Nahum 3:10

3:8-19 Strong-holds, even the strongest, are no defence against the judgments of God. They shall be unable to do any thing for themselves. The Chaldeans and Medes would devour the land like canker-worms. The Assyrians also would be eaten up by their own numerous hired troops, which seem to be meant by the word rendered merchants. Those that have done evil to their neighbours, will find it come home to them. Nineveh, and many other cities, states, and empires, have been ruined, and should be a warning to us. Are we better, except as there are some true Christians amongst us, who are a greater security, and a stronger defence, than all the advantages of situation or strength? When the Lord shows himself against a people, every thing they trust in must fail, or prove a disadvantage; but he continues good to Israel. He is a strong-hold for every believer in time of trouble, that cannot be stormed or taken; and he knoweth those that trust in Him.

Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity,.... Not by Nebuchadnezzar; though this city was afterwards taken, and its inhabitants carried captive, by that monarch, as was foretold, Jeremiah 46:25 but the prophet here does not predict an event to be accomplished, and instance in that, and argue from it, which could have no effect on Nineveh and its inhabitants, or be an example or terror to them; but refers to what had been done, a recent fact, and which they were well acquainted with. Aben Ezra says, this city No was a city of the land of Egypt, which the king of the Chaldeans took as he went to Nineveh; but when, and by whom it was taken, is nowhere said. According to Bishop Usher (s) and Dean Prideaux (t), the destruction of the city of Thebes was by Sennacherib, in his expedition against Egypt, which he harassed for three years together, from one end to the other; at which time Sevechus, the son of Sabacon, or So, the Ethiopian, was king of Egypt; and Egypt and Ethiopia were as one country, and helped each other; but could not secure this city from falling into the hands of Sennacherib, about three years before he besieged Jerusalem; and so, according to Mr.

Whiston (u), it was destroyed three years before the army of Sennacherib was destroyed at Jerusalem: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: against the walls of the houses, or upon the stones and pavements of the streets; which cruelties were often used by conquerors upon innocent babes at the sacking of cities, Psalm 137:9, and they cast lots for her honourable men; the soldiers did, who should have them, and sell them for slaves; which was done without any regard to their birth and breeding, Joel 3:3, and all her great men were bound in chains; as nobles may be meant by "honourable men", by "great men" may be designed the gentry, merchants, and others; these were taken, and bound in iron chains, handcuffed, and pinioned, and so led captive into a foreign land; and Nineveh might expect the same treatment. (s) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3292. (t) Connexion, par. 1. B. 1. p. 22, 23. (u) Chronological Tables, cent. 8.

10 . children were dashed in pieces ] A barbarous practice in ancient warfare; the children were taken hold of and their heads dashed against the wall or stones. The term used appears technical, 2 Kings 8:12 ; Isaiah 13:16 ; Hosea 13:16 (14:1 Heb.); cf. however the two passages, Isaiah 13:18 ; Hosea 10:14 . The object of this savage act was to exterminate the whole population with which war was waged; a similar practice was to rip up the women with child, Amos 1:13 ; Hosea 13:16 . cast lots for her honourable men] Lots were cast for the nobles who were taken as captives. Joel 3:3 , Obadiah 1:11 . No Amon was celebrated in antiquity as Thebes of the hundred gates (2:9. 381). It possessed a famous library, and was filled with temples and other buildings of extraordinary magnificence. Its riches were fabulous; compare the statements of Assurbanipal regarding the wealth his armies carried away when they captured it (Schrader, ii. 149 ff.). The splendid ruins of Karnac and Luxor attest the former magnificence of the city.

She was carried away: it is probable this might be about thirty years before; for about A.M. 3207, as Calvisius, or 3277, as Archbishop Usher, Sabacon king of Ethiopia invaded Egypt, took Bocchoris, and burnt him, which was not likely to be done without slaughter of men and sacking of towns, among which time No might be ruined. Now, as Calvisius and Helvicus account, about A.M. 3238, or as Usher, 3307, Nahum appears and flourisheth. She went into captivity: this ingemination confirms the certainty of the thing, and intends to affect the Ninevites the more. Her young children; their innocent age was no safeguard to them. Were dashed in pieces; first barbarously murdered, and then trod under foot in the streets, as was usual with those cruel, bloody soldiers, 2 Kings 8:12 Psalm 137:9 Isaiah 13:16 . They cast lots; either to put a scorn upon them, or else to prevent any contest about them, being taken among many others together, and none could say, This is my prisoner. Honourable men; citizens of note, or some officers or governors. Great men; great in place, strength, valour, wisdom, and so likely to do the conqueror a displeasure, should they not be secured. Were bound in chains of iron, or manacled, used as worst slaves.

Verse 10. - Yet was she carried away . In spite of her strong position and infinite resources, Thebes was captured and despoiled; and shall Nineveh fare better? Surely not. This capture of Thebes took place B.C. 664 , and must have been in men's minds when Nahum wrote his prophecy. The Assyrians twice took Thebes in the days of Assurbanipal. The first time it is merely recorded that the soldiers, under the commander of the satraps, made a slaughter in the city. The second capture is thus described in the monarch's own tablet (Brugsch, 'Egypt,' 1:272-275, Eng. transl.): "Urdamaneh fled alone, and entered Thebes, the city of his kingdom... I directed my march in pursuit of him. I came to Thebes. He saw the strength of my army, and left Thebes, and fled to the city of Kipkip. Of that whole city (Thebes), with thanksgiving to Asur and Istar, my hands took the complete possession. Silver, gold, metals, stones, all the treasures of its palace whatsoever, dyed garments of before and linen, great horses [elephants?] men and women, great and small, works of zakah [basalt?] and marble, their kelal and manzas, the gates of their palace... I tare away and carried to Assyria. I made spoil of the animals of the land without number, and carried them forth in the midst out of Thebes I caused a catalogue to be made of the spoil. I returned in safety to Nineveh" (see a different version in O. Smith, 'Assurbanipal,' p. 52, etc.). Were dashed in pieces.

The prophet describes the usual treatment of captured cities (comp. 2 Kings 8:12 ; Psalm 137:9 ; Isaiah 13:16 ). At the top of all the streets. In the most public places, where many streets converge ( Lamentations 2:19 ). Cast lots. The victors divided the nobles among themselves by lot (see note on Obadiah 1:11). Were bound in chains. We find in the Assyrian monuments delineations of captives with their arms bound together by a rope held by a soldier, sometimes men, sometimes women and children; the women are tearing their hair in despair (see Bonomi, 'Nineveh and its Palaces,' pp. 226, 277). In a bas-relief at Khorsabad captives were led by a rope fastened to a ring in the lip (comp. 2 Kings 19:28 ; see Rawlinson, 'Ant. Men.,' 1:904; Layard, 'Nineveh,' fig. 60, and col. 1. p. 376). Nahum 3:10

Yet was she - (also ) carried away, literally, "She also became an exile band," her people were carried away, with all the barbarities of pagan war. All, through whom she might recover, were destroyed or scattered abroad; "the young," the hope of another age, cruelly destroyed (see Hosea 14:1-9 ; Isaiah 13:16 ; 2 Kings 8:12 ); "her honorable men" enslaved (see Joel 3:3 ), "all her great men prisoners." God's judgments are executed step by step. Assyria herself was the author of this captivity, which Isaiah prophesied in the first years of Hezekiah when Judah was leaning upon Egypt (see Isaiah 20:1-6 ). It was repeated by all of the house of Sargon. Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretold fresh desolation by Nebuchadnezzar Jeremiah 46:25-26 ; Ezekiel 30:14-16 . God foretold to His people, "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee" Isaiah 43:3 ; and the Persian monarchs, who fulfilled prophecy in the restoration of Judah, fulfilled it also in the conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia. Both perhaps out of human policy in part. But Cambyses' wild hatred of Egyptian idolatry fulfilled God's word. Ptolemy Lathyrus carried on the work of Cambyses; the Romans, Ptolemy's. Cambyses burned its temples ; Lathyrus its four-or five-storied private houses ; the Roman Gallus leveled it to the ground .

A little after it was said of her , "she is inhabited as so many scattered villages." A little after our Lord's Coming, Germanicus went to visit, not it, but "the vast traces of it." : "It lay overwhelmed with its hundred gates" and utterly impoverished. No was powerful as Nineveh, and less an enemy of the people of God. For though these often suffered from Egypt, yet in those times they even trusted too much to its help (see Isaiah 30). If then the judgments of God came upon No, how much more upon Nineveh! In type, Nineveh is the image of the world as oppressing God's Church; No, rather of those who live for this life, abounding in wealth, ease, power, and forgetful of God. If, then, they were punished, who took no active part against God, fought not against God's truth, yet still were sunk in the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, what shall be the end of those who openly resist God?

Nineveh will share the fate of No-Ammon. - Nahum 3:8 . "Art thou better than No-amon, that sat by rivers, waters round about her, whose bulwark was the sea, her wall of sea? Nahum 3:9 . Ethiopians and Egyptians were (her) strong men, there is no end; Phut and Libyans were for thy help. Nahum 3:10 . She also has gone to transportation, into captivity; her children were also dashed in pieces at the corners of all roads; upon her nobles they cast the lot, and all her great men were bound in chains." התיטבי for התיטבי, for the sake of euphony, the imperfect kal of יטב, to be good, used to denote prosperity in Genesis 12:13 and Genesis 40:14 , is applied here to the prosperous condition of the city, which was rendered strong both by its situation and its resources. נא אמון, i.e., probably "dwelling (נא contracted from נוא, cf. נאות) of Amon," the sacred name of the celebrated city of Thebes in Upper Egypt, called in Egyptian P-amen, i.e., house of the god Amun, who had a celebrated temple there (Herod. i. 182, ii. 42; see Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. i. p. 177). The Greeks called it Διὸς πόλις, generally with the predicate ἡ μεγάλη (Diod. Sic. i. 45), or from the profane name of the city, which was Apet according to Brugsch (possibly a throne, seat, or bank), and with the feminine article prefixed, Tapet, or Tape, or Tepe, Θήβη, generally used in the plural Θῆβαι.