Nahum Chapter 2

From The Open Bible Project

2:1 He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily!

• (a) That is, Nebuchadnezzar is in readiness to destroy the Assyrians: and the Prophet derides the undertakings of the Assyrians who prepared to resist him.

2:2 For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches.

• (b) Seeing God has punished his own people Judah and Israel, he will now punish the enemies by whom he scourged them; read (Isaiah 10:12).
• (c) Signifying that the Israelites were utterly destroyed.

2:3 The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished.

• (d) Both to put fear into the enemy, and also that they themselves should not so soon detect blood among one another, to discourage them.
• (e) Meaning their spears would shake and crash together.

2:4 The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the broad ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.

2:5 He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place.

• (f) Then the Assyrians will seek by all means to gather their power, but all things will fail them.

2:6 The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.

2:7 It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her handmaids moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.

2:8 But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. "Stop! Stop!" they cry, but no one looks back.

• (g) The Assyrians will flatter themselves and say that Nineveh is so ancient that it can never perish, and is as a fishpool, whose waters cannot be touched by those that walk on the banks. But they will be scattered, and will not look back, even if men call them.

2:9 Take the spoil of silver. Take the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.

• (h) God commands the enemies to spoil Nineveh, and promises them infinite riches and treasures.

2:10 She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.

• (i) That is, Nineveh, and the men of it will be after this manner.
• (k) See Geneva

2:11 Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion's cubs, and no one made them afraid?

• (l) Meaning, Nineveh, whose inhabitants were cruel like the lions, and given to all oppression, and spared no violence or tyranny to provide for their wives and children.

2:12 The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill, and his dens with prey.

2:13 "Behold, I am against you," says Yahweh of Armies, "and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard."

• (m) That is, as soon as my wrath begins to burn.
• (n) Signifying the heralds, who were accustomed to proclaim war. Some read, "of you gum teeth", with which Nineveh was accustomed to bruise the bones of the poor.