Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents

3:12-13 The Assyrian fortresses surrounding Nineveh will be the first to encounter the advancing enemy army. The coalition forces will easily and quickly take these strongholds, with two results: First, the gates of Assyria will be wide open to the enemies since the fortresses which guarded those entrances have been destroyed. Second, the troops, i.e., the soldiers within Nineveh, will be demoralized and filled with fear so that they cannot acquit themselves as men in the coming siege. fire. See 2:13; 3:15. Your bars, that is, the bars or bolts of the gates, which had kept these entrances closed.

3:14 As the enemy draws close, Nahum tells the city to get ready for the siege (see 2:1). However, any preparations they make will be useless. Draw water. The Ninevites can anticipate that the enemy will shut off the city's water supply by closing the river gates (see 2:6) and blocking the aqueduct system built by Sennacherib. Water could be stored inside the city in vessels and cisterns. forts. The fortresses and other fortifications at the walls and within the city would be strengthened or repaired with bricks, which were made from clay, shaped by molds, and held together with mortar.

3:15 No matter how well supplied and fortified Nineveh is, there the inhabitants will die. fire. Archaeologists have found evidence of a devastating fire at Nineveh. sword. Cf. 2:13. There will be mass extermination of the Ninevites, as when a locust plague strips the countryside of all vegetation (e.g., Joel 1:4-10). Multiply . . . locust . . . grasshopper. Nahum sarcastically tells the Ninevites, in preparation for the siege, to multiply themselves greatly and thus increase their strength.

3:16 You increased your merchants. When Nineveh was the proud capital of a vast empire, her merchants brought enormous wealth to the city. Now, however, these merchants, and the huge treasure in Nineveh, will do the city no good. The locust . . . flies away. Cf. v. 15. The enemy, having devoured all that there was in Nineveh through plundering (and slaughter and destruction), will quickly leave the scene.

3:17 Like swarms of grasshoppers or locusts that quickly fly away and disappear, some of the leading men of Nineveh, who for a while had been very prominent, will flee at the appearance of the enemy overrunning the city. Scribes were probably a type of official, perhaps "secretaries."

3:18-19 king of Assyria. Cf. 1:11. Nahum, surveying the wreckage of Nineveh, addresses its monarchy with sarcastic language. Many of Nineveh's shepherds (leaders and officials) and nobles are sleeping the slumber of death. Many of the people are forever dispersed. This verse may imply, since the king is alive to see the aftermath, that a shadow of the Assyrian monarchy would continue (briefly) after the fall of Nineveh (see Introduction: Purpose, Occasion, and Background). The wound that is grievous is a fatal injury. The Assyrian monarchy has received a mortal blow, and the absolute end is imminent. unceasing evil. The reign of the Assyrian emperors from Nineveh had continually caused terror and suffering. Nahum foretells that the Assyrian monarchy, and Nineveh, will experience this same evil that it meted out to other peoples of the Near East. Nahum ends his book with a rhetorical question, joining Jonah as the only other biblical writer to do so.