Habakkuk 2:6

"Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his? how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges!"

Beginning with this verse, there are five woes pronounced against Babylon, of three verses each, and taking the form of repeated maledictions voiced spontaneously by the oppressed peoples themselves who had fallen under the feet of the conqueror. Oppression always provokes just such hatred and denunciation against the oppressor as that described in these verses.

Against aggression. "Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his ... and that ladeth himself with pledges." This refers to the conquest of other peoples and the burdening of them with tribute, taken in the form of pledges, and bound upon the people perpetually. Kerr was doubtless correct in seeing the Pentateuch as a background of these words. The use of "pledges," a word found nowhere else in the Bible, derived from, "The Hebrew abhorrence of the usurer and the Levitical laws regarding pledges."[18]