“Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!”
My Notes
What Does Habakkuk 2:15 Mean?
Habakkuk pronounces a woe on a specific and vile form of exploitation: getting someone drunk in order to see their nakedness. "Giveth his neighbour drink" — mashqeh re'ehu — supplying alcohol to someone near you. "Puttest thy bottle to him" — sapach chamathekha — pressing your wineskin against them, actively pouring. "Makest him drunken" — aph shakker — until they're fully intoxicated. And then the purpose: "that thou mayest look on their nakedness" — l'ma'an habbit al-m'oreihem.
The Hebrew structure reveals a calculated sequence: supply, press, intoxicate, exploit. Each verb is more aggressive than the last. This isn't someone who happens to be around when a person gets drunk. This is someone who engineers the intoxication for the purpose of sexual exposure. The neighbor is the target. The alcohol is the weapon. The nakedness is the prize.
The verse describes what modern language would call predatory behavior — using a substance to lower someone's defenses for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Habakkuk saw this twenty-six centuries ago and called it exactly what it is: worthy of a woe. The Bible doesn't tiptoe around the reality of predatory conduct. It names it, curses it, and assigns divine judgment to the person who practices it.
Reflection Questions
- 1.How does hearing this verse pronounce 'woe' on predatory behavior change the way you carry shame from being exploited?
- 2.Where have you seen the calculated sequence Habakkuk describes — supply, press, intoxicate, exploit — in modern settings?
- 3.If you've been the prey, does it matter to you that God's judgment falls on the predator? Why or why not?
- 4.What responsibility do you carry to protect the vulnerable when you see someone pressing the bottle?
Devotional
This verse names something every generation knows but most refuse to confront directly: the person who gets someone drunk on purpose to exploit them. The alcohol is the tool. The vulnerability is the goal. And the nakedness — the exposure of someone who has been stripped of their ability to protect themselves — is what the whole operation was designed to produce.
Habakkuk calls this woe-worthy. Not regrettable. Not a gray area. Woe — the prophetic category reserved for behaviors that invite divine judgment. And the specificity matters: he describes the pressing of the bottle, the active pouring, the deliberate intoxication. This isn't an accident. It's a strategy. The person who does this knows what they're doing. They engineered the conditions that made the exposure possible.
If you've been the person at that party — the one whose drink was refilled by someone with an agenda, the one who woke up exposed and couldn't remember how it happened, the one who carries shame for vulnerability someone else manufactured — Habakkuk says the woe belongs to them, not to you. The shame lives on the one who pressed the bottle, not on the one who was stripped. God sees the engineering. He sees the calculation. And His verdict is unambiguous: woe. That single word carries the weight of divine disgust and divine justice aimed squarely at the predator, not the prey.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
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From cruelty the prophet goes on to denounce the woe on insolence. “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor” (to whom he…
Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink - This has been considered as applying to Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt, who…
The three foregoing articles, upon which the woes here are grounded, are very near akin to each other. The criminals…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture