Nahum 3:5-19

5 I am against you^[a]- the declaration of the Lord of Hosts. I will lift your skirts over your face and display your nakedness to nations, your shame to kingdoms.^[b]

6 I will throw filth on you and treat you with contempt; I will make a spectacle of you.

7 Then all who see you will recoil from you, saying: Nineveh is devastated; who will show sympathy to her? Where can I find anyone to comfort you?

8 Are you better than Thebes^[c][d] that sat along the Nile with water surrounding her, whose rampart was the sea, the river^[e][f] her wall?

9 Cush and Egypt were her endless source of strength; Put and Libya were among her^[g] allies.

10 Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her children were also dashed to pieces^[h] at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries,^[i] and all her nobles were bound in chains.

11 You^[j] also will become drunk; you will hide yourself.^[k] 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.^[l] Multiply yourselves like the young locust, multiply like the swarming locust!

16 You have made your merchants^[m] more numerous than the stars of the sky. The young locust strips^[n] [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.^[o] Your people are scattered across the mountains with no one to gather [them] together.^[p]

19 There is no remedy for your injury; your wound is severe.^[q] All who hear the news about you will clap their hands because of you, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty?

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.

Footnotes

• [a] Nah 2:13
• [b] Jr 13:22,26; Ezk 16:37
• [c] Lit No-amon
• [d] Jr 46:25; Ezk 30:14-16
• [e] LXX, Syr, Vg read water
• [f] Lit sea from sea
• [g] Lit your; Thebes
• [h] 2 Kg 8:12; Isa 13:16; Hs 10:14
• [i] Ob 11
• [j] Nineveh
• [k] Or will be overcome
• [l] Jl 1:4
• [m] Ezk 27:1-9
• [n] Or sheds [its skin]
• [o] Probably sleep in death
• [p] 1 Kg 22:17
• [q] Jr 10:19; 14:17; 30:12