CRITICAL NOTES.]
Nahum 3:11. Drunken] with the cup of Divine anger. A refuge from the enemy sought and not found in other nations.
Nahum 3:12. Strongholds] All the fortifications will be easily taken, like ripe figs they will fall into the mouth of the gatherer (cf. Isaiah 28:4; Revelation 6:13).
Nahum 3:13. Women] Effeminate and timid, or weak and unable to offer resistance (cf. Isaiah 19:6; Jeremiah 50:37).
HOMILETICS
THE FATE OF SOME WORSE THAN THAT OF OTHERS.—Nahum 3:10-13
No-Amon suffered greatly, but Nineveh will suffer more. “Thou also shalt be drunken” with the cup of God’s wrath. The greatness of thy anguish shall deprive thee of reason and strength, and stupefy thee like death.
I. The punishment is a Divine judgment. God acts by the same unchanging law in all ages and to all nations. No and Nineveh must alike suffer for sins.
1. Punishment in great degree. Not a mere taste, but drunken. They drink till overwhelmed. The most prudent will lose judgment, and act like a drunken man. “Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.
2. Punishment without refuge. Help shall be sought in vain from others. No stronghold from the enemy. If God forsake, no help can be found in man. In time of justice it is too late to cry for mercy.
3. Punishment ending in ruin. “Thou shalt be hid.” The city once so proud and glorious was buried beneath the mounds, hidden as in a tomb; covered out of sight, and has only lately been discovered. In unearthing Nineveh from its ruins, we read a tale of splendour and power, of cruelty and blood, of sin and retribution.
II. The punishment is easily inflicted. The two figures are strikingly expressive of the extreme ease with which they are overcome.
1. Their valiant men are fain-hearted. “Behold, the people in the midst of thee are women.” Stone-walls should make cowards brave. But in the midst, in the very centre, there is weakness and fear. Warriors, whom no toil wearied and no danger daunted, one and all become helpless as women. Where sin dwells there is no power to resist. When God takes the mettle out of men, the strongest faint away. “The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they have remained in their holds; their might hath failed; they became as women” (Jeremiah 51:30; Jeremiah 50:37; Isaiah 19:16).
2. Every avenue opens to the enemy. “The gates of thy land,” the fortified passes and natural barriers on the hills, do not check the invader. Passes have been held by devoted men against countless multitudes (Thermopylæ), but the whole would be open to the enemy, and frontier garrisons would pass away as if consumed by fire.
3. Strongholds would be easily taken. Weak are fortifications against Divine wrath; trees which tremble in the breeze, they only need the breath of God. Wealth and position, self-righteousness and human wisdom, however great and relied upon, are false towers, and will give no refuge at last (Proverbs 18:10). The judgment of God will shatter them and sweep them all away.
4. Everything is ripe for destruction. “Like fig-trees with the first ripe figs.” They are eagerly sought after, ready to fall by the slightest effort, and “will drop into the mouth of the eater.” Without cost or sacrifice the enemy will take the city. The first assault would be successful. What a fearful moral condition, to ripen so easily for the judgment of God. “The wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Nahum 3:11-19. Nahum’s prophecy of the future destruction of Nineveh was fulfilled by the Medes and Babylonians (cf. ch. Nahum 2:1); and according to his prediction, the vast power of Nineveh completely vanished, and its glory was utterly eclipsed, so that in the year B. C. 401, Xenophon passed by the site without learning its name (Xen. Anab. iii. 4–7). Four hundred years afterwards a small fortress was standing on the site, to guard the passsage of the river Tigris (Tacitus, Ann. xii. 13), and opposite to it, on the west bank of the Tigris, has arisen the city of Mosul. In the year 1776, Niebuhr visited the spot, and supposed that what were the heaps of ruins of Nineveh, were natural undulations in the soil (See Rawlinson, i. 326). In more modern times it has been explored by Botta, the French Consul (in 1842), and more recently by Layard and others, who have brought to light those gigantic remains of palaces, statues, and other monuments which testify to the ancient grandeur of Nineveh, and those annalistic inscriptions which confirm the veracity of the prophecies of Nahum and of Isaiah, and of the historical narrative of Holy Scripture: and bear witness to the Divine foreknowledge of the Holy Ghost who speaks in it; to whom with the Father and the Son, Three Persons and one God, be honour and glory now and for evermore. Amen [Wordsworth].