuk that eventually everyone will face justice.
Then Yahweh issued a couple woes. The first woe was against being greedy for evil gain. The second woe was against using bloodshed and injustice. The third woe was against those who use drink as a weapon.
Hab. 2:15 ¶ “Woe to you who make your neighbors drink,
Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk
So as to look on their nakedness!
Overall, this book is about the Israelites and the Chaldeans. Most of what was written about the Chaldeans pertained to how they operated as a nation. Verse 15 focuses more on individual people. It is a woe against a person who gets their neighbors drunk in order to take advantage of them.
This was not just a problem in Bible times, this has happened throughout history. It happens today. Alcohol is dangerous and so it is commonly used as a weapon to take advantage of other people. This verse clearly denounces those who make people drunk in order to have their way with them.
Hab. 2:16 You will be filled with disgrace rather than glory.
Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness.
The cup in Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you,
And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.
Those who use alcohol to harm people will be filled with disgrace, not glory. Yahweh Himself will bring harm to the perpetrators.
Hab. 2:17 For the violence done to Lebanon will cover you,
And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them,
Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,
To the town and all its inhabitants.
minor break
The Chaldeans were from the Mesopotamian Valley, which is the valley formed by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Today, this area is in the country of Iraq. Lebanon is the area north of Israel. The Chaldeans had to travel through Lebanon in order to get to Israel in order to bring Yahweh’s justice upon the Israelites.
At verse 17 the wording switches to the Chaldeans as a nation and the violence they did to Lebanon. It is not clear if the Chaldeans used alcohol to dull the people in Lebanon so that they could not fight effectively, or if the reference to alcohol in this woe is simply an illustration of how the Chaldeans terrified the people of Lebanon.
Either way, it is clearly wrong to make someone drunk so as to abuse them. Likewise, the Chaldeans were going to be held accountable for the bloodshed and violence they committed in Lebanon.
It is common in our society to warn people about the risk of someone else getting them drunk and taking advantage of them. Today’s passage is a warning against being the person who uses alcohol as a tool to harm people. It is also a warning against using violence against other people as an individual or as a nation. Anyone who uses violence against other people face the risk that Yahweh will bring violence upon them. As individuals and nations, we should not be violent, and we should not use alcohol, or any other weakness, as a weapon to victimize people.
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“Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. LSBible.org and 316publishing.com.”