Nahum 3:1-19 - Sutcliffe's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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Bible Comments

Nahum 3:1. Woe to the bloody city. Nineveh was drunk with blood. She was burdened with the wealth of plundered nations; her feasts and idolatries filled up the measure of her iniquity. Oh how sublimely is her fall described.

Nahum 3:5. I will show the nations thy nakedness. See on Ezekiel 16:37.

Nahum 3:8. Populous No. No-Hammon, the god Hammon, from Ham the son of Noah. Thebes or Diospolis, as called by the Greeks. See the note on Ezekiel 30:15, and Jeremiah 46:25. It was the emporium between the Red sea and the Mediterranean. It had a hundred gates, and abounded with superb architecture.

Nahum 3:9. Ethiopia and Egypt Put and Lubim were thy helpers. No- Hammon was a sort of mother city to four nations, and she was the only metropolis that could adequately represent the fall of the beautiful Nineveh.

REFLECTIONS.

The catalogue of Nineveh's crimes and calamities is here continued. She was indeed a bloody city. Babylon is called a golden city; and if she exceeded Nineveh in wealth, she did not excel her in cruelty, and the effusion of blood. No army was ever more ferocious and sanguinary than the Assyrian. “It was in his heart to destroy, and cut off nations not a few.”

Isaiah 10:7. Nineveh also abounded with whoredoms. She was lost in idolatrous superstition, and in all the associate crimes of drunkenness and fornication. How awful also is that vengeance which discovered her skirts, which sobered her by famine, and punished her tyranny by servitude.

The overthrow of Nineveh, compared with the fall of Thebes, is equally instructive. Both were by arms, both fell from equal glory, both were stormed with carnage, and the survivors in both capitals were led away in chains. Surely the fall of Thebes, of Nineveh, of Tyre, and of Babylon, are highly admonitory to future ages. The ruins of those great cities seem to indicate that heaven has set the curse of Jericho on the very foundation where so much wickedness was once committed.

Nineveh in her day of crisis was cursed with confusion of counsel, and abortion of measures. Thy shepherds slumber, oh king of Assyria. It is usual with God so to do, in the last stages of wicked nations and wicked men. He sends strong delusions on those who obey not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness. Surely we should fear this awful spirit next to hell itself.

The fall of Nineveh was a sort of jubilee to the earth. All the nations clapped their hands, having all suffered from her tyranny and scourge. When heaven undertakes to redress the long complaints of injured men, both angels and men rejoice.

Related Commentaries of Nahum 3:1

Nahum 3:1-19

1 Woe to the bloodya city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;

2 The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.

3 The horseman lifteth up both the brightb sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:

4 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

5 Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.

6 And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.

7 And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

8 Art thou better than populousc No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?

9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.d

10 Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

11 Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.

12 All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.

13 Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.

14 Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.

15 There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.

16 Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth,e and flieth away.

17 Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

18 Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy noblesf shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.

19 There is no healingg of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?