Albert Barnes Commentary Habakkuk 2:19

"Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise! Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it." — Habakkuk 2:19 (ASV)

But then the greater is the “Woe” to him who deceives by them. The prophet passes away from the idols as “nothings” and pronounces “woe” on those who deceive by them. He first expostulates with them on their folly and would awaken them: What has it profited? (1 Corinthians 12:2). Then on the obstinate he denounces “woe”: Woe to him who says to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise.

Self-made blindness alone could, in the light of truth, speak this way. But even more lies in the emphatic word, “It.” The personal pronoun stands emphatically in Hebrew; He shall teach; indeed, He (this same one of whom he speaks) is It which shall teach: It, and not the living God.

And yet this same It (the word is again emphatic), he points to it as with a finger: behold, It is laid over with, held fast by, gold and silver, so that no voice could escape, if it had any. And there is no breath at all in the midst of it (Compare Jeremiah 10:14, repeated in Jeremiah 51:17). Literally, All breath, all that is breath, there is none within it.

He first suggests the thought of breath of every sort, and then energetically denies it all; no life of any sort, of human, or bird, or beast, or creeping thing (Isaiah 41:23; Jeremiah 10:5); none, good or bad; from God or from Satan; none by which it can do good or evil, for which it should be loved or feared.

Evil spirits may have made use of idols: they could not give them life, nor dwell in them.

The words addressed to it are the language of the soul in the seeming absence or silence of God (Psalms 7:7; Psalms 35:23; Psalms 44:24; Psalms 59:6; Isaiah 51:9; Delitzsch), but mockery as spoken to the senseless stone, as Elijah had mocked the Baal-priests, peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked (1 Kings 18:26–27).