Nahum 2:8 Kommentar

We now come closer to Nineveh, that great city; she took, not warning by the destruction of her armies and the fall of her king, and therefore may expect, since she persists in her enmity to God, that he will proceed in his controversy with her. Here is foretold, I. The approach of the enemy that should destroy Nineveh, and the terror of his military preparations (Nah 2:1-5). II. The taking of the city (Nah 2:6). III. The captivity of the queen, the flight of the inhabitants, the seizing of all its wealth, and the great consternation it should be in (Nah 2:7-10). IV. All this is traced up to its true causes - their sinning against God and God's appearing against them (Nah 2:11-13). All this was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar, in the first year of his reign, in conjunction with Cyaxares, or Ahasuerus, king of the Medes, conquered Nineveh, and made himself master of the Assyrian monarchy.

INTRODUCTION TO NAHUM 2 This chapter gives an account of the destruction of the city of Nineveh; describes the instruments of it as very terrible and powerful, and not to be resisted, Nah 2:1. The manner of taking it, the flight of its inhabitants, and the spoil of its riches and treasures, Nah 2:5 and the king and the princes thereof, compared to a lion, and a lion's whelp, are insulted as being without a den or dwelling place, because of their cruelty and ravening, for which the Lord was against them, and threatened them with utter ruin, which he brought upon them, Nah 2:11.

But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water,.... This was a very ancient city, built by Nimrod, as some say; or rather by Ashur, as appears from Gen 10:10 and it was like fish pool, full of people, as it was in the times of Jonah, who for their number may be compared both to water and to fish; and likewise full of wealth and riches, which for their instability may be signified by water also; and moreover, like a pool of standing water, had never been liable to any commotions and disturbances, but had remained from the beginning in a tranquil and prosperous state; besides, some regard may be had in a literal sense to its situation, being watered by the river Tigris, and which was for its profit and defence: so some copies of the Septuagint read the words, "Nineveh is like a pool of water, the waters are her walls:'' and the Syriac version is, "Nineveh is as a lake of water, and is among the waters;'' see Nah 1:6, yet they shall flee away; the waters out of the pool, the sluices being opened, or the banks broken down; or the people out of the city, breaches being made in its walls, or its gates opened, and the enemy entering; when everyone would flee for his life, and make his escape in the best manner he could: stand, stand, shall they cry; either the generals and officers of the king of Assyria's army, to the soldiers running away; or the more courageous inhabitants of the city, to those that were timorous and seized with a panic, fleeing in the utmost consternation; or the enemy, as Kimchi, who shall call to them to stop, promising to spare their lives upon a surrender of them to them: but none shall look back; and stand to hear what is said unto them, but make the best of their way, and flee with all their might and main.

(Verses 8, 9.) And Nineveh is like a pool of water; its waters are fleeing. Stand! Stand! But there is no one who can turn back. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold; there is no end to the treasures, the desirable vessels. LXX: And Nineveh is like a pool of water; and they who flee do not stand; there is no one who looks back. They plunder silver, they plunder gold, and there is no end to its ornaments; it is burdened with all the vessels of its desire. It is evident that, when the cities of Nineveh (which Scripture calls her daughters) were led into captivity, Nineveh herself, which had nourished such great populations that it could be compared to the waters of the sea, now has a useless multitude because there is no one who resists and endures the attack of the Babylonians. For it had populations that only fled, and when the mother shouted, 'Stand, stand, close the gates, climb the walls, resist the enemies,' there was no one who would return, no one who would look back at the mother, but everyone turned their backs and abandoned the city to the spoils of the enemies. Where it is said to the Babylonians, because they fled, plunder the silver, and in such a long time gather riches and seize them by sudden devastation. For there is no end to riches, furniture, and vessels that were stored up in Nineveh; nor can you plunder as much as it offers itself for plundering. But because we have already said that Nineveh is splendid, that is, the world, let us see what kind of pool the world is. Scripture does not say that the waters of Nineveh are like the waters of the sea, nor like the waters of rivers, nor like the waters of springs, nor like the waters of wells, but like the waters of a pool: just as, in the book of Jeremiah, the people are accused who have forsaken the fountain of living water and have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that cannot hold water (Jeremiah 2): so also in Nineveh, all those waters that have fallen from the sky, leaving behind their former depth, have poured down into the lowest depths. For all the teachings of the world, which are outside the Church's source and sealed garden, cannot say: The river's current makes the city of God rejoice (Ps. 45:4): nor are they the waters that praise the name of the Lord above the heavens, although they may seem great, yet they are small and confined within a narrow boundary. Let no one be disturbed because we understand the pool in a negative sense, while that pool is understood in a positive sense, to which Isaiah the son of Amos the prophet is commanded to ascend. For there, with an addition, it is said: A pool of flowing water, and a pool of the cloth washer (Is. VII and XXXVI), which is accustomed to wash away filth and stains of clothing (or filth). Because it is placed on high, therefore the prophet is commanded to ascend to it, and to promise victory in the encounter with the king from the two burnt towers. It follows: The fleeing did not stand firm, namely the inhabitants of Nineveh. First, indeed, they should not have fled from God, then also if they had fled, at some point they should have stood firm: For there is a great difference between someone who flees and stands firm, and someone who, fleeing, never stands firm. For the one who stands firm has ceased to flee; the one who does not stand firm always remains in flight. In such a great crowd of those fleeing, there was none who would look back, and repent, and hear the Lord speaking: Return to me, my children, returning, and I will heal your contritions (Jerem. III, 22). Hence also the Holy One speaks in the Psalms: Flight has perished from me (Ps. CXLI, 5). Indeed, I think this also signifies the mystery of leprosy, above which it is said in Leviticus: When a leper has been separated from the priest outside the camp: if the leprosy should stand firm, it [the person] is to be a clean human (Levit. XIII and XIV), and he who had been cast out like a leper is to be cleansed, and to return to camp, and to dwell among the people. But if, the text says, the leprosy has spread, that is, if it does not stand firm but grows and makes progress in evil, and has changed the color of its former health, then the leprosy is most plainly proved by the one who has the knowledge to examine and cleanse the leprosy. But we are also instructed by the true Solomon to dwell in Jerusalem, and to never go out from it. But if that which had been subjected before us flees from us, and goes to other nations, let us not go out of the walls of our city, nor follow the tracks of the fugitives: lest while we wish to save those who are fleeing, we ourselves perish: rather, let us allow them to bury their own dead (Matth. VIII): and let us cut off and cast away from us the eye, hand, and foot that causes scandal, while it is still possible (Marc. IX). Now, what is said: They plundered silver, they plundered gold, and there was no end to their treasures: it refers to the waters of Nineveh, and to those who fled and did not stand firm: there was no one who would look back; and not content with having fled and not looked back, they also plundered silver, whatever eloquence seemed to be in the world: they plundered gold, whatever brilliant sentiments there were in the doctrine of the age, so that they might adorn Nineveh, so that they might compose their teachings with the full flower of all senses and words. Therefore, Nineveh was weighed down with all the treasures of its desires; for the more it possessed a great amount of gold and silver wealth, and various valuable possessions, which were heavy, the more it itself was weighed down, for it loved things that were heavy. Hence, in the book of Zechariah, iniquity sits on a weighed-down talent (Zach. V); and the Egyptians, who were heavy with sins, were submerged in the sea like lead (Exod. XIV). And in the persona of a sinner it is said in the psalm: They were weighed down on me like a heavy burden (Ps. XXXVII, 5). And Peter, who before lightly stepped on the waves: after being weighed down by unbelief, was swallowed up by the waves, is lifted up by the hand of the Lord (Matth. XIV).

Nineveh is now called upon to prepare for the approach of her enemies, the instruments of Jehovah's vengeance, Nah 2:1; and the military array and muster, the very arms and dress, of the Medes and Babylonians in the reigns of Cyaxares and Nabopolassar; their rapid approach to the city; the process of the siege, and the inundation of the river; the capture of the place; the captivity, lamentation, and flight of the inhabitants; the sacking of this immense, wealthy, and exceedingly populous city; and the consequent desolation and terror, are all described in the pathetic, vivid, and sublime imagery of Hebrew poetry, Nah 2:2-10. This description is succeeded by a very beautiful and expressive allegory, Nah 2:11-12; which is immediately explained, and applied to the city of Nineveh, Nah 2:13. It is thought by some commentators that the metropolitan city of the Assyrian empire is also intended by the tender and beautiful simile, in the seventh verse, of a great princess led captive, with her maids of honor attending her, bewailing her and their own condition, by beating their breasts, and by other expressions of sorrow.

But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water - מימי mimey, from days. Bp. Newcome translates the line thus: "And the waters of Nineveh are a pool of waters." There may be reference here to the fact given in the preceding note, the overflowing of the river by which the city was primarily destroyed. Stand, stand - Consternation shall be at its utmost height, the people shall flee in all directions; and though quarter is offered, and they are assured of safety it they remain, yet not one looketh back.

THE ADVANCE OF THE DESTROYING FORCES AGAINST NINEVEH, AFTER IT WAS USED AS GOD'S ROD FOR A TIME TO CHASTISE HIS PEOPLE: THE CAPTURE OF THAT LION'S DWELLING, ACCORDING TO THE SURE WORD OF JEHOVAH. (Nah 2:1-13) He that dasheth in pieces--God's "battle axe," wherewith He "breaks in pieces" His enemies. Jer 51:20 applies the same Hebrew term to Nebuchadnezzar (compare Pro 25:18; Jer 50:23, "the hammer of the whole earth"). Here the Medo-Babylonian army under Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, that destroyed Nineveh, is prophetically meant. before thy face--before Nineveh. Openly, so that the work of God may be manifest. watch the way--by which the foe will attack, so as to be ready to meet him. Ironical advice; equivalent to a prophecy, Thou shalt have need to use all possible means of defense; but use what thou wilt, all will be in vain. make thy loins strong--The loins are the seat of strength; to gird them up is to prepare all one's strength for conflict (Job 40:7). Also gird on thy sword (Sa2 20:8; Kg2 4:29).

But--rather, "Though" [G. V. SMITH]. of old--rather, "from the days that she hath been"; from the earliest period of her existence. Alluding to Nineveh's antiquity (Gen 10:11). "Though Nineveh has been of old defended by water surrounding her, yet her inhabitants shall flee away." GROTIUS, less probably (compare Nah 3:8-12), interprets, the "waters" of her numerous population (Isa 8:7; Jer 51:13; Rev 17:15). Stand, stand, shall they cry--that is, the few patriotic citizens shall cry to their fleeing countrymen; "but none looketh back," much less stops in flight, so panic-stricken are they.

With Nah 2:1 the prophecy turns to Nineveh. Nah 2:1. "A dasher in pieces comes against thee. Keep thy fortress! Look out upon the way, fortify the loins, exert thy strength greatly! Nah 2:2. For Jehovah returneth to the eminence of Jacob as to the eminence of Israel; for plunderers have plundered them, and their vines have they thrown to the ground." על־פּניך cannot be addressed to Judah, as in Nah 1:15 (Chald., Rashi, etc.). It cannot indeed be objected that in Nah 1:15 the destruction of Asshur has already been announced, since the prophet might nevertheless have returned to the time when Asshur had made war upon Judah, in order to depict its ruin with greater precision. But such an assumption does not agree with the second clause of the verse as compared with Nah 2:2, and still less with the description of the approaching enemy which follows in Nah 2:3, since this is unquestionably, according to Nah 2:5, the power advancing against Nineveh, and destroying that city. We must therefore assume that we have here a sudden change in the person addressed, as in Nah 1:11 and Nah 1:12, Nah 1:13 and Nah 1:14. The enemy is called מפיץ, "a dasher in pieces;" not a war-hammer (cf. Pro 25:18), because עלה, the standing expression for the advance of a hostile army, does not agree with this. על־פּניך, against thy face, i.e., pitching his tent opposite to the city (there is no good reason for altering the suffix into פּניך, as Ewald and Hitzig propose). Against this enemy Nineveh is to bring all possible power of resistance. This is not irony, but simply a poetical turn given to the thought, that Nineveh will not be able to repulse this enemy any more. The inf. abs. nâtsōr stands emphatically for the imperative, as is frequently the case, and is continued in the imperative. Metsūrâh is the enclosure of a city, hence the wall or fortification. צפּה־דרך, looking watchfully upon the way by which the enemy comes, to repulse it or prevent it from entering the city. הזּק מ, make the loins strong, i.e., equip thyself with strength, the loins being the seat of strength. The last clause expresses the same thought, and is merely added to strengthen the meaning. The explanatory kı̄ in Nah 2:2 (3) does not follow upon Nah 2:1 in the sense of "summon up all thy strength, for it is God in whose strength the enemy fights" (Strauss), but to Nah 2:1 or Nah 1:15. The train of thought is the following: Asshur will be utterly destroyed by the enemy advancing against Nineveh, for Jehovah will re-establish the glory of Israel, which Asshur has destroyed. שׁב (perf. proph.) has not the force of the hiphil, reducere, restituere, either here or in Psa 85:5 and Isa 52:8, and other passages, where the modern lexicons give it, but means to turn round, or return to a person, and is construed with the accusative, as in Num 10:36; Exo 4:20, and Gen 50:14, although in actual fact the return of Jehovah to the eminence of Jacob involves its restoration. גּאון יעקב, that of which Jacob is proud, i.e., the eminence and greatness or glory accruing to Israel by virtue of its election to be the nation of God, which the enemy into whose power it had been given up on account of its rebellion against God had taken away (see at Amo 6:8). Jacob does not stand for Judah, nor Israel for the ten tribes, for Nahum never refers to the ten tribes in distinction from Judah; and Oba 1:18, where Jacob is distinguished from the house of Joseph, is of a totally different character. Both names stand here for the whole of Israel (of the twelve tribes), and, as Cyril has shown, the distinction is this: Jacob is the natural name which the people inherited from their forefather, and Israel the spiritual name which they had received from God. Strauss gives the meaning correctly thus: Jehovah will so return to the eminence of His people, who are named after Jacob, that this eminence shall become the eminence of Israel, i.e., of the people of God; in other words, He will exalt the nation once more to the lofty eminence of its divine calling (כּ used in the same manner as in Sa1 25:36). This will He do, because plunderers have plundered (bâqaq, evacuare) them (the Israelites), and destroyed their vines, cast them to the ground; that He may avenge the reproach cast upon His people. The plunderers are the heathen nations, especially the Assyrians. The vines are the Israelites; Israel as a people or kingdom is the vineyard (Isa 5:1; Jer 12:10; Psa 80:9.); the vines are the families, and the branches (zemōrı̄m from zemōrâh) the members.

At the conquest of Nineveh the numerous inhabitants flee, and the rich city is plundered. Nah 2:8. "And Nineveh like a water-pond all her days. And they flee! Stand ye, O stand! and no one turns round. Nah 2:9. Take silver as booty, take ye gold! And no end to the furnishing with immense quantity of all kinds of ornamental vessels. Nah 2:10. Emptying and devastation! and the heart has melted, and trembling of the knees, and labour pain in all loins, and the countenance of every one withdraws its ruddiness." Nineveh is compared to a pool, not merely with reference to the multitude of men who had gathered together there, but, as water is everywhere an element of life, also with reference to the wealth and prosperity which accrued to this imperial city out of the streaming together of so many men and so many different peoples. Compare Jer 51:13, where Babel is addressed as "Thou that dwellest on many waters, art rich in many treasures." מימי היא, since the days that she exists. היא = אשׁר היא, the relation being indicated by the construct state; מן הוא in Isa 18:2 is different. But they flee. The subject to נסים is not the waters, although nūs is applied to water in Psa 104:7, but, as what follows shows, the masses of men who are represented as water. These flee away without being stopped by the cry "Stand ye" (i.e., remain), or even paying any attention to it. Hiphnâh, lit., "to turn the back" (‛ōreph, Jer 48:39), to flee, but when applied to a person already fleeing, to turn round (cf. Jer 46:5). In Nah 2:9 the conquerors are summoned to plunder, not by their generals, but by God, who speaks through the prophet. The fact is hereby indicated, "that this does not happen by chance, but because God determines to avenge the injuries inflicted upon His people" (Calvin). With ואין קצה the prophecy passes into a simple description. There is no end lattekhūnâh, to the furnishing with treasures. Tekhūnâh, from kūn, not from tâkhan, lit., the setting up, the erection of a building (Eze 43:11); here the furnishing of Nineveh as the dwelling-place of the rulers of the world, whilst in Job 23:3 it is applied to the place where the throne of God has been established. In כּבד the ל might be thought of as still continuing in force (Ewald, Hitzig), but it answers better to the liveliness of the description to take כּבד as beginning a fresh sentence. כּבד written defectively, as in Gen 31:1 : glory, equivalent to the great amount of the wealth, as in Genesis (l.c.). Kelē chendâh, gold and silver vessels and jewels, as in Hos 13:15. That there were immense treasures of the precious metals and of costly vessels treasured up in Nineveh, may be inferred with certainty from the accounts of ancient writers, which border on the fabulous. (Note: For proofs, see Layard's Nineveh, ii. 415ff., and Movers, Phnizier (iii. 1, pp. 40, 41). After quoting the statements of Ctesias, the latter observes that "these numbers are indeed fabulous; but they have their historical side, inasmuch as in the time of Ctesias the riches of Nineveh were estimated at an infinitely greater amount than the enormous treasures accumulated in the treasuries of the Persian empire. That the latter is quite in accordance with truth, may be inferred from the fact that the conquerors of Nineveh, the Medes and Chaldaeans, of whose immense booty, in the shape of gold, silver, and other treasures, even the prophet Nahum speaks, furnished Ecbatana and Babylon with gold and silver from the booty of Nineveh to an extent unparalleled in all history.") Of all these treasures nothing was left but desolate emptiness. This is expressed by the combination of three synonymous words. Būqâh and mebhūqâh are substantive formations from būq = bâqaq, to empty out, and are combined to strengthen the idea, like similar combinations in Zep 1:15; Eze 33:29, and Isa 29:2. Mebhullâqâh is a synonymous noun formed from the participle pual, and signifying devastation (cf. Isa 24:1, where even bâlaq is combined with bâqaq). In Nah 2:11 the horror of the vanquished at the total devastation of Nineveh is described, also in short substantive clauses: "melted heart" (nâmēs is a participle), i.e., perfect despondency (see Isa 13:7; Jos 7:5); trembling of the knees, so that from terror men can hardly keep upon their feet (pı̄q for pūq; it only occurs here). Chalchâlâh formed by reduplication from chı̄l: spasmodic pains in all loins, like the labour pains of women in childbirth (cf. Isa 21:3). Lastly, the faces of all turning pale (see at Joe 2:6).