Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria Thy rulers and counsellors are remiss, heartless, or dead. Thy nobles Or valiant ones, shall dwell in the dust These words are not in the Hebrew, but are supplied by our translators. The strict rendering of the Hebrew would rather be, Have lain down, as Grotius renders it; that is, have indulged themselves in ease, and not concerned themselves about the public affairs. The Vulgate, however, renders this former part of the verse, Thy shepherds have slept, thy princes shall be buried: understanding it, probably, of their being slain in battle, or having died through famine or pestilence during the siege. Thy people is scattered upon the mountains Thy people, or common soldiers, for want of commanders, are scattered about, and there is no chief officer, or head commander, to collect them together. There is no healing of thy bruise Or binding up of thy wound. Thy destruction is inevitable. The state of thy affairs is so bad, that there is no hope of recovering them. All that hear the bruit of thee That is, the report of thee; (as the obsolete word bruit signifies;) all to whom the account of thy fall shall come; shall clap the hands over thee Namely, for joy. For upon whom hath not thy wickedness, &c. To whom hast thou not been injurious?
Thus it is evident, upon the whole of this prophecy of Nahum, that the entire desolation and complete destruction of Nineveh were most expressly and particularly foretold therein: yet one can hardly imagine any event more improbable than this was, at the time when Nahum predicted it. Surely there was no probability that the capital of a great kingdom, a city which was sixty miles in compass, a city which contained so many myriads of inhabitants, which had walls one hundred feet high, and so thick that three chariots could go abreast upon them, and which had one thousand five hundred towers of two hundred feet in height; surely there was no probability that such a city should ever be totally destroyed; and yet so totally was it destroyed, that authors are not agreed about its situation. From the general suffrage, indeed, of ancient historians and geographers, it seems to have been situated upon the Tigris; but yet no less authors than Ctesias and Diodorus Siculus represent it as situated upon the river Euphrates. Nay, authors differ, not only from one another, but also from themselves. For the learned Bochart hath shown, that Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Ammianus Marcellinus, all three speak differently of it, sometimes as if it was situated upon the river Tigris, and sometimes as if upon the river Euphrates. So that, to reconcile these authors with themselves and with others, it is supposed by Bochart that there were two Ninevehs, and by Sir John Marshman that there were three; the Syrian, upon the river Euphrates; the Assyrian, upon the river Tigris; and a third, built afterward upon the Tigris by the Persians, who succeeded the Parthians in the empire of the East in the third century, and were subdued by the Saracens in the seventh century after Christ: but whether this latter Nineveh was built in the same place as old Nineveh is a question that cannot be decided. Lucian, who flourished in the second century after Christ, affirms, that Nineveh was utterly perished, and there was no footstep of it remaining, nor could one tell where once it was situated. And the greater regard is to be paid to his testimony, as he was a native of Samosata, a city upon the river Euphrates; and, coming from a neighbouring country, he must have known whether there had been any remains of Nineveh or not. “Even the ruins,” says Bishop Newton, “of old Nineveh have been, as I may say, ruined and destroyed; such an utter end hath been made of it, and such is the truth of the divine predictions! This, perhaps, may strike us the more strongly, by supposing only a parallel instance: let us, then, suppose that a person should come in the name of a prophet preaching repentance to the people of this kingdom, or otherwise denouncing the destruction of the capital city within a few years. I presume we should look upon such a prophet as a madman, and show no further attention to his message than to deride and despise it: and yet such an event would not be more strange and incredible than the destruction and devastation of Nineveh. For Nineveh was much the larger, and much the stronger and older city of the two; and the Assyrian empire had subsisted and flourished more ages than any form of government in this country; so that we cannot object the instability of the eastern monarchies in this case. Let us, then, since this event would not be more improbable and extraordinary than the other, suppose again, that things should succeed according to the prediction, the floods should arise, and the enemy should come, the city should be overflowed and broken down, be taken and pillaged, and destroyed so totally, that even the learned could not agree about the place where it was situated. What would be said or thought in such a case? Whoever of posterity should read and compare the prophecy and event together, must they not, by such an illustrious instance, be thoroughly convinced of the providence of God, and of the truth of this prophet, and be ready to acknowledge, Verily this is the word that the Lord hath spoken! Verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth!”