Nahum 2:2 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

This confirms the prophet's threat, either declaring that now, since God had sufficiently punished Jacob and Israel, he would next punish the proud Assyrian, as Isaiah 10:12; or else it is a confirmation by argument from the greater to the less; Israel and Jacob were more to God, yet he did punish them, much more will he punish Nineveh. Turned away; laid low, or captivated, as no doubt Sennacherib did when he took so many fenced cities, he did not slay all, he sent many into captivity, and threatened Jerusalem's citizens with the like, Isaiah 36:17. The excellency; the wealth, the valiant men, the wise men, all that Jacob could, (with any colour of reason,) and had (with sin more than enough) gloried in. Of Jacob; the two tribes. As the excellency of Israel; the ten tribes spoiled, conquered and captivated by Shalmaneser. The emptiers; Assyrians, who invaded, plundered, and robbed them, both Israel and Jacob. Have emptied them out; quite exhausted them. Marred; either corrupted them in religion and manners, as 2 Kings 17:24, &c.; or destroyed and cut up the race of Israel, to destroy them utterly. Their vine branches: it may literally be meant that the Assyrians did cut up the vines to impoverish the vine-dressers, or else figuratively for the nation, which is often compared to a vine, so the branches are men and women.