Nahum 3 - Introduction
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 .... [ Continue Reading ]
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 .... [ Continue Reading ]
WOE TO THE BLOODY CITY - Literally, “city of bloods” , i. e., of manifold bloodshedding, built and founded in blood Habakkuk 2:12; Jeremiah 22:13, as the prosperity of the world ever is. Murder, oppression, wresting of judgment, war out of covetousness, grinding or neglect of the poor, make it “a ci... [ Continue Reading ]
THE NOISE (LITERALLY, “VOICE”) OF THE WHIP - There is cry against cry; the voice of the enemy, brought upon them through the voice of the oppressed. Blood hath a voice which crieth Genesis 4:10 to heaven; its echo or counterpart, as it were, is the cry of the destroyer. All is urged on with terrific... [ Continue Reading ]
THE HORSEMAN LIFTETH UP - Rather, “leading up : the flash of the sword, and the lightning of the spear.” Thus, there are, in all, seven inroads, seven signs, before the complete destruction of Nineveh or the world; as, in the Revelations, all the forerunners of the Judgment of the Great Day are summ... [ Continue Reading ]
BECAUSE OF THE MULTITUDE OF THE WHOREDOMS OF THE WELL-FAVORED HARLOT - There are “multitudes of slain” because of the “multitude of whoredoms” and love of the creature instead of the Creator. So to Babylon Isaiah saith, “they (loss of children and widowhood) shall come upon thee in their perfection... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD I AM AGAINST THEE, SAITH THE LORD OF HOSTS - Jerome: “I will not send an Angel, nor give thy destruction to others; I Myself will come to destroy thee.” Cyril: “She has not to do with man, or war with man: He who is angered with her is the Lord of hosts. But who would meet God Almighty, who h... [ Continue Reading ]
AND I WILL CAST ABOMINABLE FILTH UPON THEE - Alb.: “like a weight, that what thou wouldest not take heed to as sin, thou mayest feel in punishment.” “Abominable things had God seen” Jeremiah 13:27 in her doings; with abominable things would he punish her. Man would fain sin, and forget it as a thing... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THEY THAT LOOK UPON THEE SHALL FLEE FROM THEE - through terror, lest they should share her plagues, as Israel did, when the earth swallowed up Korah, Dathan and Abiram; and they who “had been made rich by Babylon, stand ajar off, for the fear of her torment. All they who look on thee” Revelation... [ Continue Reading ]
ART THOU BETTER - More populous or more powerful, “than the populous No?” rather than No-Ammon, so called from the idol Ammon, worshiped there. No-Ammon, (or, as it is deciphered in the Cuneiform Inscriptions, _Nia_), meaning probably “the portion of Ammon” , was the sacred name of the capital of Up... [ Continue Reading ]
ETHIOPIA AND EGYPT WERE HER STRENGTH - Literally, “Egypt was strength , and Ethiopia, and boundless.” He sets forth first the imperial might of No; then her strength from foreign, subdued power. The capital is a sort of impersonation of the might of the state; No, of Egypt, as Nineveh, of Assyria. W... [ Continue Reading ]
YET WAS SHE - (also ) carried away, literally, “She also became an exile band,” her people were carried away, with all the barbarities of pagan war. All, through whom she might recover, were destroyed or scattered abroad; “the young,” the hope of another age, cruelly destroyed (see Hosea 14:1; Isaia... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU ALSO - As thou hast done, so shall it be done unto thee. The cruelties on No, in the cycle of God’s judgments, draw on the like upon Nineveh who inflicted them. “Thou also shalt be drunken” with the same cup of God’s anger, entering within thee as wine doth, bereaving thee of reason and of coun... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THY STRONG-HOLDS SHALL BE LIKE FIG TREES, WITH THE FIRST RIPE FIGS - Hanging from them; eagerly sought after , to be consumed. Being ripe, they are ready to fall at once; “if they be shaken;” it needs but the tremulous motion, as when trees wave in the wind, “they shall even fall into the mouth... [ Continue Reading ]
BEHOLD, THY PEOPLE IN THE MIDST OF THEE ARE WOMEN - Fierce, fearless, hard, iron men, such as their warriors still are portrayed by themselves on their monuments, they whom no toll wearied, no peril daunted, shall be, one and all, their whole “people, women.” So Jeremiah to Babylon, “they shall beco... [ Continue Reading ]
DRAW THEE WATERS FOR THE SIEGE, FORTIFY THY STRONGHOLDS - This is not mere mockery at man’s weakness, when he would resist God. It foretells that they shall toil, and that, heavily. Toil is added upon toil. Nineveh did undergo a two years’ siege. Water stands for all provisions within. He bids them,... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE - where thou didst fence thyself, and madest such manifold and toilsome preparation, SHALL THE FIRE DEVOUR THEE. - All is toil within. The fire of God’s wrath falls and consumes at once. Mankind still, with mire and clay, build themselves Babels. “They go into clay,” and become themselves eart... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU HAST MULTIPLIED THY MERCHANTS ABOVE THE STARS OF HEAVEN - Not numerous only but glorious in the eyes of the world, and, as thou deemest, safe and inaccessible; yet in an instant all is gone. The commerce of Nineveh was carried back to prehistoric times, since its rivers bound together the mount... [ Continue Reading ]
THY CROWNED ARE AS THE LOCUST, AND THY CAPTAINS AS THE GREAT LOCUSTS - What he had said summarily under metaphor, the prophet expands in a likeness. “The crowned” are probably the subordinate princes, of whom Sennacherib said, “Are not my princes altogether kings?” Isaiah 10:8. It has been observed... [ Continue Reading ]
THY SHEPHERDS - that is, they who should counsel for the people’s good and feed it, and “keep watch over their flocks by night,” but are now like their master, the “King of Assyria,” are his shepherds not the shepherds of the people whom they care not for; these slumber, at once through listlessness... [ Continue Reading ]
THERE IS NO HEALING - (literally, “dulling”) of thy bruise It cannot be softened or mitigated; and so thy wound is grievous (literally, sick), incurable, for when the wound ever anew inflames, it cannot be healed. The word, bruise, is the more expressive, because it denotes alike the abiding wound i... [ Continue Reading ]