Thick Clay

The phrase "thick clay" appears in Habakkuk 2:6, though the Revised Version more accurately renders the Hebrew as "pledges" — items taken as collateral from debtors. The context is a woe oracle against the Chaldeans (Babylonians), condemned for heaping up wealth through the exploitation of conquered nations. The imagery portrays an oppressor who accumulates pledges — the property of the poor held as debt securities — until the weight of injustice becomes crushing.

The Hebrew term involved appears to be a wordplay, and the precise rendering has been debated since antiquity. The theological point is clear: the Chaldeans who enriched themselves through oppression and debt-enslavement of their subjects would themselves become plunder. The passage is part of Habakkuk's series of five woe oracles against Babylonian hubris.