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! – Habakkuk 2:15

Today's Scripture Reading (April 6, 2020): Habakkuk 2

Part of playing any sport or game is learning the art of deception. To win, you have to make your opponent believe that you are doing one thing when the reality is that you are doing something very different. The better you are at selling your opponent on what you are not going to do, the more likely it will be that you will be successful with what you are going to do.

From a modern perspective, we read this passage, and it brings the image of date-rape drugs or predators who get people drunk so that they can take advantage of them. They offer alcohol as a friend in the hope that the target will lower their guard, allowing the predator to take what they want. But it is not this kind of very personal image that Habakkuk likely had on his mind. Habakkuk was probably thinking about the Babylonian tactic of getting the nations to share their lust for power and enticing them to "share a drink with them," which is likely both a metaphoric and literal expression. The Babylonian Empire was willing to offer to the weaker nations that surrounded them promises, alliances, and even shower them with honors to gain their friendship. Still, these actions had only one purpose: the destruction of the target nations. There was a subtle poison in the drink of friendship that Babylon offered. The wineskin represented a trap that had been set to deliver the countries into the hands of the Babylonians. And, when the nation had lowered their guard, the Babylonian army would march in and take the land. As a result of that defeat, at least a portion of the citizens of the nation would be marched into exile naked or semi-naked. Habakkuk is appalled at the practice. And his words are directed at the Babylonian Empire, who gets their neighbors drunk so that they can defeat them and march them into exile naked.

But Habakkuk also presents an image of the way that the Babylonian Empire would end. It was an Empire that reveled in its excesses, and the prophet Daniel gives us this description of the last night of the Empire.

King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.

That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two. (Daniel 5:1-4; 30-31).

The kingdom who lured its enemies into its clutches by sharing the party with them ended, maybe appropriately, on a night when its leaders were attending a grand party of their own.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 3