The reasons for the fall of Nineveh
3
📚Woe to the city of blood 📖! It is all full of lies 📖 and robbery;
the prey never gets away.
3:1 God would destroy Nineveh because it fully deserved destruction.⚜
2 📚The noise of a whip!
And the noise of the rattling
of the wheels,
and of prancing horses,
and of jolting chariots!
3 📚The horseman lifts up
both the bright sword and
the glittering spear,
and there is a multitude of slain,
and a great number of bodies,
no end of their corpses;
they stumble over the corpses,
3:2-3 A further description of the future battle for Nineveh.⚜
4 📚all because of the many
acts of prostitution of the
well-favoured prostitute 📖,
the mistress of witchcrafts,
who sells nations through her
acts of prostitution,
and families through her
witchcrafts 📖.
5 📚“See, I am against you,
says the LORD of hosts,
and I will lift your skirts over your face,
and I will show the nations
your nakedness,
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 📚And I will throw abominable filth
on you, and reveal your vileness,
and will make you a spectacle.
7 📚And this will happen:
All who look at you will flee
from you, and say,
‘Nineveh is laid waste.
Who will mourn for her?
Where will I seek comforters
for you?’ ”
3:5-7 God would deal with Nineveh as men sometimes dealt with prostitutes. He would show to other nations its filthiness, corruption and weakness, and utterly humiliate that great and proud city.⚜
8 📚Are you better than populous No 📖
that was situated among the rivers,
that had water all around it?
Her rampart was the sea,
and her wall was the sea.
9 📚Ethiopia 📖 and Egypt were her
strength, and it was without limit.
Put and Lubim were your helpers.
10 📚Yet she was taken away,
she went into captivity.
Also her young children were dashed
in pieces at the head of all the streets.
And they cast lots for her
honourable men,
and all her great men were
bound in chains.
11 📚You also will be drunk 📖,
you will be hidden,
you also will seek refuge
because of the enemy.
12 📚All your strongholds will be like
fig trees with the first ripe figs;
when shaken, they fall
into the mouth of the eater.
3:12 Nineveh was a huge city, very well fortified, but when the “enemy” (v 11) came their forts would fall as easily as fruit from a tree.⚜
13 📚See, your people in the midst
of you are women 📖.
The gates of your land will be opened
wide to your enemies.
The fire will devour your bars.
14 📚Draw water for the siege!
Fortify your strongholds!
Go to the clay, and tread the mortar!
Strengthen the brick kiln!
15 📚There the fire will devour you.
The sword will cut you down,
it will devour you like locusts.
Make yourselves as many as the locust,
make yourselves as many as
the swarming locusts!
3:14-15 Nineveh would try desperate measures to keep enemy troops out of the city, but they would fail.⚜
16 📚You have multiplied your merchants
more than the stars of heaven.
The locust plunders, and flies away.
3:16 The merchants, greedy for gain, would salvage what they could from the collapse of Nineveh. Swarms of locusts coming on any land completely strip it of vegetation.⚜
17 📚Your officials are like locusts,
and your captains like the great
grasshoppers,
which settle in the hedges
on a cold day,
but when the sun rises,
they flee away,
and it is not known where
they will be.
3:17 Nineveh’s officials were no better than its merchants. Both groups were only out for what they could get. Between them they would strip Nineveh of its wealth.⚜
18 📚Your shepherds slumber,
O king of Assyria.
Your nobles dwell in the dust. 📖
Your people are scattered
on the mountains, and no one
gathers them.
19 📚There is no healing for
your injury.
Your wound is incurable 📖.
All who hear the news about
you will clap their hands 📖
over you,
for who has not had your wickedness
coming on them continually?
3:18-19 Nahum the prophet speaks of the future as if it were past.⚜