Context No. 3070 of 4322 · Habakkuk

Habakkuk 2:12-20: in context

12Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! 13Behold, isn’t it from the LORD of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? 14For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory, as the waters cover the sea. 15“Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! 16You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink and be exposed! The cup of the LORD’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. 17For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals will terrify you, because of men’s blood and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them. 18“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? 19Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it. 20But the LORD is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”

Habakkuk pronounces woes on those who build a city by bloodshed and on idol-makers who trust in lifeless wood and stone. But in the midst of the woes shines a promise: the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And the passage ends with a command that answers all the noise: the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.

Amid the woes on violence and idolatry comes that shining line about the whole earth flooded with the knowledge of God's glory. The empires built on blood and the idols with no breath in them will pass, but God's glory will one day cover the earth as the sea covers its bed. And then the closing command, against the clamor of idols that cannot speak and tyrants who build with blood, stands the living God, and the right response is awed silence. The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be still.

Amid the noise of a violent world and its lifeless idols, can I fall silent before the living God who is in his holy temple, and hope for the day his glory fills the earth?

Sources

Habakkuk 2:14: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD's glory, as the waters cover the sea."
Habakkuk 2:20: "But the LORD is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!"
Isaiah 11:9: "For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea."