Nahum 3:5-19

5 ¹Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and ²will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at ³your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame.

6 I will throw filth at you and ⁴treat you with contempt and make you ⁵a spectacle.

7 And all who look at you ⁶will shrink from you and say, Wasted is ⁷Nineveh; ⁸who will grieve for her? ⁹Where shall I seek comforters for you?

8 ¹⁰Are you better than ¹¹Thebes^[a] that sat ¹²by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?

9 ¹³Cush was her strength; Egypt too, and that without limit; ¹⁴Put and the ¹⁵Libyans were her^[b] helpers.

10 ¹⁶Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity; ¹⁷her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men ¹⁸lots were cast, ¹⁹and all her great men were bound in chains.

11 ²⁰You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding; ²¹you will seek a refuge from the enemy.

12 All your fortresses are ²²like fig trees with first-ripe figs-- if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.

13 Behold, your troops ²³are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars.

14 ²⁴Draw water for the siege; ²⁵strengthen 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 ²⁶devour you ²⁷like the locust. Multiply yourselves ²⁸like the locust; multiply ²⁹like the grasshopper!

16 You increased ³⁰your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. ³¹The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

17 Your ³²princes are ³³like grasshoppers, ³⁴your scribes^[c] like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold-- when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are.

18 Your shepherds ³⁵are asleep, O king of Assyria; ³⁶your nobles slumber. Your people ³⁷are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.

19 There is no easing your hurt; ³⁸your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you ³⁹clap their hands over you. For ⁴⁰upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?

Nahum 3:5-19 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.

Cross References

• 1. [See Nahum 2:13 above]
• 2. Jeremiah 13:22, 26; [Isaiah 3:17; Isaiah 47:3]
• 3. Habakkuk 2:16
• 4. Malachi 2:9; [Nahum 1:14]
• 5. Hebrews 10:33; [1 Corinthians 4:9]
• 6. Jeremiah 51:9; Revelation 18:10
• 7. [Zephaniah 2:13]; See Nahum 1:1
• 8. Isaiah 51:19; Jeremiah 15:5
• 9. Lam. 1:2, 9, 16, 17, 21
• 10. [Amos 6:2]
• 11. Jeremiah 46:25
• 12. [Ezekiel 29:3]
• 13. See Daniel 11:43
• 14. Genesis 10:6
• 15. See 2 Chronicles 12:3
• 16. Isaiah 20:4
• 17. Isaiah 13:16
• 18. Joel 3:3; Obadiah 11
• 19. [Psalms 149:8]
• 20. Jeremiah 25:17, 27; [Psalms 75:8; Isaiah 51:17; Obadiah 16]
• 21. [Jeremiah 4:5, 6]
• 22. [Revelation 6:13]
• 23. Isaiah 19:16; Jeremiah 51:30
• 24. [Isaiah 22:11]
• 25. [See ver. 11 above]
• 26. [Joel 2:3]
• 27. [Joel 1:4, 6]
• 28. [Joel 1:4, 6]
• 29. [Joel 1:4, 6]
• 30. [Ezekiel 27:23, 24]
• 31. [See ver. 15 above]
• 32. [Isaiah 10:8]
• 33. [See ver. 15 above]
• 34. Jeremiah 51:27
• 35. [Psalms 76:5]
• 36. Nahum 2:5
• 37. [1 Kings 22:17]
• 38. Jeremiah 10:19; Micah 1:9
• 39. Lamentations 2:15; [Zephaniah 2:15]
• 40. [Isaiah 37:18]

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew No-amon
• [b]. Hebrew your
• [c]. Or marshals