“What profit is an idol
Habakkuk 2:18-20
when its maker has shaped it,
a metal image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in his own creation
when he makes speechless idols!
Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;
to a silent stone, Arise!
Can this teach?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in it.
But the LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth keep silence before him.”
The final woe of Habakkuk uses three words for silence: speechless (mute) idols (verse 18), silent stone (verse 19), and people commanded to be silent before the Lord (verse 20). What can we hear from this silence?
Silent Stone Statues
Last time we looked at the different words Habakkuk uses for idols. No matter how they are made or what they are made of, they have this in common: they can’t speak. People worshipped these statues and wanted to hear from their gods, but they never spoke.
He first describes them as speechless or mute (Hebrew ilem). This word is often coupled with other impairments, like being deaf or blind. For instance, when Moses told the Lord he was a poor speaker, the Lord responded by asking, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute (ilem), or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” (Exodus 4:11).
Next he describes them as silent (Hebrew dumam). This specific word is only found elsewhere in Isaiah 47:5 (describing the Chaldeans sitting in silence over their defeat) and Lamentations 3:26 (waiting quietly for the Lord’s salvation). A closely related word, dumah, describes the silence of death. The Psalmist says that if the Lord had not rescued him, “my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence (dumah)” (Psalm 94:17). Another word, dumiah, has the idea of silent rest: “For God alone my soul waits in silence (dumiah); / from him comes my salvation” (Psalm 62:1).
Quiet!
Habakkuk ends this woe saying “let all the earth keep silence before him”. Actually, that translation isn’t forceful enough. The silence here is a command: “Hush before him, all the earth!” The Hebrew word is הַס (chas), which sounds similar to the English word “hush”. It’s typically used to quiet people to hear something important. Caleb quieted the people to tell them they were able to take the land (Numbers 13:30). When Ehud told Eglon, king of Moab he had a secret message for him, Eglon told him, “Silence!” (Judges 3:19). After hearing the law read by Ezra, the people wept, but the Levites calmed the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved” (Nehemiah 8:11). When something important is said, we need to silence our phones and our selves and listen!
The Lord’s Temple
Why is he asking people to be quiet? It is because “the Lord is in his holy temple”.
Typically when we read “temple” in our English Bibles, it’s the word bayit, house. This is different word, however: hekal, which is translated temple or palace (think big, special house). Typically the Temple in Jerusalem is called God’s bayit. God’s “holy temple” (hekal kadosh) appears in a handful of other passages: Psalm 5:7, 11:4, 65:4, 79:1, 138:2, Jonah 2:4, 7, and Micah 1:2. When they speak of God’s hekal, it is ambiguous whether they are talking of the Temple in Jerusalem or in heaven.
The prophet Zechariah says something similar to Habakkuk. “Be silent (chas), all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13). Zephaniah likewise commands silence before the Lord because his day of judgment is coming. “Be silent (chas) before the Lord GOD! / For the day of the LORD is near” (Zephaniah 1:7). A leader asks for silence from a crowd, and they quiet down. All the more when God speaks!
To Ponder…
What voices are you listening for which don’t help?
What does it look like to be silent before the Lord?