1 I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
2 And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people:
6 Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay!
7 Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?
8 Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee; because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
9 Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!
10 Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.
11 For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.
12 Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!
13 Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?
14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
15 Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!
16 Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
17 For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
18 What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?
19 Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it.
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.
<html><b>On my watch I will stand</b> Habakkuk dug a circular hole, stood within it, and said, “I will not budge from here until I hear what He will say to me concerning this, my question why He looks and sees the prosperity of a wicked man.” <b>and what I will reply</b> to those who come to contend with me. <b>when I am reproved</b> <i>mon aprobement</i> in O.F.; the reproach one addresses to me. <b>when I am reproved</b> For they reprove me to my face that one should criticize the Divine standard of justice.</html>
<html><b>And the Lord answered me and said: Write</b> for yourself the vision that will be revealed to you, and explain it well on the tablets so that one may read it swiftly. And this is the vision that you shall write.</html>
<html><b>For there shall be another vision for the appointed time</b> A prophet shall yet arise at the end of the years, to whom a vision shall be revealed concerning when the appointed time shall be for the downfall of Babylon and the redemption of Israel. <b>and He shall speak of the end</b> The speech that He shall say to him concerning the end of Babylon, (Jer. 29:10) “For at the completion of seventy years of Babylon.” וְיָפֵחַ is an expression of speech; and there are many uses of this root with similar meaning in the Book of Proverbs. Since speech is only the wind emanating from the mouth, he [the writer of the Scriptures] calls it פִּיחַ, blowing, and he calls it wind, e.g., (Ps. 33:6) “And with the wind of His mouth all their host.” <b>and it shall not fail; though it tarry</b> it shall not fail to come, though that appointed time may take long to come. <b>wait for it for…; it shall not delay</b> at all after the seventy years. This clause can also be explained to mean: though he tarry, meaning the prophet Jeremiah. <i>Jonathan</i> renders: the prophecy is written and explained in the Book of the Torah. He translated כְּתֹב as כָּתוּב. It has already been alluded to in the Torah (Lev. 26:34): “Then shall the land placate [God concerning] its Sabbaths.” Israel sinned by violating seventy Sabbatical Years, in which they did not release the land, and, corresponding to them, they were exiled therefrom for seventy years. And so it is stated in II Chronicles (36:21): “Until the land placated its Sabbaths; all the days it lay waste, it rested to complete seventy years.” And so you find in Ezekiel (4:5): “And I have given you the years of their iniquity according to the number of days, three hundred and ninety days… (verse 6) I gave you a day for a year.” And Scripture says (verse 4): “And you lie on your left side, etc.” You are found saying that Israel provoked God for three hundred and ninety years until the Ten Tribes were exiled, and the tribe of Judah sinned for forty years, and from the time the Ten Tribes were exiled until the destruction of Jerusalem are the twenty-two years of Manasseh. The rest of Manasseh’s years were spent in repentance, for it is stated concerning him (II Kings 21:2f.) “And he did what was evil, etc.,… as Ahab… had made.” Therefore we count Manasseh’s evil years according to the number of Ahab’s years, and he reigned for twenty-two years. With two years of his son Amon’s reign, and eleven of Jehoiakim’s, and eleven of Zedekiah’s, the evil years total forty-six, and this prophecy was said to Ezekiel in the fifth year of Zedekiah. In any case, we find the time of their sinning four hundred and thirty years, for after this prophecy they tarried there six years. [I.e., the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained in the land for six more years] In four hundred years, there are eight Jubilee Years, and in every Jubilee cycle there are seven Release Years, making a total of fifty-six Release Years and eight years consecrated as Jubilee Years making all together sixty-four. In thirty-six years there are five Release Years, totaling sixty-nine consecrated years, and this final Jubilee year is also counted in the number, since it was not completed because of their iniquity. And here, this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Habakkuk: A vision is already written in the Torah, but it is sealed. You write and explain on the tablets, for a vision of this appointed time will yet be revealed. <b>and He shall speak</b> It is an expression [denoting] speech, and there are many similar instances throughout the book of Proverbs. Since speech is merely wind that goes out of the mouth, it is called פיח or רוח, wind, as in (Psalms 33:6) “and with the breath of His mouth, all their host.”</html>
<html><b>Behold, it is puffed up</b> The soul of the wicked man is always wroth and full of desire, longing to swallow and never satisfied. עֻפְּלָה is an expression of insolence, as in (Num. 14:44) “And they acted insolently (וַיַעְפִּילוּ)”; and (Isa. 32:14) “Rampart (עֹפֶל) and tower.” <b>his soul is not upright within him</b> His spirit is not satisfied within him, and he does not say, “What I have already acquired is enough.” Therefore, retribution shall come upon him. <b>but the righteous shall live by his faith</b> Jeconiah the king, whom this wicked man is destined to exile - his righteousness shall stand for him, and on the day this one is cast out of his grave, Evil-merodach shall raise Jehoiachin’s head and place his throne above the thrones of the kings.</html>
<html><b>And surely he, whom wine betrays</b> And surely, when Belshazzar, this one’s grandson, comes; the one whose wine shall betray him for he drank as much wine as a thousand (Dan. 5:1). <b>a haughty man whose dwelling shall not remain</b> [Belshazzar’s] dwelling and his residence shall not remain in existence, for he was haughty and said, with the counsel of the wine, to bring the vessels of the Temple; and he drank with them. That shall cause him to be slain, and the seed of Nebuchadnezzar to be destroyed, for a haughty man is a scorner; he shall not have a dwelling. Neither he nor his dwelling shall remain in existence. <b>who widened</b> Nebuchadnezzar <b>his desire like the nether-world</b> to attain all his desire with a full heart. <b>and he is like death</b> Like the angel of death, who is not sated with slaying. So is this one not sated with all his possessions.</html>
<html><b>Shall not all these</b> whom he [Belshazzar] collected for himself to pay himself tribute? <b>take up a parable against him and a figure</b> they shall take up in their mouth an expression of a riddle concerning him. <b>against him</b> like עָלָיו, upon him. <b>And he shall say</b> The one who says the figure of the riddle <b>Woe to him who increases what is not his!</b> This is the figure: Woe to him who increases wealth and kingdom, and it is not his, for the kings of Media shall come and take everything. <b>How long?</b> will he continue to increase when he is only loading upon himself a burden of iniquity like a beam of mud? עַב is an expression of a heavy beam, as we find concerning the Tabernacle of Ezekiel (Ezek. 41: 25): “And a wooden beam (וְעָב),” and (ibid. 26) “The casings of the House and the beams (וְהָעֻבִּים).”</html>
<html><b>awaken</b> like וְיָקִּיצוּ</html>
<html><b>Since you have cast away many nations</b> You have cast them and thrown them from their place. <b>all remaining peoples shall cast you away</b> The nations that escaped. <b>because of the blood of man</b> As revenge for the blood of Israel, called ‘man,’ as it is said (Ezek. 34:31): “You are man.” <b>and the violence done to the land</b> The land of Israel. <b>the city</b> Jerusalem.</html>
<html><b>Woe to him who gains evil gains</b> Who robs money which is harmful to him. <b>for his house</b> To build a house for himself <b>to place his nest on high</b> As it is written in the Book of Daniel (4:27): “Is this not the great Babylon, which I built up as a royal residence with the might of my power, etc.?” At the time this statement emanated from his mouth, [Nebuchadnezzar] was driven away from men, as it is said (ibid. 28): “When this word was still in the king’s mouth, etc.”</html>
<html><b>With this matter, you advised shame for your house</b> For you advised to cut off many peoples, and you caused a loss for yourself. <b>to cut off</b> an expression of stripping and peeling, as in (Lev. 14: 43) “Scraping the house.” <b>and you have sinned against your life</b> As in (Prov. 20:2) “He who provokes him sins against his life.” He sins to lose his life; <i>forsfait sa arme</i> in O.F. he forfeits his soul.</html>
<html><b>For a stone</b> For the stones that you stole shall cry from the wall. <b>and a chip</b> of the wood shall answer it [the stone]. It shall answer aloud the stone that is opposite it; hence both of them cry. <b>and a chip shall answer it from a beam</b> <i>Jonathan</i> renders: וְשִׁפָּא מִגּוֹ מָרֵישָׁא. שִׁפָּא is an expression of a chip; שְׁפָאִים in the language of the Sages; <i>dokldours</i> in O.F. - chips. מָרֵישׁ is a beam.</html>
<html><b>Behold, is it not from the Lord</b> that the retribution has been requited to the perpetrators of wickedness? <b>And peoples shall toil until they are sated with fire</b> When My wrath, which is like fire, shall come upon them until they are sated. בְּדֵי אֵשׁ - <i>Asec</i> in O.F.; enough; assez in modern French.</html>
<html><b>Woe to him who gives his friend to drink</b> wine; and into that drink he adds and gathers his venom upon him, and also makes him [his friend] drunk with his venom. All this he does… <b>in order to gaze upon their nakedness</b> Upon their exposure, to see their nakedness. This is the wicked Nebuchadnezzar, who would give the kings wine to drink, intoxicate them, and practice pederasty upon them, as we state in Tractate <i>Shabbath</i> (149b). Another explanation. <b>Woe to him who gives his friend to drink</b> In Seder Olam, it [this verse] is expounded regarding Belshazzar, who gave the princes to drink with the vessels of the Temple, because of which they were smitten with zaraath and intoxicated by the wrath of the Holy One, blessed be He. On that night he [Belshazzar] was slain. <b>upon their nakedness</b> So that their disgrace be revealed, and their enemies see their disgrace.</html>
<html><b>and become clogged up</b> The “he” serves in this word as an expression of the reflexive, as in (Deut. 32:50) “And you shall be gathered to your people.” Here, too, הֵעָרֵל - you shall become clogged up with bewilderment and with astonishment of heart. Every expression of עָרְלָה is an expression of clogging, like (Jer. 6:10) “Their ear is clogged” and (Ezek 44:7) “Of clogged heart and of uncircumcised flesh.” <i>Jonathan</i> rendered: And become naked, an expression of (ibid. 16:7) “Naked and bare.”</html>
<html><b>the violence of the Lebanon</b> the Temple. <b>and the plunder of cattle</b> The plunder of your cattle, and your hordes that plundered My people Israel, shall break you. <b>because of the blood of man</b> Because of the violence done to the blood of Israel. <b>and the violence of the land</b> The land of Israel. <b>a city</b> Jerusalem.</html>
<html><b>What did a graven image avail</b> Babylon? <b>that the maker of his work trusted</b> The man who formed it, who is the maker of this god of his. <b>in it</b> He trusts in this creation of his, that it assists him, so he comes to make dumb idols.</html>
<html><b>Shall it teach?</b> This is a question.</html>
<html><b>But the Lord is in His Holy Temple</b> ready to exact retribution. <b>Silence the whole earth before Him</b> הַס is an expression of silencing and the silence of destruction.</html>