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Nahum 3:11-19

Listen to Nahum 3:11-19
11 You[a] also will become drunk; you will hide yourself.[b] You also will seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are fig trees with figs that ripened first; when shaken, they fall- right into the mouth of the eater!
13 Look, your troops are women among you; the gates of your land are wide open to your enemies. Fire will devour the bars [of your gates].
14 Draw water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Step into the clay and tread the mortar; take hold of the brick-mold!
15 The fire will devour you there; the sword will cut you down. It will devour you like the young locust.[c] Multiply yourselves like the young locust, multiply like the swarming locust!
16 You have made your merchants[d] more numerous than the stars of the sky. The young locust strips[e] [the land] and flies away.
17 Your court officials are like the swarming locust, and your scribes like clouds of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day; when the sun rises, they take off, and no one knows where they are.
18 King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your officers sleep.[f] Your people are scattered across the mountains with no one to gather [them] together.[g]
19 There is no remedy for your injury; your wound is severe.[h] All who hear the news about you will clap their hands because of you, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty?

Nahum 3:11-19 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NAHUM 3

In this chapter is contained the prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh, and with it the whole Assyrian empire; the causes of which, besides those before mentioned, were the murders, lies, and robberies it was full of, Na 3:1 for which it should be swiftly and cruelly destroyed, Na 3:2,3 as also its whoredoms and witchcrafts, or idolatry, by which nations and families were seduced, Na 3:4 and hence she should be treated as a harlot, her nakedness exposed, and she cast out with contempt, and mocked at by all, Na 3:5-7 and all those things she placed her confidence in are shown to be of no avail; as her situation and fortresses, as she might learn from the case of No Amon, Na 3:8-12 nor the number of her inhabitants, which were weak as women; nor even her merchants, captains, nobles, and king himself, Na 3:13-18 nor the people she was in alliance with, who would now mock at her, her case being irrecoverable and incurable, Na 3:19.

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Footnotes 8

  • [a] Nineveh
  • [b] Or will be overcome
  • [c] Jl 1:4
  • [d] Ezk 27:1-9
  • [e] Or sheds [its skin]
  • [f] Probably sleep in death
  • [g] 1 Kg 22:17
  • [h] Jr 10:19; 14:17; 30:12
Holman Christian Standard Bible ® Copyright © 2003, 2002, 2000, 1999 by Holman Bible Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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