Habakkuk / Question
After condemning violent city-building, the text states that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” It presents a worldwide scope for knowing God’s glory. This statement is in Habakkuk 2:14.
Habakkuk 2:12–14 announces doom on any ruler or power that builds towns through violence and wrongdoing. The passage argues that such “building” is self-defeating because Yahweh rules history: the peoples’ hard work ends up feeding a coming blaze, and nations exhaust themselves for what proves empty. These verses sit inside the series of “woe” announcements in Habakkuk 2 (2:6–20), spoken against an oppressive conqueror—often heard as Babylon in the book’s setting. Habakkuk has questioned how a holy God could use a cruel empire, and the response includes both present allowance and future accountability.
Habakkuk 2:12–14 presents a moral verdict on empire-building that relies on violence. The “woe” targets a pattern: towns and cities can be “built” and “established” through bloodshed and wrongdoing, and that kind of success is condemned (explicit in verse 12). The passage also insists that this kind of project contains its own collapse.
A common mistake is to turn the wording into a slogan. The better reading keeps the phrase tied to the passage, the speaker, and the problem the book is addressing.
Start with Habakkuk 2:14, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
14For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea.