Nahum 2:1-10

The Destruction of Nineveh

1 ¹The scatterer has come up against you. ²Man the ramparts; watch the road; dress for battle;^[a] collect all your strength.

2 For ³the LORD is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel, for plunderers have plundered them and ⁴ruined their branches.

3 The shield of his mighty men is red; ⁵his soldiers are clothed in scarlet. The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he musters them; the cypress spears are brandished.

4 ⁶The chariots race madly through the streets; they rush to and fro through the squares; they gleam like torches; they dart like lightning.

5 He remembers ⁷his officers; ⁸they stumble as they go, they hasten to the wall; the siege tower^[b] is set up.

6 ⁹The river gates are opened; the palace ¹⁰melts away;

7 its mistress^[c] is ¹¹stripped;^[d] she is carried off, her slave girls ¹²lamenting, moaning like doves and beating their breasts.

8 ¹³Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away.^[e] "Halt! Halt!" they cry, but ¹⁴none turns back.

9 Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of all precious things.

10 ¹⁵Desolate! Desolation and ruin! ¹⁶Hearts melt and ¹⁷knees tremble; ¹⁸anguish is in all loins; ¹⁹all faces grow pale!

Nahum 2:1-10 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.

Cross References

• 1. [Jeremiah 51:20]
• 2. [Jeremiah 51:12]
• 3. [Isaiah 37:31]
• 4. See Psalms 80:8-13; Isaiah 5:1-7
• 5. [Ezekiel 23:14, 15]
• 6. [Nahum 3:2]
• 7. Nahum 3:18
• 8. Jeremiah 46:12
• 9. [Isaiah 45:1]
• 10. [Isaiah 14:31]
• 11. [Isaiah 22:8]
• 12. Isaiah 38:14
• 13. See Nahum 1:1
• 14. Jeremiah 46:5
• 15. See Zephaniah 2:13-15
• 16. Psalms 22:14; Isaiah 13:7
• 17. Daniel 5:6
• 18. Isaiah 21:3
• 19. Joel 2:6

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew gird your loins
• [b]. Or the mantelet
• [c]. The meaning of the Hebrew word rendered its mistress is uncertain
• [d]. Or exiled
• [e]. Compare Septuagint; the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain