Nahum 3

Nahum 3:1

3:1-3 Chapter 3 continues the picture of the fall of Nineveh and gives the underlying reasons: It is a bloody city and full of lies and robbery, having seized booty from many others. Now the Babylonian horsemen are attacking with bright sword, and the streets are full of countless corpses. 3:4-7 The nation is being judged for her harlotries and sorceries, corrupting others with her idolatry and commerce. Jehovah will expose sinfulness and cover her with shame, the punishment befitting a seductive harlot. 3:8-10 She will not escape any more than No Amon (Thebes) did, that great city which symbolized the concentrated might of Ethiopia and Egypt. As allies or helpers, Thebes also counted on Put and Lubim for security. These are territories generally associated with Libya, but we cannot be dogmatic. Put may have been as far south as present-day Somaliland. 3:11-13 Nineveh, also, would be drunk with the cup of God’s wrath. Like ripened figs, it was ready for judgment. Its defenses would fail when the gates of their land would swing wide open for their enemies. 3:14-17 In spite of Nineveh’s most elaborate preparations for the siegeacquiring extra water and fortifying its strongholds with new clay bricks where neededit would fall. Though the merchants, commanders, and generals were as numerous as the stars of heaven, yet they would desert the city like swarming locusts flying off at sunrise. 3:18, 19 The shepherds (leaders) of Assyria now slumber in death. The nation has suffered a mortal wound. News of its fall will cause great rejoicing because many have suffered at its hands. Nineveh fell in 612 B.C. So thoroughly was Nahum’s prophecy fulfilled that, in later times, armies, such as Xenophon’s and Alexander the Great’s, were totally unaware that they were marching near or over the ruins of great Nineveh. Not until the nineteenth century was the ancient site of Nineveh even definitely relocated.