Nahum 2:1-8

1 A shatterer ^[a] has come up against you. Guard the ramparts; watch the road; gird your loins; collect all your strength.

2 (For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob, as well as the majesty of Israel, though ravagers have ravaged them and ruined their branches.)

3 The shields of his warriors are red; his soldiers are clothed in crimson. The metal on the chariots flashes on the day when he musters them; the chargers ^[b] prance.

4 The chariots race madly through the streets, they rush to and fro through the squares; their appearance is like torches, they dart like lightning.

5 He calls his officers; they stumble as they come forward; they hasten to the wall, and the mantelet ^[c] is set up.

6 The river gates are opened, the palace trembles.

7 It is decreed that the city be exiled, its slave women led away, moaning like doves and beating their breasts.

8 Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. "Halt! Halt!"— but no one turns back.

Nahum 2:1-8 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]. Cn: Heb [scatterer]
• [b]. Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb [cypresses]
• [c]. Meaning of Heb uncertain
• [d]. Meaning of Heb uncertain
• [e]. Heb [it]
• [f]. Cn Compare Gk: Heb [a pool, from the days that she has become, and they]