Nahum 3:5-15

5 Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame.

6 I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and make you a gazingstock.

7 And all who look on you will shrink from you and say, Wasted is Nin'eveh; who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for her?

8 Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?

9 Ethiopia was her strength, Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

10 Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity; her little ones were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men lots were cast, and all her great men were bound in chains.

11 You also will be drunken, you will be dazed; you will seek a refuge from the enemy.

12 All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs--if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.

13 Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your foes; fire has devoured your bars.

14 Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; go into the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!

15 There will the fire devour you, the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust, multiply like the grasshopper!

Nahum 3:5-15 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.