Nahum 3:18 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.

Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria,.... Who this king of Assyria was is not easy to say; some think Esarhaddon, who is the last of the kings of Assyria the Scriptures speak of; according to Diodorus Siculus (n), Sardanapalus was the last of these kings, and in him the Assyrian monarchy ended; though, according to Alexander Polyhistor (o), Saracus, perhaps the Chyniladanus of Ptolemy, was king when Nineveh was destroyed: it is very likely that Sardanapalus and Saracus design the same person, though set at a great distance by historians; since the same things are said of the one as of the other; particularly that, when they saw their danger, they burnt themselves and theirs in the royal palace at Nineveh; nor is it probable that the same city with the empire should be destroyed and subverted twice by the same people, the Medes and Babylonians, uniting together; and it is remarkable that the double destruction of this city and empire is related by different historians; and those that speak of the one say nothing of the other: but this king, be he who he will, his case was very bad, his "shepherds slumbered"; his ministers of state, his counsellors, subordinate magistrates in provinces and cities, and particularly in Nineveh; his generals and officers in his army were careless and negligent of their duty, and gave themselves up to sloth and ease; and which also was his own character, as historians agree in; or they were dead, slumbering in their graves, and so could be of no service to him: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust; be brought very low, into a very mean and abject condition; their honour shall be laid in the dust, and they be trampled upon by everyone: or, "they shall sleep" (p); that is, die, and be buried, as the Vulgate Latin renders it: or, "shall dwell in silence", as others (q); have their habitation in the silent grave, being cut off by the enemy; so that this prince would have none of his mighty men to trust in, but see himself stripped of all his vain confidences: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them; like sheep without a shepherd, which being frightened by beasts of prey, run here and there, and there is none to get them together, and bring them back again; so the subjects of this king, being terrified at the approach of the Medes and Babylonians, forsook their cities, and fled to the mountains; where they were scattered about, having no leader and commander to gather them together, and put them in regular order to face and oppose the enemy. So the Targum interprets it "the people of thine armies.'' (n) Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 109, 115. (o) Apud Syncell. p. 210. (p) "dormiunt", Piscator; so Ben Melech interprets it, "the rest of death." (q) "Habitarunt in silentio", Buxtorf, Drusius.

(Verse 18 onwards) Your shepherds have fallen asleep, O king of Assyria; your princes shall be buried, your people are scattered on the mountains. There is no one to gather them, your injury is not hidden, your wound is severe. All who hear of your downfall clap their hands over you, for against whom has your evil not passed continually? Septuagint: Your shepherds have fallen asleep; the king of Assyria has fallen asleep, your strong men have gone away, your people have gone up to the mountains, and there was no one to support them, and there is no cure for your injury, your wound is swollen. All who have heard your message will applaud you, because against whom does your malice never attack? It is not surprising if your shepherds have fallen asleep, O king of Assyria, who ruled over Nineveh, and may they be buried or wander, your princes, the little kings and the rulers of all nations who once served you: when the women of your people are in the midst of your city; and the gates of the city are open to your enemies, and a multitude sits on the wall like a swarm of locusts, which flees at the approach of the scorching sun, so will Nebuchadnezzar flee from the fortifications and turn his back on the enemy, and no place will be found for him. Therefore, angry with God, because you devastated His people, O Assyria, and exalted yourself even to the heavens, where you are said to have great understanding, your city is destroyed. And with all the princes slain, who could resist your adversaries, the rest of your people, weak and ignoble, are scattered in the mountains, and there is no leader to be found who can gather them together, and from those scattered, gather an army again. Your wound is not hidden, nor is it such a blow that can be healed by the hand of physicians. All those who hear of the destruction of Nineveh and the defeat of the Assyrian king, and the once powerful city and its wounded and half-dead king, lying in his own blood and rolling around, will either be amazed at the greatness of the event and the unexpected news, and they will clasp their hands or, certainly, they will rejoice greatly and applaud you with their hands and make a joyful noise. For there is no one who can grieve over you and give tears to your destruction and wounds, because there is no one whom your malice does not always pass over. And it passes over beautifully: for the malice of the Assyrian king cannot always remain in his bones. Thus far let the order of the story be the text. But we must also, according to the Hebrew, before we discuss the Septuagint edition (for in that the meaning is far different and diverse), ascend a little from the story to the sublime, and teach that in the last prophecy of Nahum, a turning away is made to the devil, a great sense, the prince of the Assyrians, who once proudly said: By my strength I will do it, and by my wisdom I will remove the boundaries of nations, and I will break their powers, and I will shake the cities that are inhabited (Isaiah 10:13), and let it be said to him: O Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning, who used to send your flames to all the nations: how you have fallen to the earth, and you are shattered (Isaiah 14:12, 13)? Your beautiful and powerful city, Nineveh, has been destroyed, in which you presumed to have so much power that you dared to say to the Son of God: All these things have been given to me: if you fall down and worship me, I will give them to you (Matthew 4:9). Your shepherds and rulers slumbered, who did not feed the people for their salvation, but nourished them for your destruction, so that you could devour fatter sacrifices. Your entire population and the multitude of nations that once worshipped you have deserted you and your city, and have fled to the mountains, seeking refuge among the hiding places of the apostles of Christ and the learned, and in the meantime, none of your leaders are able to call back your once loyal followers. Your wound and your plague have spread throughout the whole world: all who were once deceived by your treachery have insulted you; for there is no one, or very few, whom you have not deceived at some point, and through whom your malice has not passed. And it should be noted that wherever the malice of the devil has stood, it cannot mock his downfall and wound, since it is from the shepherds and people of the king of Assyria; but wherever it passes, let it mock him, and let it resound upon his good and righteous works, as if the hands were clapping over him. And appropriately, according to the Hebrew, it has been said about the destruction of the world: in the end, it is also said about the devil himself, who was the prince of the world. For the world is placed in wickedness, it is proclaimed as a wound and a plague. But in the Septuagint it is still said to be mixed, that is, a mixture of the world, because its shepherds have slept and have been lulled to sleep by the Assyrian king; and thus it happens that while it is described among them what the Assyrian does among others, and not what he himself suffers, there is silence about the wound, plague, and killing of the devil. Woe therefore to those who are masters of perverse doctrines in Nineveh. And it is rightly said to them: Your shepherds have slumbered (Ps. CXXXI): for they have given sleep to their eyes, and slumber to their eyelids. And therefore they have not found a place for the Lord, nor a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. They have not heard of Ephrata, that is, the fruitful Church; nor have they found her in the thickets of the forests. But not only have the mixed shepherds of this generation, and the locusts, which, with impending frost, sit on the hedges, slumbered; but even the king of the Assyrians himself has been put to sleep. For the Assyrian king knows that he cannot deceive the sheep unless he first puts the shepherds to sleep. It is always the devil's endeavor to put to sleep vigilant souls. Finally, even in the Passion of the Lord, he oppresses the eyes of the apostles with a deep sleep, whom the Savior awakens and says: Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation (Mark 14:38). And again: What I say to you, I say to all: Watch (Ibid., 13:37). And because he never stops putting to sleep those who are vigilant, whomever he deceives, and bewitches as with a sweet and pernicious song of the Sirens to make them sleep, the divine word awakens and says: Rise, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you (Ephesians 5:14). Therefore, with the arrival of Christ and the word of God and the teaching of the Church, and the destruction of Nineveh, once a beautiful prostitute, the people who had previously been asleep under their masters will be raised up and will hurry to the mountains of Scripture. There they will find the mountains of Moses and Joshua son of Nun; the mountains of the prophets; the mountains of the apostles and evangelists of the New Testament. And when they take refuge in such mountains and become skilled in their reading, if they do not find someone to teach them (for the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, Matt. IX, 37), then their zeal will be proven because they have sought refuge in the mountains, and the laziness of their teachers will be exposed: for they bring forth fruits, but there was no one to receive them. It follows: There is no healing for your fracture, your wound swells. Therefore, the mixed people of Nineveh cannot be healed, because they do not cast off their pride, and the wound is always fresh, and they are struck by the devil daily. And after all this, there is no healing for their fracture: although he may seem to be healthy, his soul is broken and crushed, struck by the hammer of the whole earth from above, and he is not healed, because he is always standing erect. But if he humbles himself and submits to Christ: God does not despise a contrite and humble heart (Ps. 50:19); And: The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. In the end it is said: All who have heard of you will clap their hands over you. Against whom does your wickedness not always rush? When it begins, O shameless one, to endure punishments, all who have heard of it, with harmonious clapping and vocal sound, and (so to speak) with the sound and harmony of actions, will insult you and rejoice. For there is no one, or certainly very few, into whom your malice has not rushed or has not come upon. For if the city of Nineveh has mixed shepherds and strong ones, and every false doctrine and deceitful opinion of knowledge comes from the mixture, it must be feared that there is no one upon whom the malice of the mixture has not come. And carefully observe, because it does not say: Into whom your malice has not entered, O mixture, but into whom it has not come upon. For often false dogmas shoot their arrows at us, and they desire to enter into the secret of the soul: but with us closing the gates, there certainly comes σύμμικτος (a mixed thing), and as much as it can, it rushes forth, and it always does this: but with the help of Christ the Lord, and with all watchfulness guarding (or preserving), our heart (Prov. IV), it does indeed rush forth, but it cannot enter.

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.

Thy shepherds slumber - That is, the rulers and tributary princes, who, as Herodotus informs us, deserted Nineveh in the day of her distress, and came not forward to her succor. Diodorus Siculus says, lib. ii., when the enemy shut up the king in the city, many nations revolted, each going over to the besiegers, for the sake of their liberty; that the king despatched messengers to all his subjects, requiring power from them to succor him; and that he thought himself able to endure the siege, and remained in expectation of armies which were to be raised throughout his empire, relying on the oracle that the city would not be taken till the river became its enemy. See the note on Nah 2:6.

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.

Thy shepherds--that is, Thy leaders. slumber--are carelessly secure [MAURER]. Rather, "lie in death's sleep, having been slain" [JEROME] (Exo 15:16; Psa 76:6). shall dwell in the dust-- (Psa 7:5; Psa 94:17). thy people is scattered--the necessary consequence of their leaders being laid low (Kg1 22:17).

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).

Such an end will come to the Assyrian kingdom on the overthrow of Nineveh. Nah 3:18. "The shepherds have fallen asleep, king Asshur: thy glorious ones are lying there: thy people have scattered themselves upon the mountains, and no one gathers them. Nah 3:19. No alleviation to thy fracture, thy stroke is grievous: all who hear tidings of thee clap the hand over thee: for over whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?" The king of Asshur addressed in Nah 3:18 is not the last historical king of that kingdom, but a rhetorical personification of the holder of the imperial power of Assyria. His shepherds and glorious ones ('addı̄rı̄m, as in Nah 2:6) are the princes and great men, upon whom the government and defence of the kingdom devolved, the royal counsellors, deputies, and generals. Mâmū, from nūm, to slumber, to sleep, is not a figurative expression for carelessness and inactivity here; for the thought that the people would be scattered, and the kingdom perish, through the carelessness of the rulers (Hitzig), neither suits the context, where the destruction of the army and the laying of the capital in ashes are predicted, nor the object of the whole prophecy, which does not threaten the fall of the kingdom through the carelessness of its rulers, but the destruction of the kingdom by a hostile army. Nūm denotes here, as in Psa 76:6, the sleep of death (cf. Psa 13:4; Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57 : Theodoret, Hesselb., Str., and others). Shâkhan, a synonym of shâkhabh, to have lain down, to lie quietly (Jdg 5:17), used here of the rest of death. As the shepherds have fallen asleep, the flock (i.e., the Assyrian people) is scattered upon the mountains and perishes, because no one gathers it together. Being scattered upon the mountains, is easily explained from the figure of the flock (cf. Num 27:17; Kg1 22:17; Zac 13:7), and implies destruction. The mountains are mentioned with evident reference to the fact that Nineveh is shut in towards the north by impassable mountains. Kēhâh, a noun formed from the adjective, the extinction of the wound (cf. Lev 13:6), i.e., the softening or anointing of it. Shebher, the fracture of a limb, is frequently applied to the collapse or destruction of a state or kingdom (e.g., Psa 60:4; Lam 2:11). נחלה מכּתך, i.e., dangerously bad, incurable is the stroke which has fallen upon thee (cf. Jer 10:19; Jer 14:17; Jer 30:12). Over thy destruction will all rejoice who hear thereof. שׁמעך, the tidings of thee, i.e., of that which has befallen thee. Clapping the hands is a gesture expressive of joy (cf. Psa 47:2; Isa 55:12). All: because they all had to suffer from the malice of Asshur. רעה, malice, is the tyranny and cruelty which Assyria displayed towards the subjugated lands and nations. Thus was Nineveh to perish. If we inquire now how the prophecy was fulfilled, the view already expressed by Josephus (Ant. x. 2), that the fall of the Assyrian empire commenced with the overthrow of Sennacherib in Judah, is not confirmed by the results of the more recent examinations of the Assyrian monuments. For according to the inscriptions, so far as they have been correctly deciphered, Sennacherib carried out several more campaigns in Susiana and Babylonia after that disaster, whilst ancient writers also speak of an expedition of his to Cilicia. His successor, Esarhaddon, also carried on wars against the cities of Phoenicia, against Armenia and Cilicia, attacked the Edomites, and transported some of them to Assyria, and is said to have brought a small and otherwise unknown people, the Bikni, into subjection; whilst we also know from the Old Testament (Ch2 33:11) that his generals led king Manasseh in chains to Babylon. Like many of his predecessors, he built himself a palace at Kalah or Nimrud; but before the internal decorations were completely finished, it was destroyed by so fierce a fire, that the few monuments preserved have suffered very considerably. His successor is the last king of whom we have any inscriptions, with his name still legible upon them (viz., Assur-bani-pal). He carried on wars not only in Susiana, but also in Egypt, viz., against Tirhaka, who had conquered Memphis, Thebes, and other Egyptian cities, during the illness of Esarhaddon; also on the coast of Syria, and in Cilicia and Arabia; and completed different buildings which bear his name, including a palace in Kouyunjik, in which a room has been found with a library in it, consisting of clay tablets. Assur-bani-pal had a son, whose name was written Asur-emid-ilin, and who is regarded as the Sarakos of the ancients, under whom the Assyrian empire perished, with the conquest and destruction of Nineveh (see Spiegel in Herzog's Cycl.). But if, according to these testimonies, the might of the Assyrian empire was not so weakened by Sennacherib's overthrow in Judah, that any hope could be drawn from that, according to human conjecture, of the speedy destruction of that empire; the prophecy of Nahum concerning Nineveh, which was uttered in consequence of that catastrophe, cannot be taken as the production of any human combination: still less can it be taken, as Ewald supposes, as referring to "the first important siege of Nineveh, under the Median king Phraortes (Herod. i. 102)." For Herodotus says nothing about any siege of Nineveh, but simply speaks of a war between Phraortes and the Assyrians, in which the former lost his life. Nineveh was not really besieged till the time of Cyaxares (Uwakhshatra), who carried on the war with an increased army, to avenge the death of his father, and forced his way to Nineveh, to destroy that city, but was compelled, by the invasion of his own land by the Scythians, to relinquish the siege, and hasten to meet that foe (Her. i. 103). On the extension of his sway, the same Cyaxares commenced a war with the Lydian king Alyattes, which was carried on for five years with alternating success and failure on both sides, and was terminated in the sixth year by the fact, that when the two armies were standing opposite to one another, drawn up in battle array, the day suddenly darkened into night, which alarmed the armies, and rendered the kings disposed for peace. This was brought about by the mediation of the Cilician viceroy Syennesis and the Babylonian viceroy Labynetus, and sealed by the establishment of a marriage relationship between the royal families of Lydia and Media (Her. i. 74). And if this Labynetus was the same person as the Babylonian king Nabopolassar, which there is no reason to doubt, it was not till after the conclusion of this peace that Cyaxares formed an alliance with Nabopolassar to make war upon Nineveh; and this alliance was strengthened by his giving his daughter Amuhea in marriage to Nabopolassar's son Nebuchadnezzar (Nabukudrossor). The combined forces of these two kings now advanced to the attack upon Nineveh, and conquered it, after a siege of three years, the Assyrian king Saracus burning himself in his palace as the besiegers were entering the city. This is the historical kernel of the capture and destruction of Nineveh, which may be taken as undoubted fact from the accounts of Herodotus (i. 106) and Diod. Sic. (ii. 24-28), as compared with the extract from Abydenus in Euseb. Chron. Armen. i. p. 54; whereas it is impossible to separate the historical portions from the legendary and in part mythical decorations contained in the elaborate account given by Diodorus (vid., M. v. Niebuhr, Geschichte Assurs, p. 200ff.; Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums. i. p. 793ff.; and Bumller, Gesch. d. Alterth. i. p. 316ff.). The year of the conquest and destruction of Nineveh has been greatly disputed, and cannot be exactly determined. As it is certain that Nabopolassar took part in the war against Nineveh, and this is indirectly intimated even by Herodotus, who attributes the conquest of it to Cyaxares and the Medes (vid., i. 106), Nineveh must have fallen between the years 625 and 606 b.c. For according to the canon of Ptolemy, Nabopolassar was king of Babylon from 625 to 606; and this date is astronomically established by an eclipse of the moon, which took place in the fifth year of his reign, and which actually occurred in the year 621 b.c. (vid., Niebuhr, p. 47). Attempts have been made to determine the year of the taking of Nineveh, partly with reference to the termination of the Lydio-Median war, and partly from the account given by Herodotus of the twenty-eight years' duration of the Scythian rule in Asia. Starting from the fact, that the eclipse of the sun, which put an end to the war between Cyaxares and Alyattes, took place, according to the calculation of Altmann, on the 30th September b.c. 610 (see Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, i. p. 209ff.), M. v. Niebuhr (pp. 197-8) has assumed that, at the same time as the mediation of peace between the Lydians and Medes, an alliance was formed between Cyaxares and Nabopolassar for the destruction of Nineveh; and as this treaty could not possibly be kept secret, the war against Assyria was commenced at once, according to agreement, with their united forces. But as it was impossible to carry out extensive operations in winter, the siege of Nineveh may not have commenced till the spring of 609; and as it lasted three years according to Ctesias, the capture may not have been effected before the spring of 606 b.c. It is true that this combination is apparently confirmed by the fact, that during that time the Egyptian king Necho forced his way into Palestine and Syria, and after subduing all Syria, advanced to the Euphrates; since this advance of the Egyptian is most easily explained on the supposition that Nabopolassar was so occupied with the war against Nineveh, that he could not offer any resistance to the enterprise of Necho. And the statement in Kg2 23:29, that Necho had come up to fight against the king of Asshur on the Euphrates, appears to favour the conclusion, that at that time (i.e., in the year of Josiah's death, 610 b.c.) the Assyrian empire was not yet destroyed. Nevertheless there are serious objections to this combination. In the first place, there is the double difficulty, that Cyaxares would hardly have been in condition to undertake the war against Nineveh in alliance with Nabopolassar, directly after the conclusion of peace with Alyattes, especially after he had carried on a war for five years, without being able to defeat his enemy; and secondly, that even Nabopolassar, after a fierce three years' conflict with Nineveh, the conquest of which was only effected in consequence of the wall of the city having been thrown down for the length of twenty stadia, would hardly possess the power to take the field at once against Pharoah Necho, who had advanced as far as the Euphrates, and not only defeat him at Carchemish, but pursue him to the frontier of Egypt, and wrest from him all the conquests that he had effected, as would necessarily be the case, since the battle at Carchemish was fought in the year 606; and the pursuit of the defeated foe by Nebuchadnezzar, to whom his father had transferred the command of the army because of his own age an infirmity, even to the very border of Egypt, is so distinctly attested by the biblical accounts (Kg2 24:1 and Kg2 24:7; Jer 46:2), and by the testimony of Berosus in Josephus (Ant. x. 11, 1, and c. Ap. i. 19), that these occurrences are placed beyond the reach of doubt (see comm. on Kg2 24:1). These difficulties would not indeed be sufficient in themselves to overthrow the combination mentioned, provided that the year 610 could be fixed upon with certainty as the time when the Lydio-Median war was brought to a close. But that is not the case; and this circumstance is decisive. The eclipse of the sun, which alarmed Cyaxares and Alyattes, and made them disposed for peace, must have been total, or nearly total, in Central Asia and Cappadocia, to produce the effect described. But it has been proved by exact astronomical calculations, that on the 30th September 610 b.c., the shadow of the moon did not fall upon those portions of Asia Minor, whereas it did so on the 18th May 622, after eight o'clock in the morning, and on the 28th May 585 (vid., Bumll. p. 315, and M. v. Niebuhr, pp. 48, 49). Of these two dates the latter cannot come into consideration at all, because Cyaxares only reigned till the year 594; and therefore, provided that peace had not been concluded with Alyattes before 595, he would not have been able to carry on the war with Nineveh and conquer that city. On the other hand, there is no valid objection that can be offered to our transferring the conclusion of peace with the Lydian king to the year 622 b.c. Since, for example, Cyaxares became king as early as the year 634, he might commence the war with the Lydians as early as the year 627 or 628; and inasmuch as Nabopolassar was king of Babylon from 625 to 605, he might very well help to bring about the peace between Cyaxares and Alyattes in the year 622. In this way we obtain the whole space between 622 and 605 b.c. for the war with Nineveh; so that the city may have been taken and destroyed as early as the years 615-610. Even the twenty-eight years' duration of the Scythian supremacy in Asia, which is recorded by Herodotus (i. 104, 106, cf. iv. 1), cannot be adduced as a well-founded objection. For if the Scythians invaded Media in the year 633, so as to compel Cyaxares to relinquish the siege of Nineveh, and if their rule in Upper Asia lasted for twenty-eight years, the expedition against Nineveh, which led to the fall of that city, cannot have taken place after the expulsion of the Scythians in the year 605, because the Assyrian empire had passed into the hands of the Chaldaeans before that time, and Nebuchadnezzar had already defeated Necho on the Euphrates, and was standing at the frontier of Egypt, when he received the intelligence of his father's death, which led him to return with all speed to Babylon. There is no other alternative left, therefore, than either to assume, as M. v. Niebuhr does (pp. 119, 120), that the war of Cyaxares with the Lydians, and also the last war against Nineveh, and probably also the capture of Nineveh, and the greatest portion of the Median conquests between Ararat and Halys, fell within the period of the Scythian sway, so that Cyaxares extended his power as a vassal of the Scythian Great Khan as soon as he had recovered from the first blow received from these wild hordes, inasmuch as that sovereign allowed his dependent to do just as he liked, provided that he paid the tribute, and did not disturb the hordes in their pasture grounds; or else to suppose that Cyaxares drove out the Scythian hordes from Media at a much earlier period, and liberated his own country from their sway; in which case the twenty-eight years of Herodotus would not indicate the period of their sway over Media and Upper Asia, but simply the length of time that they remained in Hither Asia generally, or the period that intervened between their first invasion and the complete disappearance of their hordes. If Cyaxares had driven the Scythians out of his own land at a much earlier period, he might extend his dominion even while they still kept their position in Hither Asia, and might commence the war with the Lydians as early as the year 628 or 627, especially as his wrath is said to have been kindled because Alyattes refused to deliver up to him a Scythian horde, which had first of all submitted to Cyaxares, and then fled into Lydia to Alyattes (Herod. i. 73). Now, whichever of these two combinations be the correct one, they both show that the period of the war commenced by Cyaxares against Nineveh, in alliance with Nabopolassar, cannot be determined by the statement made by Herodotus with regard to the twenty-eight years of the Scythian rule in Asia; and this Scythian rule, generally, does not compel us to place the taking and destruction of Nineveh, and the dissolution of the Assyrian empire, as late as the year 605 b.c., or even later. At this conquest Nineveh was so utterly destroyed, that, as Strabo (xvi. 1, 3) attests, the city entirely disappeared immediately after the dissolution of the Assyrian kingdom (ἡ μὲν οὖν Νῖνος πόλις ἠφανίσθη παραχρῆμα μετὰ τὴν τῶν Σύρων κατάλυσιν). When Xenophon entered the plain of Nineveh, in the year 401, on the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, he found the ruins of two large cities, which he calls Larissa and Mespila, and by the side of the first a stone pyramid of 200 feet in height and 100 feet in breadth, upon which many of the inhabitants of the nearest villages had taken refuge, and heard from the inhabitants that it was only by a miracle that it had been possible for the Persians to conquer those cities with their strong walls (Xenoph. Anab. iii. 4, 7ff.). These ruined cities had been portions of the ancient Nineveh: Larissa was Calah; and Mespila, Kouyunjik. Thus Xenophon passed by the walls of Nineveh without even learning its name. Four hundred years after (according to Tacitus, Annal. xii. 13), a small fortress stood on this very spot, to guard the crossing of the Tigris; and the same fortress is mentioned by Abul-Pharaj in the thirteenth century (Hist. Dynast. pp. 266, 289, 353). Opposite to this, on the western side of the Tigris, Mosul had risen into one of the first cities of Asia, and the ruins of Nineveh served as quarries for the building of the new city, so that nothing remained but heaps of rubbish, which even Niebuhr took to be natural heights in the year 1766, when he was told, as he stood by the Tigris bridge, that he was in the neighbourhood of ancient Nineveh. So completely had this mighty city vanished from the face of the earth; until, in the most recent times, viz., from 1842 onwards, Botta the French consul, and the two Englishmen Layard and Rawlinson, instituted excavations in the heaps, and brought to light numerous remains of the palaces and state-buildings of the Assyrian rulers of the world. Compare the general survey of these researches, and their results, in Herm. J. C. Weissenborn's Ninive u. sein Gebiet., Erfurt 1851, and 56, 4. But if Nahum's prophecy was thus fulfilled in the destruction of Nineveh, even to the disappearance of every trace of its existence, we must not restrict it to this one historical event, but must bear in mind that, as the prophet simply saw in Nineveh the representative for the time of the power of the world in its hostility to God, so the destruction predicted to Nineveh applied to all the kingdoms of the world which have risen up against God since the destruction of Asshur, and which will still continue to do so to the end of the world.