Nahum 3:14-18

CRITICAL NOTES.]

Nahum 3:14. Draw] for a long-continued siege, improve fortifications, put the kiln in order for burning bricks.

Nahum 3:15. Make] Multiply thyself, like the largest and most formidable locusts.

Nahum 3:16.] Traders and merchants increased innumerable as the stars, but fire and sword would devour all.

Nahum 3:17. Crowned] rulers or vassal princes which encamp in the cold and flee away in the sun. “The wings of locusts become stiffened in the cold; but as soon as the warm rays of the sun break through the clouds, they recover animation and fly away.”

Nahum 3:18. Shepherds] Princes and great men, royal counsellors and deputies upon whom the government devolved. Sleep] in death. People] The flock scattered and perished (cf. Numbers 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17).

THE LAST HOPE DESTROYED.—Nahum 3:14

The city is laden with guilt, but relies still upon its fortifications and numerical strength of population. The last prop is cut down. There is no hope left. Though provisioned within and strongly defended without, Nineveh must fall, and great will be the fall.

I. Inward provisions will waste away. “Draw the waters for the siege, go into clay, and tread the mortar,” &c. Water, necessary for siege and the support of life, must be procured. She must furnish herself with all manner of provisions to keep her from surrender or starvation. Clay must be prepared, and the kilns made ready for repairing and building strongholds. The conquering nation were to toil and do the work of slaves. But all would be in vain. The fire would devour her bulwarks, and the sword her population. Swift will be the ruin of all who number houses and fortify walls, “but have not looked to the maker thereof, nor have not respected him that fashioned them” (Isaiah 22:10).

II. Outward defences will be destroyed. “There shall the fire devour thee.” There, in the very centre of their toil and vast preparations, where the greatest security was relied upon, was the devouring fire. What was considered strongest was destroyed with ease, like locusts eating up the tender grass. Singly, and as a whole, the judgments of God will find men out. “Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.”

III. Immense numbers will fall away. “Make thyself many as the cankerworm.” Make thyself numerous and oppressive as locusts, gather from all quarters men to help, and seek to become mighty in multitudes, yet the foe will consume like creatures which lick up all before them.

1. Wealthy merchants will not defend. Though multiplied above the stars of heaven, and trafficking in despotism, they cannot lay up in store against the wrath of God. Money is the sinews of war, but will not shelter from the consequences of sin. Prosperity suddenly changes into adversity. “The cankerworm spoileth and fleeth away.”

2. Warlike soldiers will not defend. The captains, confederates, and commanders of the army, will melt away, perish like dew before the rising sun. They are but grasshoppers, mighty as they are. “All flesh is grass.”

3. Ruling princes will not defend. “Thy crowned heads are as the locusts,” &c. They subside into quietness in the calamity of the night, and continue their flight in the morning. They are “torpid in the cold and fly in the heat.” Officers of state and subordinate chiefs will be completely annihilated. “Their place is not known where they are.”

4. Great counsellors will not defend. The shepherds slumber in listlessness and excess; sink into torpor and stupidity. The nobles and greatest politicians were benighted and bereft of wisdom. “At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.” Valiant men would dwell in the dust, and be buried in silence. God can soon strip a nation of its great ones, and lay its honour in the dust. Where are they when he deals with them? “Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish for ever: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away, as a dream, and shall not be found: neither shall his place any more behold him.”

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Nahum 3:14. Clay. Mankind still, with mire and clay, build themselves Babels. They go into clay, and become themselves earthly like the mire they steep themselves in. They make themselves strong, as though they thought that their houses would continue for ever. God’s wrath descends, and eats up like a cankerworm [Pusey].

Nahum 3:14.

1. Man by his endeavours cannot avert the judgments of God. Nineveh prepared and provisioned herself, but fell after all.

2. Man may presume upon carnal means until he is ruined. Lawful means are necessary, but we must not rely upon them for security. If God be against us no other help can relieve. “Running into God is the only best way to escape him. As to close and get in with him that would strike you doth avoid the blow” [Trapp].

Nahum 3:15. The prophet gives in three words the whole history of Nineveh, its beginning and its end. He had before foretold its destruction, though it should be oppressive as the locust: he had spoken of its commercial wealth; he adds to this, that other source of its wealth, its despoiling warfares and their issue. The heathen conqueror rehearsed his victory, “I came, saw, conquered.” The prophet goes farther, as the issue of all human conquest, “I disappeared” [Pusey].

Nahum 3:15.

1. The mightiest of earth are as locusts before him (cf. Isaiah 40:22).

2. The more obstinately they resist, the more irresistible is the judgment.
3. The larger and more numerous they are, the more utterly will they be destroyed [Lange].

Nahum 3:17. Cowardly rulers.

1. Sheltering for advantage. In the cold day, camping in the hedges, but fleeing away in sunshine.
2. Living only to eat. They are wasters merely, like locusts devouring everything before them.
3. Deserting when they should help, an emblem this of the world’s friendship. Men get what they can out of others, and then bid them farewell in distress. Treacherous friendships abound everywhere.

Dust. All flesh perishes, but the word of God endures for ever [Lange].

HOMILETICS

SLUMBERING SHEPHERDS AND SCATTERED FLOCKS.—Nahum 3:18

I. Shepherds unworthy in their character. They are destitute of counsel; base and idle; careful only for their own profit and safety, and not for the interests of the flock. Efficiency depends upon character in the ministry. Good shepherds care for the sheep, feed and defend them. “The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.”

II. Shepherds negligent in their duty. They sleep and consult their own ease, instead of defending their city and country. Indolence, self-indulgence, and fickleness doth eat like a canker into the ministry of some. Our duties demand entire devotedness of mind and heart. Ministers desecrate their high calling, when they enter it for ease or commercial advantage. Diligence is required in study, visitation, and preaching. “Woe to the idol-shepherd (one wishing to be his own idol and the idol of his flock) that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye.”

III. Shepherds cursed in their efforts. The flock is exposed and scattered, like sheep upon the mountains. They have none to care for them, consequently get lost. They are lost for ever. “No man gathereth them.” Terrible ruin! Fearful responsibility somewhere!

“I am shepherd to another man,
And do not sheer the fleece that I graze” [Shakspeare].

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3

Nahum 3:11. Nahum’s prophecy of the future destruction of Nineveh was fulfilled by the Medes and Babylonians (cf. ch. Nahum 2:1); and according to his prediction, the vast power of Nineveh completely vanished, and its glory was utterly eclipsed, so that in the year B. C. 401, Xenophon passed by the site without learning its name (Xen. Anab. iii. 4–7). Four hundred years afterwards a small fortress was standing on the site, to guard the passsage of the river Tigris (Tacitus, Ann. xii. 13), and opposite to it, on the west bank of the Tigris, has arisen the city of Mosul. In the year 1776, Niebuhr visited the spot, and supposed that what were the heaps of ruins of Nineveh, were natural undulations in the soil (See Rawlinson, i. 326). In more modern times it has been explored by Botta, the French Consul (in 1842), and more recently by Layard and others, who have brought to light those gigantic remains of palaces, statues, and other monuments which testify to the ancient grandeur of Nineveh, and those annalistic inscriptions which confirm the veracity of the prophecies of Nahum and of Isaiah, and of the historical narrative of Holy Scripture: and bear witness to the Divine foreknowledge of the Holy Ghost who speaks in it; to whom with the Father and the Son, Three Persons and one God, be honour and glory now and for evermore. Amen [Wordsworth].