But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.
Ver. 8. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof] i.e. Of Nineveh, that great but bloody city, Nahum 3:1. Her state shall be utterly ruined, as the old world by the general deluge. But because the word here rendered flood is used for rivers that overflow the banks, 2 Chronicles 32:4, and the adjunct, overrunning, also implies as much, see Isa 8:8 Daniel 11:10 ; Dan 11:40 I suppose the Holy Ghost here forethreateneth that ruin of this city by the river Tigris, which at an inundation broke out upon the wall, and threw down two and a half miles of it. This was a sad foretoken to them of their ensuing desolation by the enemy (as that rain was that fell in Egypt, where it used not to rain, a little before Cambyses with his Persians subdued it), for it occured in the time of the siege, as Diodorus testifieth, according to an oracle that the Ninevites had received by tradition from their progenitors, sc. that their city should then be taken by the enemy, when the river took part against them: and it happened accordingly.
And darkness shall pursue his enemies] i.e. Terrible and inextricable calamities shall overtake them: their ruin shall be irreparable. And indeed it may now be said of Nineveh, which once was of a great city in Strabo, Magna civitas, magna solitude Great city, great wilderness. See Zephaniah 2:13,15. Drusius rendereth it thus, Hostes suos persequi faciet tenebras, He shall cause darkness to pursue his enemies, or, He shall make his enemies to pursue darkness, according to that noted saying of the ancients, Deus quem destruit dementat, whom God intends to destroy him he first infatuateth. But the former sense is the better.