Habakkuk 2:13

The people shall labour in the very fire] RV 'The peoples labour for the fire': i.e. their cities, built with blood, will be consigned to the flames. The parallel clause (Habakkuk 2:13) shows that the meaning is, their efforts are spent in vain.

15-17. The fifth Woe. The references in Habakkuk 2:15 to intoxication must, as Habakkuk 2:17 shows, be taken figuratively. The meaning is that the Chaldeans have dealt with other nations in a spirit of contemptuous cruelty, depriving them of their strength, and doing with them what they would. They will, therefore, be punished, as before, in kind, being compelled by Jehovah to drink the cup they had held to the lips of others. A specimen of their highhandedness is given in Habakkuk 2:17 : they had robbed the land and the beasts of their rights—for they, too, have rights—by destroying the cedars of Lebanon to secure material for their own palatial buildings.

18, 19. The sixth woe. The real explanation of the immorality of the Chaldeans is to be found in their foolish conception of God (cp. Habakkuk 1:11). They worshipped idols, gorgeous indeed, but stupid, impotent, dumb, and lifeless.