Nahum 2:12

Introduction Nineveh is now called upon to prepare for the approach of her enemies, the instruments of Jehovah's vengeance, Nah 2:1 ; and the military array and muster, the very arms and dress, of the Medes and Babylonians in the reigns of Cyaxares and Nabopolassar; their rapid approach to the city; the process of the siege, and the inundation of the river; the capture of the place; the captivity, lamentation, and flight of the inhabitants; the sacking of this immense, wealthy, and exceedingly populous city; and the consequent desolation and terror, are all described in the pathetic, vivid, and sublime imagery of Hebrew poetry, Nah 2:2-10 . This description is succeeded by a very beautiful and expressive allegory, Nah 2:11-12 ; which is immediately explained, and applied to the city of Nineveh, Nah 2:13 . It is thought by some commentators that the metropolitan city of the Assyrian empire is also intended by the tender and beautiful simile, in the seventh verse, of a great princess led captive, with her maids of honor attending her, bewailing her and their own condition, by beating their breasts, and by other expressions of sorrow. Verse 1 He that dasheth in pieces - Or scattereth. The Chaldeans and Medes. Keep the munition - Guard the fenced places. From this to the end of the fifth verse, the preparations made at Nineveh to repel their enemies are described. The description is exceedingly picturesque. Watch the way - By which the enemy is most likely to approach. Make thy loins strong - Take courage. Fortify thy power - Muster thy troops; call in all thy allies. Verse 2 For the Lord hath turned away - Bishop Newcome reads, for the Lord restoreth, by a slight alteration in the text. I do not see that we gain much by this. The Lord has been opposed to Jacob, and the enemy has prevailed against him. Emptied them out - Brought them from their own land into captivity. This was the emptying! Verse 3 The shield of his mighty men is made red - These things may refer to the war-like preparations made by the Ninevites: they had red shields, and scarlet or purple clothing; their chariots were finely decorated, and proceeded with amazing rapidity. The fir trees shall be terribly shaken - This may refer to the darts, arrows, and javelins, flung with destructive power. Verse 4 The chariots shall rage - Those of the besiegers and the besieged, meeting in the streets, producing universal confusion and carnage. Verse 5 He shall recount his worthies - Muster up his most renowned warriors and heroes. Shall make haste to the wall - Where they see the enemies making their most powerful attacks, in order to get possession of the city. Verse 6 The gates of the rivers shall be opened - I have already referred to this, see the note on Nah 1:8 ; but it will be necessary to be more particular. The account given by Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii., is very surprising. He begins thus: Ην δ' αυτῳ λογιον παραδεδομενον εκ προγονων, κ.τ.λ. - "There was a prophecy received from their forefathers, that Nineveh should not be taken till the river first became an enemy to the city. It happened in the third year of the siege, that the Euphrates [query, Tigris] being swollen with continued rains, overflowed part of the city, and threw down twenty stadia of the wall. The king then imagining that the oracle was accomplished, and that the river was now manifestly become an enemy to the city, casting aside all hope of safety, and lest he should fall into the hands of the enemy, built a large funeral pyre in the palace, (εν τοις βασιλειοις), and having collected all his gold and silver and royal vestments, together with his concubines and eunuchs, placed himself with them in a little apartment built in the pyre; burnt them, himself, and the palace together. When the death of the king (Sardanapalus) was announced by certain deserters, the enemy entered in by the breach which the waters had made, and took the city." Thus the prophecy of Nahum was literally fulfilled:" the gates of the river were opened, and the palace dissolved," i.e., burnt. Verse 7 And Huzzab shall be led away captive - Perhaps Huzzab means the queen of Nineveh, who had escaped the burning mentioned above by Diodorus. As there is no account of the queen being burnt, but only of the king, the concubines, and the eunuchs, we may, therefore, naturally conclude that the queen escaped; and is represented here as brought up and delivered to the conqueror; her maids at the same time bewailing her lot. Some think Huzzab signifies Nineveh itself. Verse 8 But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water - מימי mimey, from days. Bp. Newcome translates the line thus: "And the waters of Nineveh are a pool of waters." There may be reference here to the fact given in the preceding note, the overflowing of the river by which the city was primarily destroyed. Stand, stand - Consternation shall be at its utmost height, the people shall flee in all directions; and though quarter is offered, and they are assured of safety it they remain, yet not one looketh back. Verse 9 Take ye the spoil - Though the king burnt his treasures, vestments, etc., he could not totally destroy the silver and the gold. Nor did he burn the riches of the city; these fell a prey to the conquerors; and there was no end of the store of glorious garments, and the most costly vessels and furniture. Verse 10 She is empty, and void, and waste - The original is strongly emphatic; the words are of the same sound; and increase in their length as they point out great, greater, and greatest desolation. בוקה ומבוקה ומבלקה Bukah, umebukah, umebullakah. She is void, empty, and desolate. The faces of them all gather blackness - This marks the diseased state into which the people had been brought by reason of famine, etc.; for, as Mr. Ward justly remarks, "sickness makes a great change in the countenance of the Hindoos; so that a person who was rather fair when in health, becomes nearly black by sickness." This was a general case with the Asiatics. Verse 11 Where is the dwelling of the lions - Nineveh, the habitation of bold, strong, and ferocious men. The feeding place of the young lions - Whither her victorious and rapacious generals frequently returned to consume the produce of their success. Here they walked at large, and none made them afraid. Wheresoever they turned their arms they were victors; and all nations were afraid of them. Verse 12 The lion did tear - This verse gives us a striking picture of the manner in which the Assyrian conquests and depredations were carried on. How many people were spoiled to enrich his whelps - his sons, princes, and nobles! How many women were stripped and slain, whose spoils went to decorate his lionesses - his queen, concubines, and mistresses. And they had even more than they could assume; their holes and dens - treasure-houses, palaces, and wardrobes - were filled with ravin, the riches which they got by the plunder of towns, families, and individuals. This is a very fine allegory, and admirably well supported. Verse 13 Behold, I am against thee - Assyria, and Nineveh its capital. I will deal with you as you have dealt with others. The voice of thy messengers - Announcing thy splendid victories, and the vast spoils taken - shall no more be heard - thou and thy riches, and ill-got spoils, shall perish together.

He - The Medes or Chaldeans, that dash Nineveh in pieces. The munition - The forts. Make thy loins strong - Strengthen thyself.

The Judgment of Nineveh. ( b. c. 710.) 11 Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid? 12 The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin. 13 Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard. Here we have Nineveh's ruin, 1. Triumphed in by its neighbours, who now remember against it all the oppressions and abuse of power it had been guilty of in its pomp and prosperity ( v. 11, 12 ): Where is the dwelling of the lions? It is gone; there appear no remnants, no footsteps, of it. Where is the feeding place of the young lions, where they glutted themselves with prey? The princes of Nineveh had been as lions, as beasts of prey; cruel tyrants are no better, nay, in this respect much worse—that, being men, humanity is expected from them; nay, if they were indeed lions, they would not prey upon those of their own kind. Savis inter se convenit ursæ—Fierce bears agree together. But in the shape of men they had the cruelty of lions: they walked in Nineveh as a lion in the woods, and none made them afraid; every one stood in awe of them, and they were under no apprehensions of danger from any; though nobody loved them, every body feared them, and that was all they desired. Oderint, dum metuant—Let them hate, so that they do but fear. The king himself, as well as every prince, made it his business, by all the arts of violence and extortion, to enrich himself and raise his family; he did tear in pieces enough for his whelps (and no little would be enough for them) and he strangled for his lioness, killed all that came near him, and seized what they had for his children, for his wives and concubines, and filled his holes with prey and his dens with ravin, as lions are wont to do. Note, Many make it an excuse for their rapine and injustice that they have wives and children to provide for, whereas what is so got will never do them any good; those that fear the Lord, and get what they have honestly, shall not want a competency for themselves and theirs; verily they shall be fed, when the young lions, though dens and holes were filled with prey and ravin for them, shall lack, and suffer hunger, Ps. xxxiv. 10 . 2. It is avowed by the righteous Judge of heaven and earth; it is his doing, and let all the world take notice that it is so ( v. 13 ): Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts. And what good can hosts do for her in her defence, when the Lord of hosts is against her for her destruction? The oppressors in Nineveh thought they only set their neighbours against them, who were not a match for them, and whom they could easily overpower; but it proved they set God against them, who is, and will be, the asserter of right and the avenger of wrong. God is against the princes of Nineveh, and then, (1.) These military preparations will stand them in no stead: I will burn their chariots in the smoke; he does not say in the fire, but, in contempt of them, the very smoke of God's indignation shall serve to burn their chariots; they shall be consumed as soon as the fire of his indignation is kindled, while as yet it does but smoke, and not flame out. Or, The drivers of the chariots shall be smothered and stifled with the smoke; then the chariots of their glory shall be the shame of their families, Isa. xxii. 18 . (2.) Their children, the hopes of their families, shall be cut off: The sword shall devour the young lions, whom they were so solicitous to provide for by oppression and extortion. Note, It is just with God to deprive those of their children, or (which is all one) of comfort in them, that take sinful courses to enrich them, and (as has been said of some) damn their souls to make their sons gentlemen. (3.) The wealth they have heaped up by fraud and violence shall neither be enjoyed by them nor employed for them: I will cut off thy prey from the earth; not only thou shalt not be the better for it, but no one else shall. Some understand it of the disabling of them for the future to prey upon their neighbours. (4.) Their agents abroad shall not have that respect from their neighbours and that influence upon them which sometimes they had had: The voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard, no more be heeded, which some think refers to Rabshakeh, one of Nineveh's messengers, that had blasphemed the living God, an iniquity which was remembered against Nineveh long after. Those are not worthy to be heard again that have once spoken reproachfully of God.