Nahum 2:1-7

1 He who scatters ^[a] has come up before your face. Man the fort! Watch the road! Strengthen your flanks! Fortify your power mightily.

2 For the Lord will restore the excellence of Jacob Like the excellence of Israel, For the emptiers have emptied them out And ruined their vine branches.

3 The shields of his mighty men are made red, The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots come with flaming torches In the day of his preparation, And the spears are brandished.

4 The chariots rage in the streets, They jostle one another in the broad roads; They seem like torches, They run like lightning.

5 He remembers his nobles; They stumble in their walk; They make haste to her walls, And the defense is prepared.

6 The gates of the rivers are opened, And the palace is dissolved.

7 It is decreed: She shall be led away captive, She shall be brought up; And her maidservants shall lead her as with the voice of doves, Beating their breasts.

Nahum 2:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NAHUM 2

This chapter gives an account of the destruction of the city of Nineveh; describes the instruments of it as very terrible and powerful, and not to be resisted, Na 2:1-4. The manner of taking it, the flight of its inhabitants, and the spoil of its riches and treasures, Na 2:5-10 and the king and the princes thereof, compared to a lion, and a lion's whelp, are insulted as being without a den or dwelling place, because of their cruelty and ravening, for which the Lord was against them, and threatened them with utter ruin, which he brought upon them, Na 2:11-13.

Footnotes

• [a]. Vulgate reads he who destroys.
• [b]. Literally the cypresses are shaken; Septuagint and Syriac read the horses rush about; Vulgate reads the drivers are stupefied.
• [c]. Hebrew Huzzab