1 Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn't depart. 2 The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots, 3 the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies, 4 because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft. 5 "Behold, I am against you," says Yahweh of Armies, "and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. 6 I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle. 7 It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, 'Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?' Where will I seek comforters for you?" 8 Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? 9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers. 10 Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. 11 You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy. 12 All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs: if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, your troops in your midst are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars. 14 Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong. 15 There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust. 16 You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips, and flees away. 17 Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. 18 Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them. 19 There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you; for who hasn't felt your endless cruelty?
The prophecy of the destruction in Nineveh is resumed in a dirge over her; yet still as future. It pronounces a woe, yet to come .
The prophet denounces a wo against Nineveh for her perfidy and violence. He musters up before our eyes the number of her chariots and cavalry; points to her burnished arms, and to the great and unrelenting slaughter which she spreads around her, Nahum 3:1-3. Because Nineveh is a city wholly given up to the grossest superstition, and is an instructress of other nations in her abominable rites, therefore she shall come to a most ignominious and unpitied end, Nahum 3:3-7. Her final ruin shall be similar to that of No, a famous city of Egypt, Nahum 3:8-11. The prophet then beautifully describes the great ease with which the strong holds of Nineveh should be taken, Nahum 3:12, and her judicial pusillanimity during the siege, Nahum 3:13; declares that all her preparation, her numbers, opulence, and chieftains, would be of no avail in the day of the Lord's vengeance, Nahum 3:14-17; and that her tributaries would desert her, Nahum 3:18. The whole concludes with stating the incurableness of her malady, and the dreadful destruction consequently awaiting her; and with introducing the nations which she had oppressed as exulting at her fall, Nahum 3:19.
INTRODUCTION TO NAHUM 3
In this chapter is contained the prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh, and with it the whole Assyrian empire; the causes of which, besides those before mentioned, were the murders, lies, and robberies it was full of, Nahum 3:1 for which it should be swiftly and cruelly destroyed, Nahum 3:2 as also its whoredoms and witchcrafts, or idolatry, by which nations and families were seduced, Nahum 3:4 and hence she should be treated as a harlot, her nakedness exposed, and she cast out with contempt, and mocked at by all, Nahum 3:5 and all those things she placed her confidence in are shown to be of no avail; as her situation and fortresses, as she might learn from the case of No Amon, Nahum 3:8 nor the number of her inhabitants, which were weak as women; nor even her merchants, captains, nobles, and king himself, Nahum 3:13 nor the people she was in alliance with, who would now mock at her, her case being irrecoverable and incurable, Nahum 3:19.
Nineveh's Sins and Inevitable Destruction - Nahum 3
The announcement of the destruction awaiting Nineveh is confirmed by the proof, that this imperial city has brought this fate upon itself by its sins and crimes (Nahum 3:1-7), and will no more be able to avert it than the Egyptian No-amon was (Nahum 3:8-13), but that, in spite of all its resources, it will be brought to a terrible end (Nahum 3:14-19).
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.