Nahum 2:1-9

1 he juggernaut's coming! Post guards, lay in supplies. Get yourselves together, get ready for the big battle.

2 God has restored the Pride of Jacob, the Pride of Israel. Israel's lived through hard times. He's been to hell and back.

3 Weapons flash in the sun, the soldiers splendid in battle dress, Chariots burnished and glistening, ready to charge, A spiked forest of brandished spears, lethal on the horizon.

4 The chariots pour into the streets. They fill the public squares, Flaming like torches in the sun, like lightning darting and flashing.

5 The Assyrian king rallies his men, but they stagger and stumble. They run to the ramparts to stem the tide, but it's too late.

6 Soldiers pour through the gates. The palace is demolished.

7 Soon it's all over: Nineveh stripped, Nineveh doomed, Maids and slaves moaning like doves, beating their breasts.

8 Nineveh is a tub from which they've pulled the plug. Cries go up, "Do something! Do something!" but it's too late. Nineveh's soon empty - nothing.

9 Other cries come: "Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! A bonanza of plunder! Take everything you want!"

Nahum 2:1-9 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.