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2. The Lord's Answer

¹ I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Or and what to answer when I am rebuked

The LORD’s Answer

² Then the LORD replied:

   “Write down the revelation
   and make it plain on tablets
   so that a herald Or so that whoever reads it may run with it.
³ For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
   it speaks of the end
   and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
   it Or Though he linger, wait for him; / he will certainly come
   and will not delay.

    ⁴ “See, the enemy is puffed up;
   his desires are not upright—
   but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness Or faith—
⁵ indeed, wine betrays him;
   he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave
   and like death is never satisfied,
he gathers to himself all the nations
   and takes captive all the peoples.

⁶ “Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying,

   “‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
   and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
   How long must this go on?’
⁷ Will not your creditors suddenly arise?
   Will they not wake up and make you tremble?
   Then you will become their prey.
⁸ Because you have plundered many nations,
   the peoples who are left will plunder you.
For you have shed human blood;
   you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.

    ⁹ “Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain,
   setting his nest on high
   to escape the clutches of ruin!
¹⁰ You have plotted the ruin of many peoples,
   shaming your own house and forfeiting your life.
¹¹ The stones of the wall will cry out,
   and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.

    ¹² “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
   and establishes a town by injustice!
¹³ Has not the LORD Almighty determined
   that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire,
   that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
¹⁴ For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
   as the waters cover the sea.

    ¹⁵ “Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors,
   pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk,
   so that he can gaze on their naked bodies!
¹⁶ You will be filled with shame instead of glory.
   Now it is your turn! Drink and let your nakedness be exposed Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls, Aquila, Vulgate and Syriac (see also Septuagint) and stagger!
The cup from the LORD’s right hand is coming around to you,
   and disgrace will cover your glory.
¹⁷ The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
   and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed human blood;
   you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.

    ¹⁸ “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman?
   Or an image that teaches lies?
For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation;
   he makes idols that cannot speak.
¹⁹ Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’
   Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’
Can it give guidance?
   It is covered with gold and silver;
   there is no breath in it.”

²⁰ The LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.

We may hence easily learn, that the Prophet has not been speaking of drunkenness, but that his discourse, as we have explained, was metaphorical; for here follows a reason, why he had denounced such a punishment on the king of Babylon, and that was, because he had exercised violence, not only against all nations indiscriminately, but also against the chosen people of God. He had before only set forth in general the cruelty with which the king of Babylon had destroyed many nations; but he now speaks distinctly of the Jews, in order to show that God would in a peculiar manner be the avenger of that cruelty which the Chaldeans had employed towards the Jews, because the Lord had taken that people under his own protection. Since then the king of Babylon had assailed the children of God, who had been adopted by him, and whose defender he was, he denounces upon him here a special punishment. We thus see that this discourse is properly addressed to the Jews; for he intended to bring them some consolation in their extreme evils, so that they might strengthen their patience; for they were thereby made to see that the wrongs done to them were come to a reckoning before God.

By Libanus then we are to understand either Judea or the temple; for Libanus, as it is well known, was not far from the temple; and it is elsewhere found in the same sense. But if any extends this to the land of Judea, the meaning will be the same; there will be but little or no difference as to the subject that is handled. Because the violence then of Libanus shall overwhelm thee

Then come the words, the pillaging of beasts. Interpreters think that the Chaldeans and Assyrians are here called בהמות, bemutt, beasts, as they had been savage and cruel, like wild beasts, in laying waste Judea; but I rather understand by the beasts of Libanus those which inhabited that forest. The Prophet exaggerates the cruelty of the king of Babylon by this consideration, that he had been an enemy to brute beasts; and I consider the pronoun relative אשר, asher, which, to be understood before the verb יחיתן, ichiten, which may be taken to mean, to tear, or to frighten, Some give this rendering, “The plundering of beasts shall tear them;” as though he had said, “The Babylonians are indeed like savage beasts, but they shall be torn by their own plundering:” but another sense will be more suitable that the plundering of beasts, which terrified them, shall overwhelm thee; for the same verb, יבס, icas, shall cover or overwhelm the king of Babylon, is to be repeated here. He adds at last the clause, which was explained yesterday. We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet to be—that the king of Babylon would be justly plundered, because he had destroyed the holy land and iniquitously attacked God’s chosen people, and had also carried on his depredations through almost the whole of the Eastern world. ⁴⁵⁴⁵     It is commonly agreed, that Libanus here means either the temple or the land of Judah; most probably the last, according to the opinion of Jerome, Drusius, and others. The “violence,” or outrage, of Libanus, means the violence done to it, as Newcome and others render the clause. The next line is more difficult: if the verb be retained as it is, we must either adopt what Calvin has proposed, and after him Drusius, or take the [ו] at the beginning as a particle of comparison, according to what is done by Henderson, “As the destruction of beasts terrifieth them.” But to preserve the parallelism of the two lines, it would be better to adopt the correction of all the early versions, Sept. Arab. Syr. and also of the Chald. par.; which substitute [ד] for [ז] and make the verb to be [יחיתד]: and there are two MSS. which have [יחת]. In this case the rendering would be the following—
   Because the violence done to Libanus shall overwhelm thee;
And the depredation done to the beasts shall rend thee;
On account of the blood of men, and of violence to the land,
To the city, and to all who dwelt in it.
   The reason men are called “beasts” is because Libanus is mentioned which was inhabited by beasts; and in the two following lines the statement is more clear, and according to the order usually observed, “the depredation done to beasts” is “the blood of men;” and “the violence to Libanus” is “violence to the land.” And then, as it is often the case in the Prophets, there is an addition made to the two last lines, “To the city,” etc.— Ed. It now follows—