Nahum 3:2 Kommentar

This chapter goes on with the burden of Nineveh, and concludes it. I. The sins of that great city are charged upon it, murder (Nah 3:1), whoredom and witchcraft (Nah 3:4), and a general extent of wickedness (Nah 3:19). II. Judgments are here threatened against it, blood for blood (Nah 3:2, Nah 3:3), and shame for shameful sins (Nah 3:5-7). III. Instances are given of the like desolations brought upon other places for the like sins (Nah 3:8-11). IV. The overthrow of all those things which they depended upon, and put confidence in, is foretold (Nah 3:12-19).

INTRODUCTION TO NAHUM 3 In this chapter is contained the prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh, and with it the whole Assyrian empire; the causes of which, besides those before mentioned, were the murders, lies, and robberies it was full of, Nah 3:1 for which it should be swiftly and cruelly destroyed, Nah 3:2 as also its whoredoms and witchcrafts, or idolatry, by which nations and families were seduced, Nah 3:4 and hence she should be treated as a harlot, her nakedness exposed, and she cast out with contempt, and mocked at by all, Nah 3:5 and all those things she placed her confidence in are shown to be of no avail; as her situation and fortresses, as she might learn from the case of No Amon, Nah 3:8 nor the number of her inhabitants, which were weak as women; nor even her merchants, captains, nobles, and king himself, Nah 3:13 nor the people she was in alliance with, who would now mock at her, her case being irrecoverable and incurable, Nah 3:19.

The noise of a whip,.... Of a horseman or chariot driver whipping his horses to make speed to Nineveh, and enter into it, so near as to be heard by the inhabitants of it; and is thus represented in order to strike terror into them: and the noise of the rattling of the wheels; that is, of the chariots upon the stones, whose drivers drove Jehu like, making the utmost haste they could to get in first, and seize the prey: and of the pransing horses; or bounding steeds, upon a full gallop; either with horsemen on them riding full speed to partake of the booty; or in chariots, in which they caper and prance, and shake the ground as they go; hence it follows: and of the jumping chariots; which, through the swiftness of the motion, seem to leap and dance as they run along.

(Chapter 3, verses 1 and following) Woe to the city of blood, full of deceit and torn apart. The plunder will not cease. The sound of the whip, the sound of the rattling wheel, the galloping horses and the blazing chariots, the ascending knight and the flashing sword, the gleaming spear and the multitude of the slain, and the weighty destruction. There is no end to the corpses. They will stumble over their own bodies because of the multitude of the prostitute's charming and enticing acts of fornication, and her sorceries which she sold to the nations through her acts of fornication, and her enchantments which she used to deceive the families. LXX: O city of blood, completely deceitful, full of wickedness, the hunting will not touch you: the sound of scourges, and the sound of turning wheels, and of pursuing horses, and of a blazing chariot, of a rider ascending, and a gleaming sword, and of shining armor, and of a multitude of wounded, and of a heavy downfall, and there will be no end to its nations, and they will be weakened in their bodies by the multitude of their fornication. A beautiful and pleasing harlot, leader of wickedness, who sells nations in her fornication, and tribes in her wickedness. Where we have been placed, full of laceration, is called Pherec Malea in Hebrew, which Aquila interpreted as 'full of decapitation', that is, full of excision. Symmachus, on the other hand, interpreted it as 'full of amputation', which we can say is full of cruelty or severity. In another edition of his work, I found 'full of dismemberment', that is, with the sections of flesh and pieces torn through the limbs: finally, he immediately added, where there is uninterrupted prey. The Hebrew scholar Pherec does not interpret it as 'exervicationem', which we find in the edition of Aquila, but as 'gubernaculum', that is, 'governance': to show that the city was royal, and as if it held the governance of all nations like a ship. Its power, that is, Nineveh, is described, and it is condemned under the lamentation of cruelty. Woe, city of blood, in which there is no truth, but all falsehood, full of plunder and tearing of prey. The voice of a cruel whip always and of a raging empire, and the voice of the wheel's momentum. Let us understand the voice as a sound: the roaring wheel, racing through different places, and the snorting horses, and the fiery chariot, are heard in all. However, the description of an army preparing for battle, so beautiful and resembling the Hebrew and the pictures, is worthy of all my speech being considered cheap. For what is said: And heavy is the downfall, and there is no end to the corpses, let us understand it as referring to the adversaries who were killed by them. And they will fall in their own bodies, or they will fall from their multitude, while they crowd themselves together: or they will fall on the corpses of the slain; for it signifies both their own and others'. Because of the multitude, he says, of the harlot's fornications: because she has fornicated with many nations and has cultivated idols of the whole world, which she had subjected to herself. It signifies the beautiful and pleasing, and those having evil deeds, the magicians: who have sold nations in their own fornications, and families in their own evil deeds, that is, those whom she had power over all nations. These things about Nineveh are said simply. But if we understand the name 'world' in a rational manner, because of its beauty, rightly the world, which is situated in evil, is called the city of blood because of the multitude of archers and those who kill people with their tongues like swords. Therefore, consequently, the whole world is a liar, which pertains to the perversity of teachings, not having the word of God, where it should find its foundation, when all perverse doctrines possess it. There is none that understandeth, or seeketh after God: they are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Psalm 14:2-3). Although these things are partly done even now, they will be more completely fulfilled in the end, when charity of many shall cool because of the multiplied iniquity. (Matthew 24). How many are caught by the giant Nimrod, the most cruel hunter, who, being proud against God, has ensnared many with the snare of his own vices, of whom many will not touch as prey or game. For he has many followers, and likewise hunters who delight in his hunt, and they stand around him like captives. But the sound of whips is also heard in the world, for there are many tribulations of the just (Psalms 33), to which those who are whipped cry out and testify to the magnitude of their pain with a mournful voice: when one is seized by a demon, another by anger, which is similar to madness, another by desire, hatred, envy, and pride, the whip of the king of Assyria sound in them. But even in bodily ailments, we understand the whip of the devil, concerning which it is said to the just: And the whip will not approach your tent (Ps. XC, 10); when we see this royal disease decay, and its corpse still remaining: one cut open from water, and the body floating while swollen, with the limbs growing, the form of the former man diminishing, which we recently saw in the dissecting room: him expelling certain purulences and the wounds suffered by the damaged lung: him experiencing the dryness of the moisture turned to stones, the bitterness of the urine, and the torments of the bladder, let us not hesitate to say that the voice of the whips is in Nineveh: although some suspect that these things happen either from the corrupted air or from the variety of food and bodies. Let us who read and tremble at the feverishness (Luke IV), and the woman who had been bound by the devil for eighteen years (Ibid., XIII), healed by the Lord, know that all these are scourges for Nineveh. Hence it follows: And the voice of the wheels; while here and there the human race is carried away, uncertainly wandering in all directions, where there is danger, where there is safety, we do not know; concerning which wheel it is also written at the beginning of Ezekiel (Ezek. I): in the seventy-sixth psalm we read: The voice of your thunder is in the wheel (Psalm LXXVI, 19). But Nineveh also has a pursuing horse, whose neighing and hooves digging into the ground and chest boiling, always desires war, while the Lord speaks against the devil. From afar, war can be smelled: it does not spare those who flee with a leap and a cry; it does not allow those who turn their backs to escape; but it pursues in order to overthrow, kill, trample, and crush them. There is also in Nineveh the sound of a steaming chariot, like I imagine Pharaoh had, which were submerged by the Lord (Exodus 14). To this team are harnessed four horses, namely the four disturbances, about which both philosophers argue and Virgil does not remain silent, saying (Virg., VI Aeneid.): They desire, fear, grieve, and rejoice... With these horses and this chariot, he disturbs all of Nineveh. But also the voice of the mounting knight resounds in it, who, prepared by a certain skill and a circuit, advances to battle not without danger against the one fighting against himself. This knight has a sword of speech, sharpened with the blade of dialectic and smoothed with the oil of rhetorical art: he has shining weapons, Satan transforming himself into an angel of light (II Cor. XI), which are contrary to the arms of apostolic armor. It is not surprising if there is a multitude of wounded in Nineveh, since there is a multitude of arrows. And just as we have four shields with which we fight and protect ourselves, they are the virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage; similarly, there are four vices: foolishness, injustice, luxury, and fear, with which we are struck by the enemy. Each of these vices contains numerous kinds of arrows that cause wounds. If these wounds are not immediately healed by medicine, they become a heavy burden and, I wish, as heavy as they are in Nineveh, falling lightly and being lightly wounded, they are so great in their weight of ruin that they sink down to the depths of hell. And there is no end to their nations' groaning: their wickedness has no end. As there are so many forms of sins, there are as many nations as Nineveh, which will be weakened in their bodies by the multitude of fornication. Although it can also be understood about those who, due to sexual desires, are also weakened in their bodies, and with the destruction of their soul, they also break the flesh they serve: nevertheless, these nations, of which we have spoken, do not fall, according to the Hebrew, except in their bodies, and do not offend (as Symmachus interpreted) except in the corpses of the dead, which are laid low by the multiplication of fornication. In this place, the 70 interpreters, when we have followed the Hebrew, because of the multitude of the harlot's fornications, wanted there to be another beginning, so that they would say: Before the multitude of fornication; and up to this point is the end of the sentence, afterwards they would begin, a beautiful and pleasing harlot, leader of evils. Aquila and Symmachus translated leader of evils, having evils. And it will not be surprising if Nineveh is now the most pleasing of harlots, who has seen such a great multitude of people fornicate with her, and is almost able to lead everyone to love her through her evils and certain enchantments. These sell nations in their fornications, which take away the members of Christ, and make them the members of a harlot; and they delight in their evil deeds. For they make themselves love those that they ought to hate, and hate those that they ought to love, so that when they are deceived, according to what is written: 'Evil communications corrupt good manners' (1 Corinthians 15:33), they may also overthrow others by their wicked arts. I have read in the Holy Scriptures that even malefactors can be taken in a good sense: 'The wise malefactor enchants' (Psalm 57). But this sorcerer uses such incantations that he can bring back those captivated by the love of a harlot of Nineveh to their right mind.

Because emptying they have emptied them out and their branches. They destroyed the weapons of their power from among men, mighty men mocking in fire. The reins of their chariots on the day of his preparation, and the horsemen shall be thrown into confusion in the ways, and the chariots shall be thrown into confusion and shall clash together in the broad ways; their appearance is like torches of fire and like lightnings running to and fro. As the God who knows all things sounded in the holy prophets the things that would be at various times, they necessarily announced them according to what seemed good to him. And many times they occurred even in the very visions of things. Therefore they were astonished, and seeing them all but fulfilled, they made their pronouncements about them; something of which sort the Prophet now seems to have experienced concerning the inhabitants of Nineveh, and those who shielded themselves with Cyrus, that they both shook them off and their branches. But the account is made as from what is accustomed to happen to vines. For the cluster is shaken off and spits out the grapes, either when a most violent wind attacks, or when a scorching heat burns it, or when any other harm befalls it, so that the branch itself appears with the fruits, stripped even of its blossom. So then they shook them off like vines. And their weapons have been destroyed, that is, their power; for 'weapons' sometimes signifies power. But he says that being terrible horsemen, and knowing the battles from chariots, they were in such unbearable terrors, that they were turned to flight, and entangled with one another, and were shattered dashing against each other, and he thought he so gazed upon the phalanxes of the enemy, that they yielded in no way to torches, or even like lightning consumed them, darting with a swift and unrestrained course.

The prophet denounces a wo against Nineveh for her perfidy and violence. He musters up before our eyes the number of her chariots and cavalry; points to her burnished arms, and to the great and unrelenting slaughter which she spreads around her, Nah 3:1-3. Because Nineveh is a city wholly given up to the grossest superstition, and is an instructress of other nations in her abominable rites, therefore she shall come to a most ignominious and unpitied end, Nah 3:3-7. Her final ruin shall be similar to that of No, a famous city of Egypt, Nah 3:8-11. The prophet then beautifully describes the great ease with which the strong holds of Nineveh should be taken, Nah 3:12, and her judicial pusillanimity during the siege, Nah 3:13; declares that all her preparation, her numbers, opulence, and chieftains, would be of no avail in the day of the Lord's vengeance, Nah 3:14-17; and that her tributaries would desert her, Nah 3:18. The whole concludes with stating the incurableness of her malady, and the dreadful destruction consequently awaiting her; and with introducing the nations which she had oppressed as exulting at her fall, Nah 3:19.

REPETITION OF NINEVEH'S DOOM, WITH NEW FEATURES; THE CAUSE IS HER TYRANNY, RAPINE, AND CRUELTY: NO-AMMON'S FORTIFICATIONS DID NOT SAVE HER; IT IS VAIN, THEREFORE, FOR NINEVEH TO THINK HER DEFENSES WILL SECURE HER AGAINST GOD'S SENTENCE. (Nah. 3:1-19) the bloody city!--literally, "city of blood," namely, shed by Nineveh; just so now her own blood is to be shed. robbery--violence [MAURER]. Extortion [GROTIUS]. the prey departeth not--Nineveh never ceases to live by rapine. Or, the Hebrew verb is transitive, "she (Nineveh) does not make the prey depart"; she ceases not to plunder.

The reader is transported into the midst of the fight (compare Jer 47:3). The "noise of the whips" urging on the horses (in the chariots) is heard, and of "the rattling of the wheels" of war chariots, and the "horses" are seen "prancing," and the "chariots jumping," &c.

Nineveh's Sins and Inevitable Destruction - Nahum 3 The announcement of the destruction awaiting Nineveh is confirmed by the proof, that this imperial city has brought this fate upon itself by its sins and crimes (Nah 3:1-7), and will no more be able to avert it than the Egyptian No-amon was (Nah 3:8-13), but that, in spite of all its resources, it will be brought to a terrible end (Nah 3:14-19).

This threat is explained in Nah 3:2., by a description of the manner in which a hostile army enters Nineveh and fills the city with corpses. Nah 3:2. "The cracking of whips, and noise of the rattling of wheels, and the horse in galloping, and chariots flying high. Nah 3:3. Riders dashing along, and flame of the sword, and flashing of the lance, and multitude of slain men and mass of dead men, and no end of corpses; they stumble over their corpses. Nah 3:4. For the multitude of the whoredoms of the harlot, the graceful one, the mistress of witchcrafts, who sells nations with her whoredoms, and families with her witchcrafts." Nahum sees in spirit the hostile army bursting upon Nineveh. He hears the noise, i.e., the cracking of the whips of the charioteers, and the rattling (ra‛ash) of the chariot-wheels, sees horses and chariots driving along (dâhar, to hunt, cf. Jdg 5:22; riqqēd, to jump, applied to the springing up of the chariots as they drive quickly along over a rugged road), dashing riders (ma‛ăleh, lit., to cause to ascend, sc. the horse, i.e., to make it prance, by driving the spur into its side to accelerate its speed), flaming swords, and flashing lances. As these words are well adapted to depict the attack, so are those which follow to describe the consequence or effect of the attack. Slain men, fallen men in abundance, and so many corpses, that one cannot help stumbling or falling over them. כּבד, the heavy multitude. The chethib יכשׁלו is to be read יכּשׁלוּ (niphal), in the sense of stumbling, as in Nah 2:6. The keri וכשׁלוּ is unsuitable, as the sentence does not express any progress, but simply exhibits the infinite number of the corpses (Hitzig). גויּתם, their (the slain men's) corpses. This happens to the city of sins because of the multitude of its whoredoms. Nineveh is called Zōnâh, and its conduct zenūnı̄m, not because it had fallen away from the living God and pursued idolatry, for there is nothing about idolatry either here or in what follows; nor because of its commercial intercourse, in which case the commerce of Nineveh would appear here under the perfectly new figure of love-making with other nations (Ewald), for commercial intercourse as such is not love-making; but the love-making, with its parallel "witchcrafts" (keshâphı̄m), denotes "the treacherous friendship and crafty politics with which the coquette in her search for conquests ensnared the smaller states" (Hitzig, after Abarbanel, Calvin, J. H. Michaelis, and others). This policy is called whoring or love-making, "inasmuch as it was that selfishness which wraps itself up in the dress of love, and under the appearance of love seeks simply the gratification of its own lust" (Hengstenberg on the Rev.). The zōnâh is described still more minutely as טובת חן, beautiful with grace. This refers to the splendour and brilliancy of Nineveh, by which this city dazzled and ensnared the nations, like a graceful coquette. Ba‛ălath keshâphı̄m, devoted to witchcrafts, mistress of them. Keshâphı̄m (witchcrafts) connected with zenūnı̄m, as in Kg2 9:22, are "the secret wiles, which, like magical arts, do not come to the light in themselves, but only in their effects" (Hitzig). מכר, to sell nations, i.e., to rob them of liberty and bring them into slavery, to make them tributary, as in Deu 32:30; Jdg 2:14; Jdg 3:8, etc. (not = כמר from כבר, to entangle: Hitzig). בּזנוּניה, with (not for) their whoredoms. Mishpâchōth, families, synonymous with עמּים, are smaller peoples or tribes (cf. Jer 25:9; Eze 20:32).