Nahum 3:19

Nahum 3:19 [There 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?

Ver. 19. There is no healing of thy bruise] Clades et strages tua irreparabilis est. Thy disease is desperate, thy condition comfortless; thou art utterly to be destroyed. When God smiteth his own people it may well be asked, as Isaiah 27:7, "Hath he smitten him as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain by him?" Surely no; there is a manifest difference. "He hath torn," saith the Church, "and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up," Hosea 6:1. Hence that distinction of punishment, or pain, in condemnantem, et corrigentem, in poenam vindictae, et poenam medelae. Afflictions and temporal evils are in the nature, to the wicked of a curse, to the godly of a cure; to the former mortal, to the latter medicinal. "When the wicked spring as grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish," it is not for any goodwill that God beareth to them; but "it is that they shall be destroyed for ever," Psalms 92:7. see Trapp on " Nah 1:9 "

Thy wound is grievous] Not only incurable, but full of anguish intolerable. Thus, "many sorrows shall be to the wicked," Psalms 32:10, and yet all that they suffer here is but as drops of wrath, forerunning the great storm in hell; or as a crack, preceding the fall of the whole house upon them: the leaves only fall on them here; there, the whole tree.

All that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands, &c.] As rejoicing at thy ruin, and subscribing to God's just judgment upon thee; they shall take up this taunting speech against thee, and say, "How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers," &c. Isaiah 14:4,7 .

For upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?] "Thy wickedness," that is, thy wicked counsels, edicts, enterprises, have they not extended far and near for mischief to many nations? and this not for a little while, but jugiter, continually? It hath been thy constant trade from thy youth up (neque enim nova est aut nupera haec tua crudelitas) to waste and weary out other nations with thine inroads and hostilities. The destruction therefore is of thyself, O Nineveh; the insultations, and complosions of others at thy misery, is no more than thou hast merited. Os quod in sorte tua ceciderit, illud rodas, as the Arabian proverb hath it. Bear the reward of thy wickedness, which is now come home to thee; thy wickedness is the root of thy wretchedness: this the prophet here repeateth and inculcateth in the perclose; that he may leave it as a sting in the minds of his hearers, as Gualther well observeth.