CRITICAL NOTES.] The prophet resumes his description of the siege. Blood] Drops of blood shed in murder [Keil]. Lies] Vain promises of help. Depart.] Ceases not to plunder.
Nahum 3:2. Noise] In the charges of war-cars. “This passage is unrivalled by any other, either in sacred or profane literature” [Hend.]. Riders dash along, the flame of the sword, the flash of the lance, and the multitude of the slain, depict the attack and its consequences.
Nahum 3:4. Whoredoms] The reason of the punishment; not idolatry but selfishness, which under the guise of love sought the gratification of lust: the crafty policy to ensnare other States. Selleth] i.e. rob nations of liberty, bring them into bondage or make them tributary (Deuteronomy 32:30; Judges 2:14).
HOMILETICS
GREAT WICKEDNESS.—Nahum 3:1
The prophet in this chapter repeats and confirms the total ruin of Nineveh, because of cruel oppression and blood. The wickedness of the city is set forth in terrible aspects.
1. Cruel murder. “The bloody city.” Its prosperity was tainted with blood. Unrighteous war, oppression of the poor, and manifold bloodshedding are the indictment. “Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!”
II. Treacherous dealing. “It is all full of lies and robbery.” Lies in word and act. Deceit with man, and hyprocrisy before God. Robbery linked with lies, secret treachery and open violence. Full of wickedness. Integrity and truth banished from them, and none upright for whose sake God might spare the city.
III. Constant rapine. “The prey departeth not.” She never ceased, but continued to make a prey upon others. They neither repented nor grew weary of iniquity. Avarice grew more intense, lusts were daily fed, and like a beast they tore in pieces and greedily fed upon their prey. God specially marks and denounces woe upon those who persevere in wicked courses. “Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and cry against it: for their wickedness is come up before me.”—
“Who, stung by glory, rave and bound away,
The world their field and humankind their prey” [Young].
GREAT JUDGMENTS AND GREAT SINS.—Nahum 3:2-4
The sentence is enlarged, and the woe explained. Terrible are the preparations of the enemy, and the noise of chariots and horsemen sounds already in the ears. The city is filled with the dead, and the judgments of God are severe.
I. Great sins. “Because of the multitude of the whoredoms,” &c.
1. Bewitching other nations. “The mistress of witchcraft.” As harlots try to dement and ensnare by incantations, so Nineveh sought to draw others to her by subtle machinations. The love of gain acts on multitudes like “witchcraft.” They seduce others, hunt after men in excessive lust, and lead them into idolatry and estrangement from God.
2. Enslaving other nations. “That selleth nations.” They have no scruples in the use of unlawful means to get power and subdue others beneath their feet. Art and politics, religion and wealth, were used to make the city great and universal.
3. Selfish aggrandizement. All her skill and artifice in ill-doing were employed to gratify the desire of supremacy. Selfishness is often dressed in love to accomplish its own ends. Religion is made subservient to worldly aims; devilish arts enslave man and offend God. Domestic sanctities are violated, the rights of men are trampled down, and justice is outraged. “Such ambition,” says Sir Walter Scott, “breaks the ties of blood, forgets the obligations of manhood.”
II. Great judgments. Men may glory in skill, increase in power, and pursue wickedness, but God will have a reckoning with them. “Because of the multitude,” &c.
1. Judgments are prepared. “The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses,” &c. Military preparations are great: a formidable army is advancing against the city with irresistible speed and power. The judgments of God are (a) numerous, (b) ready for execution, and (c) will come with overwhelming speed. When sins are small, God is often patient and long-suffering; but when they become notorious and we continue in them, then God will punish them.
2. Judgments experienced. Before, all was beautiful and arranged to allure in the city, but now how different the scene! Everything fills the ear with terror, and the heart with sadness.
(1) The dead innumerable. Death follows death in rapid succession, “and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases.”
(2) The dead in every form. They are slain, and the bodies are carcases, corpses, an oppressive number, without end.
(3) The dead causing the living to stumble. So great the multitude of those who perish, that they lie, a hindrance in every street. “They stumble upon their corpses”—sad scene! an awful warning to others. “To fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city” (Jeremiah 33:5).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Nahum 3:1. Filled with deceit. Great cities often great centres of wickedness. Notice,
1. The wickedness, (a) deceit, (b) violence, and (c) blood. God would not have destroyed it on account of idolatry or he would not have sent Jonah: his justice waited for the outbreak of greater violence and impious deeds.
2. The degree of this wickedness. “It is all full of lies.” “She is wholly made up of fraud and falsehood, mendaciorum loquacissima; no truth in her private contracts, no trust in her public transactions and capitulations with other nations; be they never so solemnly confirmed, yet had they no longer force with them than stood with their own profit” [Trapp].
Nahum 3:2. Here we have,
1. The attack. Eager and furious. Noise of whip, rattling of wheels, &c.
2. The results of the attack. Tremendous slaughter, dead bodies everywhere. “Let those,” says an old writer, “that refuse to hear God’s sweet words fear lest they be forced to hear the noise of the whip, the rattling of the wheels, &c. (Psalms 7:12-13; Luke 19:42-44; Proverbs 1:24). The enemy is sent to revenge the quarrel of God’s covenant; the red horse is at the heels of the white” (Revelation 6:4).
Nahum 3:4. The mistress of witchcrafts. The Hebrew not only indicates the subtlety, but the ease by which the great metropolis made itself the centre of nations.
1. The dominion. “Mistress,” meaning power, control, and dominion.
2. The method of gaining the dominion. “Witchcraft.” Treacherous friendships, and allurements, to ensnare and bind to herself other nations. She decked herself like a prostitute to entice from God into sin. But she will lose empire and inhabitants, and become like a widow destitute of children. “These two things shall come to thee in a moment, in one day—the loss of children and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries,” &c. (Isaiah 47:9-12).