Nahum 3

Doom is coming to the city of bloodshed! It is filled with lies and with goods taken by force, and it never stops seizing what it wants.

1Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;

NoteThe city addressed through this whole chapter is Nineveh, named in verse 7 and identified in verse 18 as the capital of Assyria. Assyria was the dominant empire of the region for roughly two centuries, known for mass deportations and for boasting in its royal inscriptions about the brutality of its campaigns; "city of bloodshed" points at that reputation. Nineveh fell to a coalition of Babylonians and Medes in 612 BC.

2Listen: the crack of a whip, the rattle of wheels, galloping horses, and chariots bouncing along.

2The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.

3Riders charge in with flashing swords and shining spears. Great numbers are killed, and the dead bodies pile up. There is no end to the corpses; people trip over them.

3The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:

4All this comes because of the many acts of prostitution by that good-looking prostitute, the expert in witchcraft, who sells whole nations with her prostitution and whole clans with her witchcraft.

4Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

NoteProphets regularly used the figure of a prostitute for a city or nation that seduces others (through alliances, trade and treaty-making) and then betrays them. The point of the image is treachery for gain, not the literal sexual conduct of the city's inhabitants. "Witchcraft" or sorcery is part of the same picture: Assyria was famous for divination, omen-reading and spells, and the word here casts that as a means of entrapping other peoples.

5"Look, I am against you," says the LORD of Hosts, the commander of heaven's armies. "I will pull your skirts up over your face. I will let the nations see you naked, and let the kingdoms see your shame.

5Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.

NoteStripping a woman and exposing her in public was a known ancient punishment for a convicted prostitute or adulteress. The image continues the figure from verse 4: the city that acted the prostitute is now given a prostitute's public humiliation. "LORD" printed in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH, which readers of the Hebrew text did not pronounce aloud.

6I will throw filth at you, treat you with contempt, and make you something people stare at.

6And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.

7Then everyone who sees you will back away from you and say, 'Nineveh is ruined. Who will mourn for her?' Where can I find anyone to comfort you?"

7And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

8Are you any better than the great city of Thebes? It sat beside the Nile with water all around it. The water was its defense wall and its barrier.

8Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?

NoteThebes was the great city of southern Egypt, on the Nile. Assyria itself had sacked it in 663 BC, within living memory of Nahum's first hearers, so the comparison names a disaster the audience had watched happen. The Hebrew calls the Nile and its flood-channels a "sea"; the river and its canals functioned as the city's moat and defensive barrier.

9Cush and Egypt were its strength, and that strength had no limit. Put and Libya were among its helpers.

9Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.

NoteCush was the region south of Egypt, along the Nile in what is now Sudan; at the time of Thebes' fall Egypt was ruled by a dynasty of Cushite kings, which is why Cush is listed first. Put was a North African territory whose exact location is disputed, most often placed in Libya, sometimes further along the African coast. These were the allies whose troops made Thebes look unbeatable.

10Even so, Thebes was carried off and taken away as a prisoner. Its little children were smashed to pieces at every street corner. Its important men were divided up by lot, and all its great men were put in chains.

10Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

NoteCasting lots was drawing straws or throwing marked stones to decide something. Here it is how victorious soldiers divided captured nobles among themselves as spoil, high-ranking prisoners were valuable, for ransom or for sale.

11You too will stagger like a drunk. You will go into hiding. You too will look for a place to be safe from the enemy.

11Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.

NoteBeing made to drink until you stagger is a standard prophetic image for a nation forced to undergo a punishment it cannot refuse: like a drunk, it loses its footing and its dignity in public.

12All your fortresses are like fig trees loaded with the first ripe figs: shake them, and the fruit falls straight into the mouth of the one eating.

12All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.

NoteFig trees produce a small early crop that ripens before the main harvest. Those first figs hang loosely and drop at the slightest shake, proverbially the easiest fruit there is to get. The comparison is about how little effort the attacker will need.

13Look at the troops inside your city: they are like women. The gates of your land stand wide open to your enemies, and fire burns up the bars that lock them.

13Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.

NoteIn the military language of the time, calling an army "women" was a standard taunt meaning the defenders can no longer fight, Assyrian treaty-curses use the same insult against their own enemies. It is a jibe about fighting capacity, not a comment on women. The "bars" are the heavy timber beams dropped across city gates to hold them shut; burning them was the normal way to force a gate.

14Store up water for the time when you are surrounded. Strengthen your fortresses. Get down in the clay, stamp the mortar, and repair the brick oven.

14Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.

NoteThese are the ordinary preparations for a siege. Water had to be stored in cisterns before the enemy cut the supply outside the walls. Mesopotamian city walls were built of mud brick, so repairing them meant digging clay, treading it with straw into mortar underfoot, and firing new bricks in a kiln. The commands are addressed to a city that will not be saved by doing any of it.

15There the fire will burn you up. The sword will cut you down; it will eat you up the way young locusts strip a field. Make yourself as many as the young locusts; make yourself as many as the swarming locusts.

15There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.

NoteHebrew has several distinct words for locusts, apparently for different stages or swarming types, and verses 15 to 17 play on them; older English versions render one of them "cankerworm." A locust swarm was the standard image for a force too numerous to count that eats a region bare and then vanishes overnight.

16You have made your traders more numerous than the stars in the sky. But the young locust strips the land bare and then flies away.

16Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away.

17Your guards are like swarming locusts, and your officers like clouds of locusts that settle on the walls on a cold day. When the sun comes up they fly off, and no one knows where they went.

17Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

NoteThe two terms behind "guards" and "officers" are Assyrian administrative titles borrowed into Hebrew, the officials and military scribes who ran the empire's bureaucracy. Locusts genuinely do cluster motionless on walls in cold weather and take off once the sun warms them, which is the observation the comparison rests on.

18King of Assyria, the shepherds who lead your people are asleep, and your nobles lie down and rest. Your people are scattered over the mountains, and no one gathers them back together.

18Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.

Note"Shepherd" was a routine title for a king or governor throughout the ancient Near East, so this is about Assyria's rulers and commanders, not herdsmen. "Slumber" and "lie down" are being used as they often are in Hebrew, as a way of saying the leaders are dead. With no shepherds, the people scatter like a flock with no one to drive it home.

19There is no cure for your injury; your wound is severe. Everyone who hears the news about you claps their hands at your fall, because who has not suffered from your constant cruelty?

19There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?

NoteClapping the hands here is a gesture of derision at an enemy's downfall, closer to jeering than to applause; it appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible as an expression of scorn or malicious satisfaction.