Art thou better than populous 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?
Art thou better than populous No - rather, as the Hebrew. 'No Amon,' the Egyptian name for Thebes in Upper Egypt; meaning the portion or possession of Amon, the Egyptian Jupiter (whence the Greeks called the city Diospolis), who was especially worshipped there. The Egyptian inscriptions call the god Amon-re - i:e., Amon the Sun; he is represented as a human figure with a ram's head, seated on a chair (Jeremiah 46:25; Ezekiel 30:14-16). The blow inflicted on No Amon, described in Nahum 3:10, was probably by the Assyrian Sargon, who, being provoked by the alliance of So or Sabacho II with Hoshea, the Israelite king, who had revolted from Assyria, proceeded, after having destroyed Samaria, and having led the ten tribes captive, to attack Egypt and Ethiopia, to which latter at this time belonged No Amon of Upper Egypt. The Assyrian inscriptions tell us of his receiving tribute from a Pharaoh of Egypt, and of his destroying in part No Amon: thereby they confirm Nahum and Isaiah 20:1-6. Sargon reigned 722 BC - 715 BC, (cf. notes on Isaiah 18:1-7 and Isaiah 20:1-6.) As Thebes, with all her resources, was overcome by Assyria, so Assyrian Nineveh, notwithstanding all her might, in her turn, shall be overcome by Babylon. The English version, "populous," if correct, implies that No's large population did not save her from destruction.
Situate among the rivers - probably the channels into which the Nile here divides (cf. Isaiah 19:6-8). Thebes lay on both sides of the river. It was famed in Homer's time for its hundred gates ('Iliad,' 9: 381). Its ruins still describe a circuit of twenty-seven miles. Of them the temples of Luxor and Karnak, east of the river, are most famous. The colonnade of the former, and the grand hall of the latter, are of stupendous dimensions. One wall still represents the expedition of Shishak against Jerusalem under Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:25; 2 Chronicles 12:2-9).
Whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea? - i:e., rose up "from the sea." Maurer translates, 'whose wall consisted of the sea.' But this would be a mere repetition of the former clause. The Nile is called a sea, from its appearance in the annual flood (Isaiah 19:5, "The waters shall fail from the sea" - i:e., from the Nile).