Nahum 3:14-19

14 Get enough water before the long war begins. Make your defenses strong! Get mud, mix clay, make bricks!

15 There the fire will burn you up. The sword will kill you; like grasshoppers eating crops, the battle will completely destroy you. Grow in number like hopping locusts; grow in number like swarming locusts!

16 Your traders are more than the stars in the sky, but like locusts, they strip the land and then fly away.

17 Your guards are like locusts. Your officers are like swarms of locusts that hang on the walls on a cold day. When the sun comes up, they fly away, and no one knows where they have gone.

18 King of Assyria, your rulers are asleep; your important men lie down to rest. Your people have been scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to bring them back.

19 Nothing can heal your wound; your injury will not heal. Everyone who hears about you applauds, because everyone has felt your endless cruelty.

Nahum 3:14-19 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.