The second taunt begins here. As with the first one, it begins in the third person in Hebrew, Woe to him …, then changes to the second person. To avoid this change, which is rather awkward in English, Good News Translation has used the second person throughout, starting off with “You are doomed!” For other ways to translate Woe or “doomed,” see verse 6.

Him who gets evil gain for his house means people who enrich their families by unfair means. Good News Translation states it even more explicitly as “You have made your family rich with what you took by violence.” We may note here that the Hebrew word for house may mean either the building or the people who live in it, the family. In this setting there seems to be a play on this double meaning. It is of course the people rather than the building who benefit and grow wealthy from the evil gain, and this is why Good News Translation translates as “your family.” But one of the main ways in which people showed their wealth was by building luxurious houses. In verse 11 the prophet refers to the literal parts of buildings, showing that he has had both meanings of “house” in mind. Some languages may be like Hebrew in using the word “house” with this double meaning. If so, they will be able to show the full sense of the Hebrew better than English can. However, many languages will not be able to do this, and in such languages it will be better to translate “house” as “family” here. Gets evil gain (Good News Translation‘s “what you took by violence”) may be rendered as “all the things you took from others by force (or, by cheating).”

The second line, to set his nest on high, continues the double meaning but uses a metaphor. A nest is the home of a bird, and a person’s home can be spoken of figuratively as a nest. A bird which sets his nest on high builds the nest high in the mountains, where people cannot get at it. This is particularly true of eagles. But such birds are also a symbol of power and pride, and when a person is spoken of as building a nest on high, it implies that the person is showing pride and arrogance and will be punished. This picture is used several times in the Old Testament (see Num 24.21; Jer 49.16; Obadiah 4).

The purpose of building a nest on high is to be safe from the reach of harm. This suggests that Habakkuk also has in mind the literal building of homes in places where they can easily be fortified and defended from enemies.

It is very unlikely that the wording of this verse, if translated literally, would have in any other language all the associations which it has in Hebrew. This means that there is bound to be some loss in translation—not so much a loss of meaning as what we may call a loss of resonance. Good News Translation has accepted this and has translated in such a way as to keep as much of the basic meaning as possible. Good News Translation has combined the second and third lines of Revised Standard Version into one clause: “you … have tried to make your own home safe from harm and danger.” A possible translation model for the whole verse is:

• God is going to punish you! You made your family rich with all the things you took from others by force, and you have built luxurious and secure homes to try to protect your family from harm.

Another model is:

• You have made your family rich with the things you took from other people by force. You have built luxurious and secure homes to try to protect your family from harm. Because you have done all this, God will punish you.

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on the Book of Habakkuk. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .