Habakkuk’s woe song in Hab. 2:6-20 denounces the abuse of power in his context, while using the foundations of and allusions to other Scriptures. This paper analyzes those connections to examine the Habakkuk’s methods of communicating ethics in the late 7th century BC, based on texts that were still applicable to God’s people.
While communicating through heavy metaphor use in five stanzas, the woe song of Habakkuk condemns theft, unjust gain, violence, manipulation, and idolatry. Thus, Habakkuk models a paradigm for the use of God’s revealed character and expectations applied to the ethics in the context of a coming Babylonian superpower and the “wicked” (Hab. 1:4) in Judah misusing their position at the expense of others. Seeing Babylon as primarily the fictive audience, at least some of Habakkuk’s hearers would have been capable of recognizing the allusions and grasping how the “paralyzed torah” (Hab. 1:4) continued to apply.
The study of intertextuality within Habakkuk has primarily focused on the use of Hab. 2:4 within the New Testament and the references within Habakkuk’s psalm of chapter 3 to Old Testament acts of God. This paper gives attention to the central section of the prophetic book, which has not seen as much attention. The inner-biblical work done in the Habakkuk 2:6-20 oracle has focused on the poetry’s incorporation of other texts in the central woe of 2:12-14 (i.e. Mic. 3:10; Prov. 24:3; Is. 6:3, 11:9. See the work of Heath Thomas, Gary Schnittjer, and others). Yet, the study of Habakkuk’s use of Scripture in the other woes of 2:6-20, integrated into the intensified allusions of 2:12-14, allows us to see the larger picture of his methods.
With a mind towards the example of Gordon Wenham’s chapter on the Psalms’ allusion to and expression of the ethics of the Decalogue, this paper will 1) detect verbal and conceptual parallels, examining context and syntax as well 2) study donor, receptor, and vertical contexts, and 3) consider a few thoughts on use of Scripture for ethics based on Habakkuk’s woe song. Ultimately, the intertextual use of Habakkuk in his judgment oracle may instruct in the use of Scripture for moral application.