Frat boys

  Frat boys 

from Krab Drukte’s commentary on Habakkuk (in the Incoherent series, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk by Scott Bradwardine and Krab Drukte published by Rantrage Press, 2019, p. 123)* –

Habakkuk has excoriated the rich, and the violent. Now he takes on their sons. Still following the MDV (Modern Dutch Version by way of my translation into English). 

 

II. 15 Woe to him that serves drinks and puts a bit of “poison” in and makes her drunk so she’ll get naked and you can leer!  16 You should be ashamed, not full of bravado. A drink for you, too? — then you will be naked, filthy naked not glorious at all, God bless your little heart.

 

Notes

 
ii. 15.  Drinks with a bit of ‘poison’ in. Who knows? חמתךּ has been variously translated. Does it come from חמת meaning ‘waterskin’? — so the NIV renders it, which turns the water into wine. [Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors, / pouring from the wineskin till they are drunk...] Or does it, as MDV and others (the Complete Jewish Bible and most Jewish translations) believe, derive from חמת meaning ‘venom’ or ‘heat’ (which the RSV and ESV turn into ‘wrath’)? Though some pretend to, no one really knows. Our common practice is to flip a coin and then justify the heads or the tails. 

 

Commentary

 

God is replying to the prophet’s continuing question. So, great God, you can use the wicked to punish the wicked, but what then is going to happen to the wicked? Well, woe! Woe is what is going to happen to the wicked, to greedy men of business (2:6b-8), to powerful politicians (2:9-11), to those that use violence for whatever their commercial or political reasons (2:12-14). But having taken on the fathers and mothers, now the prophet and God take on their fratboy sons and daughters.
     They take on drink and drugs, and nakedness, which hasn’t been anything but lewd since Adam ate the apple. It has only ended up in Noah with his skirt up around his ears, with Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot’s skirt up around his ears.
     Sorry, that’s the way Habakkuk sees it. And so it will be; and it will be so, he says, until the Lord of Hosts intervenes, and his glory covers all our shameful attempts at getting our own.

03.06.23

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