Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity! - Nebuchadnezzar "encircled the inner city with three walls and the outer city also with three, all of burnt brick. And having fortified the city with wondrous works, and adorned the gates like temples, he built another palace near the palace of his fathers, surpassing it in height and its great magnificence." He seemed to strengthen the city, and to establish it by outward defenses. But it was built through cruelty to conquered nations, and especially God's people, and by oppression, against His holy Will. So there was an inward rottenness and decay in what seemed strong and majestic, and which imposed on the outward eye; it would not stand, but fell. Babylon, which had stood since the flood, being enlarged contrary to the eternal laws of God, fell in the reign of his son. Such is all empire and greatness, raised on the neglect of God's laws, by unlawful conquests, and by the toil and sweat and hard service of the poor. Its aggrandizement and seeming strength is its fall. Daniel's exhortation to Nebuchadnezzar Daniel 4:27, "Redeem thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy on the poor," implies that oppressiveness had been one of his chief sins.

Wo to him that buildeth a town with blood - At the expense of much slaughter. This is the answer of the beam to the stone. And these things will refer to the vast fortunes gained, and the buildings erected, by means of the slave-trade; where, to a considerate and humane mind, the walls appear as if composed of the bones of negroes, and cemented by their blood! But the towns or houses established by this iniquity soon come to ruin; and the fortunes made have, in most cases, become as chaff and dust before the whirlwind of God's indignation. But where are the dealers in the souls and bodies of men? Ask him who has them in his keeping. He can tell.

Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity! This is what the stone and beam should say, if others were silent. The town and city are the church of Rome, mystical Babylon, the great city, called spiritually Egypt and Sodom; the builder of this is the pope of Rome, the bishops of it in succession, who built it with blood: the pope of Rome received his title as head of the church from Phocas, that murdered the emperor Mauritius; the foundation of the church of Rome is the blood of the saints, shed in persecutions and wars; hence she is said to be drunk with the blood of them, and to have the blood of prophets and saints found in her, Revelation 17:5 and it is established by unjust exactions of tribute from all countries subject to it, and by indulgences, processions, and various methods taken to extort money from the people, to support its pageantry, pomp, and grandeur; but there is a "woe" denounced against such that are concerned herein, and which will take place in due time, nor can it be awarded, as follows:

buildeth a town with blood--namely, Babylon rebuilt and enlarged by blood-bought spoils (compare Daniel 4:30).

The third woe refers to the building of cities with the blood and property of strangers. Habakkuk 2:12. "Woe to him who buildeth cities with blood, and foundeth castles with injustice. Habakkuk 2:14. For the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea." The earnest endeavour of the Chaldaean to found his dynasty in permanency through evil gain, manifested itself also in the building of cities with the blood and sweat of the subjugated nations. עיר and קריה are synonymous, and are used in the singular with indefinite generality, like קריה in Habakkuk 2:8. The preposition ב, attached to דּמים and עולה, denotes the means employed to attain the end, as in Micah 3:10 and Jeremiah 22:13. This was murder, bloodshed, transportation, and tyranny of every kind. Kōnēn is not a participle with the Mem dropped, but a perfect; the address, which was opened with a participle, being continued in the finite tense (cf. Ewald, 350, a). With Habakkuk 2:13 the address takes a different turn from that which it has in the preceding woes. Whereas there the woe is always more fully expanded in the central verse by an exposition of the wrong, we have here a statement that it is of Jehovah, i.e., is ordered or inflicted by Him, that the nations weary themselves for the fire. The ו before יינעוּ introduces the declaration of what it is that comes from Jehovah. הלוא הנּה (is it not? behold!) are connected together, as in 2-Chronicles 25:26, to point to what follows as something great that was floating before the mind of the prophet. בּדי אשׁ, literally, for the need of the fire (compare Nahum 2:13 and Isaiah 40:16). They labour for the fire, i.e., that the fire may devour the cities that have been built with severe exertion, which exhausts the strength of the nations. So far they weary themselves for vanity, since the buildings are one day to fall into ruins, or be destroyed. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 51:58) has very suitably applied these words to the destruction of Babylon. This wearying of themselves for vanity is determined by Jehovah, for (Habakkuk 2:14) the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah. That this may be the case, the kingdom of the world, which is hostile to the Lord and His glory, must be destroyed. This promise therefore involves a threat directed against the Chaldaean. His usurped glory shall be destroyed, that the glory of Jehovah of Sabaoth, i.e., of the God of the universe, may fill the whole earth. The thought in Habakkuk 2:14 is formed after Isaiah 11:9, with trifling alterations, partly substantial, partly only formal. The choice of the niphal תּפּלא instead of the מלאה of Isaiah refers to the actual fact, and is induced in both passages by the different turn given to the thought. In Isaiah, for example, this thought closes the description of the glory and blessedness of the Messianic kingdom in its perfected state. The earth is then full of the knowledge of the Lord, and the peace throughout all nature which has already been promised is one fruit of that knowledge. In Habakkuk, on the other hand, this knowledge is only secured through the overthrow of the kingdom of the world, and consequently only thereby will the earth be filled with it, and that not with the knowledge of Jehovah (as in Isaiah), but with the knowledge of His glory (כּבוד יי), which is manifested in the judgment and overthrow of all ungodly powers (Isaiah 2:12-21; Isaiah 6:3, compared with the primary passage, Numbers 14:21). כּבוד יי is "the δόξα of Jehovah, which includes His right of majesty over the whole earth" (Delitzsch). יכסּוּ על־ים is altered in form, but not in sense, from the ליּם מכסּים of Isaiah; and יכסּוּ is to be taken relatively, since כ is only used as a preposition before a noun or participle, and not like a conjunction before a whole sentence (comp. Ewald, 360, a, with 337, c). לדער is an infinitive, not a noun, with the preposition ל; for מלא, ימּלא is construed with the accus. rei, lit., the earth will be filled with the acknowledging. The water of the sea is a figure denoting overflowing abundance.