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it <i>is</i> all full of lies <i>and</i> robbery; the prey departeth not;</div>(1) <span class= "bld">Woe to the bloody city</span>!—Better, <span class= "ital">O bloody city! She is altogether deceit, filled with crime: she ceases not from plunder.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-2.htm">Nahum 3:2</a></div><div class="verse">The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">The noise of</span> . . .—Better, <span class= "ital">Hark to the whip, and hark to the rattling of the wheel, and the horse galloping, and the chariot bounding.</span> The entry of the victorious besiegers is here described.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-3.htm">Nahum 3:3</a></div><div class="verse">The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and <i>there is</i> a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and <i>there is</i> none end of <i>their</i> corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:</div>(3) <span class= "bld">The horseman lifteth up</span>.—Better, <span class= "ital">There is the rearing horseman and the flaming sword, and the glittering lance, and a multitude of wounded, and a mass of corpses</span> . . .<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-4.htm">Nahum 3:4</a></div><div class="verse">Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.</div>(4-6) Because of the multitude.—In the idolatry and superstition of Nineveh the prophet finds the cause of her destruction. Perversion of religious instinct is frequently denounced under the same figure in Scripture. Here, however, a more literal interpretation is possible, since there is reason to believe the religious rites of Assyria were characterised, like those of Babylon, by gross sensuality. According to Herod, i. 199, the Babylonian worship of Beltis or Mylitta was connected with a system of female prostitution, which was deemed “most shameful” even by the heathen historian. Compare also the Apocryphal Book of Bar 6:43. The same deity was worshipped in Assyria. Professor Rawlinson writes: “It would seem to follow almost as a matter of course that the worship of the same identical goddess in the adjoining country included a similar usage. It may be to this practice that the prophet Nahum alludes when he denounces Nineveh as a ‘well-favoured harlot,’ the multitude of whose harlotries was notorious” (<span class= "ital">Five Great Monarchies,</span> ii. 41).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-7.htm">Nahum 3:7</a></div><div class="verse">And it shall come to pass, <i>that</i> all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Shall flee</span> from thee.—As in the case of the destruction of Korah, men flee from the stricken city lest they share her punishment. Nor is she an object of compassion whose cruelties have been as extensive as her empire. Hers is the fate of the fallen tyrant—left to<p>__________“vainly groan.<p>With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-8.htm">Nahum 3:8</a></div><div class="verse">Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, <i>that had</i> the waters round about it, whose rampart <i>was</i> the sea, <i>and</i> her wall <i>was</i> from the sea?</div>(8) <span class= "bld">Populous No.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">No Amon.</span> Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, was known to the Hebrews as “No Amon” (perhaps, “house of the god Amon;” similarly the Greeks called it <span class= "greekheb">Διόσπολις</span>). Assyria herself had reduced the power of Thebes. (1) Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, had defeated Shebah, the Egyptian Tar-dan, at Rapikh, cir. B.C. 716. (2) Esar-haddon, Sennacherib’s son, had routed the forces of Tirhakah, subjugated the whole of the Nile valley, and taken the city where Tirhakah held his court, probably Thebes, cir. B.C. 670. (3) Asshur-bani-pal invaded Egypt in the year of his accession, B.C. 668, and reinstated certain rulers of his father’s appointment, whom Tirhakah had driven out. In B.C. 665, another revolt brought this king again into Egypt. On this occasion Thebes was certainly sacked, and a large booty, including “gold, silver, precious stones, dyed garments, captives (male and female), tame animals brought up in the palace, obelisks, &c., was carried off, and conveyed to Nineveh” <span class= "ital">{Five Great Monarchies,</span> ii. 203). The present passage may refer either to this event or to Esar-haddon’s previous capture of Thebes. The fall of the city was certainly a thing of the past when Nahum wrote. The allusion, therefore, helps us to assign the date of the composition (see Introduction). To mere human reasoning the downfall of Thebes testified to the power of Assyria, its conqueror. But to the inspired vision of Nahum, the ruin of the one world-power is an earnest of the ruin of the other. Both had been full of luxury and oppression, both were hated of mankind and opposed to God. If No-Amon has fallen, the city of the hundred gates, the metropolis of the Pharaohs, the conqueror whose countless captives reared the pyramids, why shall Nineveh stand? If Nineveh is protected by rivers—the Tigris and the Khausser—had not Thebes a rampart in the Nile, that “sea” of waters (comp. <a href="/isaiah/19-5.htm" title="And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.">Isaiah 19:5</a>), and its numerous canals? If Nineveh relies on subordinate or friendly states—Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Syria—had not Thebes all the resources of Africa—Ethiopia in the south, the Egypts in the north, her Libyan allies, Put and the Lubim, in the north-west? Yet what was the fate of No Amon? Her youth carried off in the slave-gangs of Assyria; her infants dashed to pieces at the street-corner (<a href="/2_kings/8-12.htm" title="And Hazael said, Why weeps my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel: their strong holds will you set on fire, and their young men will you slay with the sword, and will dash their children, and rip up their women with child.">2Kings 8:12</a>), as unprofitable to the captor; her senators reserved to grace a triumph, and assigned to the Assyrian generals by lot (<a href="/obadiah/1-11.htm" title="In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots on Jerusalem, even you were as one of them.">Obadiah 1:11</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-11.htm">Nahum 3:11</a></div><div class="verse">Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.</div>(11, 12) <span class= "bld">Thou also shalt be drunken</span>.—Nineveh also shall be <span class= "ital">drunken</span> with the cup of God’s wrath (see <a href="/habakkuk/2-16.htm" title="You are filled with shame for glory: drink you also, and let your foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the LORD's right hand shall be turned to you, and shameful spewing shall be on your glory.">Habakkuk 2:16</a>), yea, <span class= "ital">hid</span> from recollection, so that men shall ask, “Where is Nineveh?” (Comp. <a href="/nahum/2-11.htm" title="Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid?">Nahum 2:11</a>.) She, too, shall vainly <span class= "ital">seek a fortress</span> (Authorised Version, “strength”) to give her shelter, all her own strongholds having fallen as easily as the ripe fruit from the fig-tree.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-13.htm">Nahum 3:13</a></div><div class="verse">Behold, thy people in the midst of thee <i>are</i> women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">Thy people . . . are women,</span> not in their notoriously effeminate and luxurious habits (see Layard, p. 360), but with reference to their panic-stricken condition at the time of the catastrophe. They are fearful as women (comp. <a href="/jeremiah/50-37.htm" title="A sword is on their horses, and on their chariots, and on all the mingled people that are in the middle of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is on her treasures; and they shall be robbed.">Jeremiah 50:37</a>; <a href="/jeremiah/51-30.htm" title="The mighty men of Babylon have declined to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might has failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwelling places; her bars are broken.">Jeremiah 51:30</a>), because they find avenues laid open to the enemy, and the remaining defences consuming in the flames.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-14.htm">Nahum 3:14</a></div><div class="verse">Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">Draw thee waters.</span>—In this desperate plight Nineveh is scoffingly advised to protract her resistance. The outer walls are broken down; let her hold out in the citadel. Nay, let her begin anew her preparations for defence. Let her lay in water and provision, and build new buttresses of brick. What shall it avail her? In the midst of her preparations, fire and sword shall again surprise her. The account of this last struggle for existence is minute. Nahum goes back to the repair of the brick-kiln, just as Isaiah, in his description of idol-worship, goes back to the smith working with the tongs, and the carpenter measuring with his rule (<a href="/isaiah/44-12.htm" title="The smith with the tongs both works in the coals, and fashions it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his arms: yes, he is hungry, and his strength fails: he drinks no water, and is faint.">Isaiah 44:12</a>, <span class= "ital">seq.</span>)<span class= "ital">.</span> In both cases the irony gains force by a minute and elaborate description of operations destined to be futile.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-15.htm">Nahum 3:15</a></div><div class="verse">There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.</div>(15, 16) The diversion of metaphor here is somewhat repugnant to modern taste. The sword, like the locust, shall devour Nineveh. Yet Nineveh is immediately afterwards compared in its numbers, destructive influence, and sudden disappearance to the locust. It is a transition like St. Paul’s “going off at a word.” The comparison of the locust suggests the thought that Nineveh herself has been a locust-pest to the world, and the direction of the metaphor is thereupon suddenly changed. A paraphrase will best bring out the meaning. (15) “Hostile swords devour thee, as a locust swarm devours. Vainly clusters together thy dense population, itself another locust-swarm. (16) Yea, as the stars of heaven for number have been thy merchants, as a pest of locusts which plunders one day and is gone the next.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-16.htm">Nahum 3:16</a></div><div class="verse">Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and flieth away.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Spoileth.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">spreads itself out:</span> swarms out to spoil.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-17.htm">Nahum 3:17</a></div><div class="verse">Thy crowned <i>are</i> as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, <i>but</i> when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they <i>are</i>.</div>(17) <span class= "bld">Thy crowned.</span>—The subordinate kings who represent the Assyrian empire in her tributary provinces.<p><span class= "bld">Captains.</span>—<span class= "ital">Taphs</span>’<span class= "ital">rîm,</span> an Assyrian term denoting some high military office. The sudden disappearance of the Assyrian locust-pest is here enlarged upon. A sudden outburst of sunshine will sometimes induce a swarm of locusts to take flight; cold, on the other hand, makes these insects settle, and soon deprives them of the power of flying. Dr. Pusey well observes, “The heathen conqueror rehearsed his victory, ‘I came, I saw, conquered.’ The prophet goes further, as the issue of all human conquest, ‘I disappeared.’” The insect designations, rendered in Authorised Version, “cankerworm,” “locust,” “great grasshopper,” all represent varieties of the locust species.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-18.htm">Nahum 3:18</a></div><div class="verse">Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell <i>in the dust</i>: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth <i>them</i>.</div>(18) <span class= "bld">Shepherds</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, chief officers, as in <a href="/micah/5-2.htm" title="But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall he come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.">Micah 5:2</a> and <span class= "ital">passim.</span> Their sheep are “scattered upon the mountains and none attempts to gather them.” So Micaiah announces to Ahab, “I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills as sheep that have not a shepherd” (<a href="/1_kings/22-17.htm" title="And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master: let them return every man to his house in peace.">1Kings 22:17</a>).<p><span class= "bld">Thy nobles shall dwell.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">thy mighty men are lying still.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/nahum/3-19.htm">Nahum 3:19</a></div><div class="verse"><i>There is</i> no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?</div>(19) <span class= "bld">Clap the hands over thee.</span>—All that hear the “bruit” or report of the fall of Nineveh clap their hands with joy (<a href="/psalms/47-1.htm" title="O clap your hands, all you people; shout to God with the voice of triumph.">Psalm 47:1</a>), for where has not her oppressive rule been felt? The verse is addressed to the king (second person masculine) as the representative of the empire, perhaps also in view of his terrible end. The cruelty of the Ninevite <span class= "ital">régime</span> is illustrated, as Kleinert remarks, in the sculptures, “by the rows of the impaled, the prisoners through whose lips rings were fastened, whose eyes were put out, who were flayed alive. Consequently it would be a joy to all nations to hear the voice of the messengers of the tyrant no more (<a href="/nahum/2-13.htm" title="Behold, I am against you, said the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions: and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall no more be heard.">Nahum 2:13</a>), but to hear that of the messengers of his destruction.”<p><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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