Nahum 1:8 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

But, or And, or Therefore, since God is so good to Israel oppressed by Assyria, and so terrible, just, and mighty to punish oppressors. With an overrunning flood; his judgments, like a mighty flood that overfloweth all banks, and scorns all that might check it, shall swallow up Assyria and Nineveh. which was in part effected by Phraortes about A.M. 3312, and in part by his son Cyaxares, who broke the Assyrian kingdom, and took Nineveh. He, the Lord, by the Medes, will make an utter end, will destroy, so that it shall never recover or be rebuilt, of the place thereof; of Nineveh, that is, Nineveh itself. So in Scripture sometimes the place is said to perish when the thing itself doth, as Daniel 2:35 Revelation 12:8, Revelation 20:11. Darkness: troubles, desolating afflictions, extreme evils. in Scripture style, are called darkness, Job 15:22, Job 17:12 Psalms 35:6, Psalms 55:5 Ecclesiastes 5:17 Isaiah 42:7, Isaiah 59:9, &c.; Joel 2:2. Shall pursue; not a single calamity, which is soon at an end, but indeed a succession of calamities, a continued course of them, shall pursue: so Phraortes began, Cyaxares continued, Scythians helped on, and Astyages finally, with four hundred thousand men, finished the pursuit in the sack and ruin of Nineveh after two years siege. His enemies; the Ninevites and Assyrians.