What Does Habakkuk 2:7 Mean in the King James?
Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “bite” shares its root with “interest,” so the verse names extraction as a bite that can return to the one who takes.
THE MEANING
When taking feels secure, this verse exposes its instability: those who bite rise suddenly, and those who shake you bring you fully awake. The one who expects to keep the spoils becomes spoil in another’s hands. The reversal is already built into the act of extraction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that taking can remain one-way, leaving the extractor untouched.
THE ROOT
נֹשְׁכֶיךָ
nōšəḵêḵā
GROWS FROM
נשך
n-sh-k
to bite; the same root also names interest that bites into what another has.
The Hebrew calls these pursuers “your biters,” using נשך, the root also found in the word for interest. That echo makes extraction feel like a bite, and leaves open the verse’s unsettling reversal, where the taker becomes prey.
ALSO GROWS
nashakh: to bite
נָשַׁךְ
This is the bodily image used for those who rise against the person being addressed.
neshekh: interest or usury
נֶשֶׁךְ
The same root names a financial taking as a bite, linking the verse’s pursuers with the language of extraction.
THE PATTERN
What is taken through oppression can turn back upon the one who takes it.
Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.THE THREAD
He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.Habakkuk calls the pursuers “biters,” from נשך, the same root used in נֶשֶׁךְ, “interest” or “usury.” Proverbs shows the other side of that root: what grows through the bite is gathered into someone else’s hands.
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