Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 2 March 2025
Underlined words in Bible quotations are words also found in the sermon passage from Nahum 2-3.
Omitting greyed-out text should bring oral delivery time down to about 45 minutes.
2:11
Where is the haunt of of lions and the feeding-place itself for the
young-lions, where the lion walked to go to the lion-cub, and there
was no one to disturb? The lion was one who caught-victims enough
for his lion-cubs and strangled some for his lionesses, and filled
his caves with victuals and his haunts with dead-victims. “Look at
me; I am against you,” declares Yahweh, Commander of armies, “and
I will cause /your\ cavaly to burn up in smoke, and the sword will
devour your young lions. Furthermore, I will cut-loose your victims
from your land, and the sound of your messengers will not be heard
any more.
3:1 Woe to the city of bloodshed! All of it is full
of fraud – of misappropriation; no victim gets away. There is the
sound of the whip and the rumbling sound of the chariot-wheel and
horse galloping and chariot bouncing! There is the horseman raising
both the flash of the sword and the lightening-bolt of the spear,
then the multitude of the wounded. There is the mass of dead-bodies,
indeed there is no end to the bodies. They will stumble over their
bodies, because of the multitude of the prostitute’s adulteries.
She is a well-favored expert at witchcrafts. She is the one who sold
nations by means of her adulteries, and families by means of her
witchcrafts.
Chapter 2 ends with a comparison of the mighty city of Nineveh to a den of lions.
“[In] 2 Kings 18:34... the messengers of [the Assyrian] king had asked, ‘Where are the gods of Hamath and of Arphat: of Seharvaim, Hena and Ivah?’ But now of [him] it is asked, ‘Where is [that den of lions -] Nineveh?” ~E. B. Pusey
The Hebrew word labiy can mean “to go” or it can mean “lioness.” All the modern English versions translate it “lioness,” but all the ancient versions translated it “to go.” It doesn’t end up making a big difference: the verse is clearly describing the place where lions live – where they have babies and feed them and where nobody bothers them – nobody dares disturb a den of lions!
Remember that Nahum’s prophecy is about the downfall of the Assyrian Empire and its capitol city of Nineveh. So what does that have to do with lions? Well, like many nations1, the Assyrian kings used lions as their symbol.
Isaiah compared the Assyrian king and his army to lions in Isaiah 5:29 “His growl is like a lion; like young lions he growls. He roars and seizes prey; he gets away, and there is no deliverer.” (NAW)
Lion images made of stone and copper have been found by archaeologists in the ancient ruins of Nineveh, and you may have seen a lamassu image of a lion’s body with the wings of an eagle, erected at the entrance to an ancient Assyrian palace.
The bass-relief panels on the walls of the old palace of Nineveh indicate that the kings of Nineveh were quite enamored with lion-hunting, too2.
And remember that this part of Nahum’s prophecy comes right after his prophecy of the siege and sack of Nineveh, so the first word of v.11 is the key: “where?” Where indeed! Nahum doesn’t say it is anywhere anymore.
The point is that the lion – the empire of Assyria, has no lair anymore. The mighty city of Nineveh is no longer.
The lion’s den that nobody dared disturb has been successfully invaded, the “lions” killed, and nobody needs to be afraid of them anymore!
Verse 12 then steps back in time to when Nineveh was in the prime of its power, pictured as a lion’s lair stuffed full of victims for the enjoyment of the wife and kids.
Three forms of the the Hebrew word teref occur in v.12:
First as a verb, which has a root meaning of “tearing/slashing” – the characteristic damage done by a lion.
Then both the masculine and feminine noun forms of this verb occur at the end of this verse (and again in the first verse of chapter 3),
the masculine noun form often denoting “food” that has been hunted and maybe torn in pieces,
and the feminine noun form, always denoting an animal carcass that has been killed by a wild animal.
Predatory behavior which mangled victims is depicted frequently in the bas-relief wall panels of the ancient Assyrian palace, and this is probably what Nahum is referring to – at least in part.
Another component of v.12 is the den stuffed “full” of “prey.” This probably refers to the practice of capturing victims of war campaigns alive and dragging them back to Nineveh as slaves.
Of course, such predatory behavior was not unique to Nineveh:
Hundreds of years earlier, David had written that this was characteristic of all evil men in Psalm 17:12 “...he is like a lion longing to tear and like a young lion dwelling [ישׁב] in hiding places.” (NAW)
And later we see this kind of predatory behavior ascribed to Babylon in Jeremiah 51:34, and even of unfaithful Israel in Ezekiel 19:3.
And we see it all around us today: human beings torn, killed, taken advantage of, preyed upon, victimized, and then thrown away like trash.
Will there be no end to the violence of the wicked? Listen, God sees, and God will bring the wicked to justice. Nahum – and all of Biblical prophecy – assures us of this great truth.
“Those are very foolish who form a judgment of God’s vengeance… according to the appearance of things at the time…” ~J. Calvin
Conversely, God will rescue those He loves from the power of their oppressors after He has used those oppressors to bring discipline into our lives, even as the Apostle Paul testified in 2 Timothy 4:17 “But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.3” (NKJV)
Psalm 34:10 “The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing.” (NKJV)
Back in chapter 1 verse 9, the king of Assyria was “plotting against the LORD,” so now in chapter 2 verse 13, the LORD says He is “against” the king of Assyria!
The king of Nineveh had the most powerful army in the world, but God reminds them that He also is the “Commander of hosts of armies,” a force even more powerful than Nineveh’s (and still superior to the forces of any world power even today)!
Four results of God’s antagonism are listed:
God promises to “burn up” the cavalry with all its special tactical chariots, so that the strength of their army would go up “in smoke.” “See that cloud of smoke? That used to be the Assyrian cavalry! Now they have no army to defend them, and no army to conquer others!” God would make Nineveh impotent.
God would have all the Assyrian noblemen slaughtered in battle. The “young lions” from v.11, as the Aramaic Targums interpret them, represent the “princes” of the land. Once slain in battle, there would be no viable leadership left to run Nineveh. God would make Nineveh leader-less.
God promises to “cut off” Nineveh’s “prey.”
This refers back to the metaphor of Nineveh as a “lion’s den” with “caves” stuffed “full” of freshly-victimized “prey.” I think, in this case, that the victims were slaves (like the servant-girls mentioned in v.7) that the Assyrians had captured alive in battles and had brought home to Nineveh to do their menial work for them4.
So, when God says that He would “cut [this] off,” He could be refering to the predatorial behavior, saying that, by the overthrow of Nineveh, He would end, once-and-for-all, the Assyrian’s enslavement of others.
However, I think it is more likely that God is referring to the slaves themselves as the “prey,” saying that, with the overthrow of Nineveh, He would “cut” them loose from the “land” of Assyria, so that they would no longer have to stay in Nineveh as slaves.
Whether the “prey” refers to “slavery” or to the “slaves” themselves, I don’t think Nahum is promising an end to all the predatory practices on the whole of planet earth here, as some of the English versions seem to indicate. Although Jesus will do that on a world-wide scale when He returns, Nahum seems to be outlining a more localized plan of God in which Nineveh will no longer prey upon other people, and the Hebrew word translated “earth” more-primarily means simply “land.”
The fourth result of God being against them is that, “...the sound of your messengers will not be heard any more.” Why no more messengers? Well, what kind of people can afford to retain messengers? Kings and nobles! But Nineveh’s nobility will be slaughtered, so they can’t send messengers anymore.
Such “messengers” announced that a king was about to launch a war against you, as King Nahash the Amonite did to Israel, back in 1 Samuel 11:4, and as Rabshaqeh did to Jerusalem in Isaiah 37,
or they might be the kind of “messengers” sent by the king on a mission of political intrigue to assasinate you, like King Ahab did to try to knock off the Prophet Elijah, in 2 Kings 6:32.
No more messengers means no more nation of Assyria to “plot against” Israel or bother it ever again. The silence means they’re gone; that’s the point.
Let it sink-in for a moment what it means for the LORD to be “against you”! Your resources up in smoke, your leadership destroyed, loss of control over all that you once controlled, and then you are silenced, unable to even complain about it. God is not an enemy to be trifled with! “Kiss... [and make up to Him while you can!] lest He be angry with you and you perish in the way.” (Psalm 2:12, NKJV)
Isaiah 31:8 "And Assyria will fall by a sword – not of men, and it will not be a human sword that will devour him. Yet there will be escape for him....” (NAW)
Psalm 37:20 ...evil men will perish, and the enemies of Yahweh... will end in smoke… ” (NAW)5
We also see it in the book of Revelation, chapters 18 & 19, when the world power at the end of time also ends up in “smoke” under the judgment of God Almighty6.
I want to continue on and step a few verses into chapter 3.
Verse 1 is Nahum’s only woe, and what follows is a list of the ways that the people of the city of Nineveh had offended God.
At the top of the list is “blood,” which, in the Hebrew plural, as it is here, means the guilt of murder.
God created life (Gen. 1-2), so it shows disrespect to Him to wantonly destroy life,
and furthermore, God forbade mankind from murdering each other (Gen. 9:6, Ex. 20:13), so it is an outright violation of His law to shed innocent blood.
The weight of the guilt of bloodshed upon nations which, like Assyria, have achieved their greatness by slaughtering other nations is great indeed.
Equally heavy is the bloodguilt of nations which encourage their own people to end the lives of their offspring from the womb and of their infirm and elderly.
The wrath of God will inevitably fall heavily upon every nation which carries such bloodguilt and such disrespect for God!
The next sin listed in v.1 is “lies.”
This is not the most common Hebrew for “lie/deception.” Together with words like “bloodshed,” “robbery,” and “prey,” it seems to have the connotation of the harm caused to those who have been lied to.
The poor who have no margin are the ones who experience the pain of hunger and exposure and despair when they are deceived.
And we’re not talking about just one lie here or there; lies are all there is!7
When a culture believes that everybody can make up their own truth, that is a slap in the face to the God who is the truth (John 14:6) and who cares about true truth,
and when a people tells lies and forsakes God’s command not to bear false witness (Ex. 20:16), God is legitimately offended.
There will be dire consequences from the “Lawgiver and Judge” of the world (Jas. 4:12).
The next word in the Hebrew follows hard after “lying,” and that is the word translated “robbery/pillage/plunder” – it pictures something “diverted” from its rightful place to some place else.
This is a violation of yet another of the 10 Commandments: “Thou shalt not steal” (Ex. 20:15). By commanding this, God ordained private ownership of property.
There are also things and persons which God claims as belonging to Him. A nation which robs God of His honor as the Creator of the world and worships humans (or other things) will be repaid for insulting God, and a society which does not punish stealing is chaotic and self-destructive.
The last phrase of v. 1 is centered on the Hebrew word for “prey/victim” from chapter 2 verse 12 plus the negation of the Hebrew verb for “departing.”
(Unfortunately, the NIV and the ESV replaced the Hebrew word for “departing” in their translations with unrelated words such as “without” and “end.”)
I think it’s saying that the victims of Nineveh’s oppression were not able to get away. The systems of oppression were seamless. Once a slave in Nineveh, always a slave in Nineveh. Once in debt, always a debtor. There was no way out, unlike God’s law, which provides pathways to liberty8.
These sins, of course, are not unique to Nineveh.
The nation of Judah did not learn its lesson from Nahum’s prophecy to them, so a century later, Judah itself was punished by God for its own murder, lying, and stealing, as Hosea 4:1-3 proclaimed, “Hear the word of the LORD, You children of Israel, For the LORD brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: ‘There is no truth or mercy Or knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, Killing and stealing9 and committing adultery10, They break all restraint, With bloodshed upon bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn; And everyone who dwells there will waste away...” (NKJV11)
And what can be said about our own country? Are there any of these sins not prevalent in our society? The only way to prevent the calamity surely coming upon us is to repent, like Nineveh did under Jonah! O God, have mercy on us!
Vs. 2-3 give us a brief, but vivid description of the battle by which God would destroy Ninevah12:
First the approach of the invading army in v.2, focusing on all the “sounds” of “whips” cracking, “horses neighing/galloping,” and “chariots rumbling/clattering” across the ground, “jolting/bouncing” as they go.
We read of this same event earlier in Nahum, at the beginning of chapter 2, where it described the soldiers with red shields and crimson uniforms coming up with steel-outfitted chariots that flashed through the streets.”
Then, in the first half of v.3, the two armies meet, and the clash of arms ensues.
“Swords” and “spears” “flash” and “gleam,” falling with deadly accuracy upon the defenders of Nineveh.
Finally, at the end of v.3 is the gruesome aftermath of the battle, as the staggering number of “casulties” – both “wounded” and “slain” – is realized and they give up even trying to “count” them.
There are great “piles/heaps” of “dead bodies” all over the place; you can’t even walk from here to there without having to step over “carcasses.”
The ironic thing is that a century before Nineveh suffered its ultimate loss, the king of Nineveh suffered the loss of 185,000 of his best soldiers in a war campaign against Jerusalem. Isaiah 37:36 (and 2 Kings 19:35) record that the “angel of the Lord struck” the Assyrian army there and left “dead bodies” all over the place.
If the Assyrians had forgotten Jonah’s preaching, they at least should have paid attention to what happened to them when they defied Yahweh before the gates of Jerusalem and got massacred for it. But they didn’t heed; they remained in defiance of God and in pursuit of their sins, and so Nahum proclaimed they would be utterly wiped out.13
They say “war is hell,” and Nahum certainly does his part to make it sound horrifying.
Each carcasse represented a son, a father, a neighbor, a skilled workman, with an eternal soul, loved by family, friends, and co-workers, and either loved or hated by God personally.
Sending a multitude of souls into eternity should never be entered upon lightly, but this was God’s own plan to use an army from what is now called Iran to bring justice to bear upon a city in what is now called Iran: Nineveh, which had shed the blood of countless others (viz. Amos 8:3), and so its own blood would be shed in countless measure in recompense.
This is similar to the description of the Chaldean army that Joel (2:5) prophecied later would come against Judah14, and also similar to what the book of Isaiah15 and the book of Revelation16 prophecied will happen to all the nations of the world in opposition to Jesus when He returns.
In verse 4, which is the last verse we’re going to look at for now, we circle back around to the reason why God had Nineveh wiped off the face of the earth. In verse 1 of chapter 3, we saw that God was punishing them for murder, lying, and stealing; now, in v.4, He expands the list of offenses to include adultery and idolatry17.
There are two explicit verbal tie-ins between the punishment in v.3 and the offense in v.4:
first is the Hebrew preposition “mem” which begins verse 4 and it translated “because/ for/resulting from/on account of” – it connects the stumbling over all the dead bodies with the reason in v.4, which is all the sexual and spiritual unfaithfulness of Nineveh.
The second verbal tie-in between the punishment in v.3 and the offense in v.4 is the Hebrew word “rov,” which means “many/much/multitude” and which occurs in both verses 3 and 4. Unfortunately it is not translated with the same English word in most versions, so it is easy to miss the connection, but here it is:
In verse 3 there will be “many/hosts/multitude of slain/wounded/casualties,” Why?
because in verse 4, they committed “a multitude/many/countless harlotries/whoredoms/prostitutions/unfaithfulnesses.”
The degree of punishment fits the degree of sin; God’s justice is perfect.
The sin of which God convicts Nineveh here is sometimes used as a synonym for the Hebrew word in the Seventh Commandment (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”) speaking of sexual immorality, but more often in the Law, the word used here by Nahum refers to spiritual unfaithfulness, describing the problem of Israelites who had covenanted to make Yahweh their god, later forsaking Yahweh and worshipping other gods instead18.
We know from history that in the ancient near-East, the two sins went hand-in-hand; many of the pagan temple ceremonies involved acts of sexual immorality.
Leviticus 20:4-7 “And if the people... hide their eyes... when he allocates some of his offspring to Molech, failing to put him to death, then I myself will set my face against that man and against his family, and I will cut him off – along with all those who practice prostitution after him to prostitute themselves after Molech from the midst of their people. Also, the person who pays attention to the mediums and to the wizards to prostitute themselves after them, I will also set my face against that person and I will cut him off from the midst of his people. So be holy, because I am Yahweh your God…” (NAW)
Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, was the main goddess of Nineveh, and, incidentally, the lion was her symbol.
She became the basis for later goddesses like Aphrodite, Artemis, and Athena.19 Nineveh’s influence upon goddess-worship in other cultures may be what Nahum is referring to when he says that she “sold nations [and families] into her adulteries and... sorceries.”
Nineveh is also called here a “well-favored/charming/alluring/graceful mistress, an expert at sorcery/witchcrafts.”
(The ESV “and of deadly charms” really has nothing to do with the Hebrew words, but at least it is not misleading.)
“Harlotry/prostitution/whoring” and “sorcery/witchcraft” are mentioned together, both here and in other parts of Scripture, and they were concurrent problems, not only in Nineveh, but also in Israel20 and in Babylon21, and also in the Roman empire in which the New Testament church lived.
Revelation 17:1-2 “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.’... 18:23b ….For your merchants22 were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived…. 19:2 true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her.” (NKJV)
But we must remember that even these sins can be repented of and forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 6:10-11, the Apostle Paul declared, “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually-immoral nor idol worshipers, nor adulterers, nor gays nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards nor abusive [speakers] nor graspers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of y'all, but you washed yourselves, but you were made holy, but you were made righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
The “selling of nations by means of sorcery” might have to do with economic slavery23 but I think it more likely had to do with covenantal relationships between peoples and their gods.
Assyrians sold their gods to the world. They showed off the success story of their wealth and power and then said, “Don’t you want to be part of our movement?”
Remember what the Assyrian Rabshaqeh said when he laid siege to Jerusalem during King Hezekiah’s reign? “Now don’t let Hezekiah cause you to trust in Yahweh by saying, ‘Yahweh will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus said the king of Assyria, 'Make a blessing with me and come out to me, and eat each of you of his vine and each of his fig-tree and drink each of you water of his cistern, until I come and take you to a land like your land, a land of wheat and juice, a land of bread and vineyards... Have any of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Or did they thus deliver Samaria from my hand?” (Isaiah 36:15-19, NAW)
The Assyrians were trying to talk the Jews out of living under the providence of Yahweh and into living under the providence of their gods Assur and Ishtar. If they had been successful, the people would have been betrayed into spiritual slavery, and God would have been robbed of the glory of His people.
According to Nahum, that’s yet another reason why God destroyed Nineveh: she was influencing too many people toward spiritual unfaithfulness. In time, Jesus will also bring down every other system which sells the world into spiritual unfaithfulness.
It would be a mistake to say that Nahum is irrelevant because it is about the destruction of a city that no longer exists.
We must remember that the people who heard Nahum preach in real time were also at the same time hearing prophecies from other prophets.
This is true, whether you set Nahum at an earlier date with Micah, Isaiah and Hosea or whether you set him at a later date with Jeremiah, Zephaniah and Habakkuk.
And although Nahum is ostensibly railing against Nineveh, what his listners would certainly notice is that the other prophets were saying about Israel the exact same things Nahum was saying about Nineveh. All the same sins of which Nahum accused the Assyrians were sins Isaiah and Habakkuk also accused Israel of committing. Even most of the judgments God threatned against Nineveh through Nahum were also threatened against Judah by Isaiah and Habakkuk (and others).
So, when the people of Nahum’s day heard Nahum’s prophecy, it would have caused any thinking person to say, “Wait, if God is going to send an army against Nineveh for their bloodshed, lying, cheating, adultery, and idolatry, what’s that mean for us who are also guilty of bloodshed, lying, cheating, and adultery?”
And shortly thereafter, when they heard on the news that Nineveh had actually been destroyed, any thinking person would have said, “Uh oh, Nahum was right about Nineveh. That means we’re next in line for God’s judgment! We’d better fall on our faces before God quick and repent or we’re going to get wiped off the earth just like Nineveh!”
Likewise, although we are not living at the same time as Nahum, so we can’t hear all the prophets delivering their messages in real time together, we can feel the same effect, because God has preserved all His prophets’ messages together in the Bible, so we can read Isaiah right along with Nahum and see that sin and God’s judgment and God’s salvation are not just for Nineveh and Israel but God’s judgment and salvation are for us too.
Jesus raised the same point in Luke 13:1-5 “There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish… 18:8 ... Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?’”
Jesus is coming to judge the world, and He will condemn sin, but when He comes, He will also save all who respond to these prophecies with repentance and faith in Him.
DouayB (Vulgate) |
LXXC |
BrentonD (Vaticanus) |
KJVE |
NAW |
Masoretic HebrewF |
11
Where is now the
dwelling
of the lions, and the feeding place X
|
12
ποῦ ἐστιν
τὸ κατοικητήριον
τῶν λεόντων καὶ ἡ νομὴ ἡ οὖσα τοῖς
σκύμνοις, οὗ ἐπορεύθη λέων τοῦ
|
11
Where is the
dwelling-place
of the lions, and the pasture that belonged to the whelps? where
did the lion go, that the lion's whelp should
|
11
Where is
the dwelling
of the lions, and the feedingplace
X
|
11 Where is the haunt of of lions and the feeding-place itself for the young-lions, where the lion walked to go to the lion-cub, and there was no one to disturb? |
(יב) אַיֵּה מְעוֹןH אֲרָיוֹתI וּמִרְעֶה הוּא לַכְּפִרִים אֲשֶׁר הָלַךְ אַרְיֵה לָבִיאJ שָׁם גּוּרK אַרְיֵה וְאֵין מַחֲרִיד. |
12 The lion caught enough for his whelps, and killed for his lionesses: and he filled his holes with prey, and his denX with rapine. |
13
λέων
ἥρπασεν
τὰ ἱκανὰ τοῖς σκύμνοις αὐτοῦ καὶ
ἀπέπνιξεν τοῖς λέουσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ
ἔπλησεν θή-ρας
νοσσι |
12 The lion seized enough prey for his whelps, and strangled for his young lions, and filled his lairX with prey, and his dwelling-placeX with spoil. |
12 The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin. |
12 The lion was one who caught-victims enough for his lion-cubs and strangled some for his lionesses, and filled his caves with victuals and his haunts with dead-victims. |
(יג) אַרְיֵה טֹרֵףM בְּדֵי גֹרוֹתָיו וּמְחַנֵּקN לְלִבְאֹתָיו וַיְמַלֵּא טֶרֶף חֹרָיו וּמְעֹנֹתָיו טְרֵפָה. |
13
Behold I [comeO]
against thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will burn |
14
ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐπὶ σέ,
λέγει
κύριος παντοκράτωρ,
καὶ ἐκκαύσω
ἐν καπνῷ
|
13
Behold, I am
against thee, saith the Lord Almighty, and I will burn up |
13 Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard. |
13 “Look at me; I am against you,” declares Yahweh, Commander of armies, “and I will cause /your\ cavaly to burn up in smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions. Furthermore, I will cut-loose your victims from your land, and the sound of your messengers will not be heard any more. |
(יד) הִנְנִי Qאֵלַיִךְ נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת וְהִבְעַרְתִּי בֶעָשָׁןR רִכְבָּהּS וּכְפִירַיִךְ תֹּאכַל חָרֶב וְהִכְרַתִּי מֵאֶרֶץT טַרְפֵּךְ וְלֹא יִשָּׁמַע עוֹד קוֹל U מַלְאָכֵכֵה. |
Douay (Vulgate) |
LXX |
Brenton (Vaticanus) |
KJV |
NAW |
Masoretic Hebrew |
1 Woe to thee, O city of bloodX, all X full of lies [and] violence: rapine shall not depart [from thee]. |
1
Ὦ πόλις αἱμάτων ὅλη X ψευδὴς |
1
O city of blood, X wholly
false, full of |
1 Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; |
1 Woe to the city of bloodshed! All of it is full of fraud – of misappropriation; no victim gets away. |
(א) הוֹיY עִיר דָּמִים כֻּלָּהּ כַּחַשׁZ פֶּרֶקAA מְלֵאָה לֹא יָמִישׁ טָרֶף. |
2 The noise of the whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheel[s] , and [of] the neighing horse; and [of] the running chariot, |
2
φωνὴ μαστίγ |
2 The noise of whip[s], and the noise of the rumbling of wheel[s], and of the pursuing horse, and of the bounding chariot, |
2 The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheel[s] , and [of] the pransing horse[s], and [of] the jumping chariot[s]. |
2 There is the sound of the whip and the rumbling sound of the chariot-wheel and horse galloping and chariot bouncing! |
(ב) קוֹל שׁוֹט וְקוֹל רַעַשׁ אוֹפָן וְסוּס דֹּהֵרAB וּמֶרְכָּבָה מְרַקֵּדָה. |
[and]
of the horsemen coming up, 3
And of the shining sword, and of thc glittering
spear, and of a multitude
X slain, and
of a grievous
|
3
[καὶ]
ἱππέως ἀναβαίνοντος καὶ στιλβούσης
ῥομφαίας καὶ
ἐξαστραπτόντων |
3
[and]
of the mounting
rider, and of the glittering sword, and of the gleaming |
3 The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: |
3 There is the horseman raising both the flash of the sword and the lightening-bolt of the spear, then the multitude of the wounded. There is the mass of dead-bodies, indeed there is no end to the bodies. They will stumble over their bodies |
(ג) פָּרָשׁ מַעֲלֶהAE וְלַהַבAF חֶרֶב וּבְרַקAG חֲנִית וְרֹב חָלָל וְכֹבֶד פָּגֶר וְאֵין קֵצֶה לַגְּוִיָּהAH יִכְשְׁלוּAI בִּגְוִיָּתָם. |
4 Because of the multitude of the fornications of the harlot that was beautiful [and] agreeable, [and that] made use of witchcraft, that sold nations through her fornications, and families through her witchcrafts. |
4 ἀπὸ πλήθους πορνείας. πόρνη καλὴ [καὶ] ἐπιχαρὴς AJἡγουμένη φαρμάκων ἡ πωλοῦσα ἔθνη ἐν τῇ πορνείᾳ αὐτῆς καὶ φυλὰςAK ἐν τοῖς φαρμάκοις αὐτῆς, |
4 because of the abundance of fornicationX X: she isAL a fair harlot, [and] well-favoured, skilled in sorcery, that sells the nations by her fornication, and peoplesAM by her sorceries. |
4 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. |
4 because of the multitude of the prostitute’s adulteries. She is a well-favored expert at witchcrafts. She is the one who sold nations by means of her adulteries, and families by means of her witchcrafts. |
(ד) מֵרֹב זְנוּנֵיAN זוֹנָה טוֹבַת חֵןAO בַּעֲלַתAP כְּשָׁפִיםAQ הַמֹּכֶרֶת גּוֹיִם בִּזְנוּנֶיהָ וּמִשְׁפָּחוֹת בִּכְשָׁפֶיהָ. |
1Including Israel (Ezek. 19:2).
2They made that sport against-the-law for their citizens. This might have been to bolster their image of lord-protector who is the only one who can deliver people from lions (an image which is also quite Davidic).
3Some think this “lion” was the Roman Emperor. It is interesting to me that the Greek word for “prey” used to translate the last word of Nahum 2:12 was used by Jesus and the Apostles to refer to Christians being “robbed” by Jews in Matt. 23:25 (|| Lk. 11:39) and Heb. 10:34. Also, the Greek word in the LXX of Nahum 2:12 for the “snatching” which the lion does is also found in John 10:28 “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” (NKJV)
42 Kings 5 mentions this kind of slavery practiced by the Syrian army.
5Cf. same vocabulary regarding Edom (Isa. 34:1-10 “...her smoke will go up forever.”), Jerusalem (Jer. 21:13 & Ezek. 5:8 “Behold, I am against you …”), and Babylon (Jer. 50:31 “Behold, I am against you...”)
6Revelation 18:18 “...cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying,`What is like this great city?' … 19:3 Again they said, ‘Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!’” (NKJV)
7“She
deceived the nations with vain promises of help and protection.”
~Keil, quoting Abarbanel and Strauss
“Consider the series of
falsehoods of the Rabshakeh against Hezekiah as a case in point
(2Kgs 19).” ~Michael Barrett
8Matthew Henry and C. F. Keil both disagreed, the former saying it means “they never know when they have got enough by spoil and oppression,” and the latter insisting that the verb must be translated intransitively “to depart... and not in a transitive sense, ‘to cause to depart,’ to let go; for if ‛ı̄r (the city) were the subject, we should have tâmı̄sh.” (I would counter that iyr cannot be the subject because it is feminine and the verb “depart” is masculine; rather, the masculine “prey” is the subject which “does not depart.”) I agree, however, with Henry’s comment on God’s law, “God has a quarrel with her Who, having made of one blood all nations of men, never designed one to be a nation of tyrants and another of slaves...”
9גנב, a synonym to Nahum’s פֶּרֶק.
10נאף, a synonym to Nahum’s זנוּן.
11Cf. Jer. 6:6, 9:5, Ps. 12:2, Isa. 28:15.
12Jerome, Cocceius, and Newcome, however, interpreted this as a description of Nineveh’s customary oppression of its own people, but their opinion is a definite minority. Pusey was an absolute outlier among the commentators, adopting the full-allegorical hermeneutic and comparing the assault against Nineveh with the Christian mission of world evangelism, even finding seven harbingers of the destruction of Nineveh in this passage to parallel the seven trumpets in Revelation!
13Cf. Matthew Henry: “The destruction of Sennacherib's army, which, in the morning, were all dead corpses, is perhaps looked upon here as a figure of the like destruction that should afterwards be in Nineveh; for those that will not take warning by judgments at a distance shall have them come nearer.”
14And what Ezekiel 39:4 prophecied against Gog, and what Jeremiah 47:3 prophecied against Philistia.
15Isaiah 34:3 “And their slain will be cast out and their corpses; their stench will go up, and mountains eroded from their blood.” 66:16 “For with fire and with His sword, Yahweh will judge all flesh, and those pierced through by Yahweh will be many.” (NAW)
16Rev. 9:9 & 16:15-19 use the same Greek words as the LXX of Nahum 3:2 to describing the noises of God’s final judgment, and Rev. 19:17-21 has a similar description of a battlefield full of dead bodies at Har-Mageddon.
17He had already mentioned the worship of graven and cast images back in Nah. 1:14.
18Viz. Lev. 17:7; 20:5,6; Num. 15:39; Deut. 31:16.
19https://www.worldhistory.org/ishtar/ accessed 1 Mar 2025.
202 Kings 9:22 Jehu, during his coup, told King Joram: “...What peace, as long as the harlotries of your mother Jezebel and her witchcraft are so many?” (NKJV) Cf. Micah 5:12 “Furthermore, I will cause to cut off witchcrafts from your hand, and fortune-tellers will not exist for you.” (NAW) and Ezekiel 16:25 “You built your high places at the head of every road, and made your beauty to be abhorred. You offered yourself to everyone who passed by, and multiplied your acts of harlotry.” (NKJV)
21Isaiah 47:9 “So these two will come to you [Babylon] instantly in one day: bereavement and widowhood. They come upon you in their totality, in a multitude of your witchcrafts and in an exceeding abundance of your associations/magic powers.” Cf. Tyre in Isaiah 23:17 “At the end of seventy years, Yahweh will visit Tyre, but she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth.” (NAW)
22ἔμποροι, a synonym to the LXX of Nahum’s verb “sold” (πωλοῦσα).
23cf. persons “sold” to “nations” in Neh. 5:8 and Joel 4:8, or sold to “families” in Lev. 25:47.
AMy
original chart includes the following copyrighted English versions:
NASB, NIV, ESV, Bauscher’s version of the Peshitta, and Cathcart’s
version of the Targums, but I remove these columns from my public,
non-copyrighted edition of this chart so as not to infringe on their
copyrights. NAW is my translation. When a translation adds words not
in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use
of italics or greyed-out text, I put the added words in [square
brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different
from all the other translations, I underline it. When a
version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs
too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far
from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout.
And when a version omits a word which is in the original text, I
insert an X. I also place an X at the end of a word if the original
word is plural but the English translation is singular. I
occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between
the various editions and versions when there are more than two
different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea
Scrolls containing Nahum 2 are 4Q82 (containing parts of verses 9-10
and dated between 30-1 BC), the Nahal Hever Greek scroll
(containing parts of vs. 4-9 & 12-13 and dated around 25BC), and
the Wadi Muraba’at Scroll (containing parts of verses 1-13 and
dated around 135 AD). Where the DSS are legible and in agreement
with the MT or LXX, I have colored the characters purple.
Where the DSS supports the LXX/Vulgate/Peshitta with omissions or
text not in the MT, I have highlighted
with yellow the LXX
and its translation into English, and where I have accepted that
into my NAW translation, I have marked it with" /forward and
backward slashes\.
BDouay Old Testament first published by the English College at Douay, A.D. 1609, Revised and Diligently Compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner, Published in 1582, 1609, 1752. As published on E-Sword.
C“Septuagint” Greek Old Testament, edited by Alfred Rahlfs. Published in 1935. As published on E-Sword.
DEnglish translation of the Septuagint by Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, 1851, “based upon the text of the Vaticanus” but not identical to the Vaticanus. As published electronically by E-Sword.
E1769 King James Version of the Holy Bible; public domain. As published electronically by E-Sword.
FFrom
the Wiki Hebrew Bible
https://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%94_%D7%90/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA.
DSS text comes from https://downloads.thewaytoyahuweh.com
GThe Hebrew word for “to enter in” is spelled very similarly (לבוא), but the 10 other times that this word “lioness” appears in the O.T., the LXX consistently translated it either “lion” or “cub” (σκύμνος), so this just appears to be a mistake.
HThis word has to do with where something (in this case, a lion) is located, not with any characteristics of the place itself.
ITargums interpret “lions” as “kings” and “cubs” as “princes.” Keil said the latter was not the “princes” but the “citizens.” The next three words in Hebrew are “and + feeding + he.” Most English versions translated the participle as “feeding-place” and ignored the pronoun “he.” The NIV made a commendable attempt to translate the “he” by translating the participle as a verb (“fed”) and making the pronoun the subject of that verb. However, they made so many other errors, that they didn’t end up with any better translation. Those errors included: 1) mistranslating vav as “where,” 2) changing “he” to “they,” 3) changing the present tense participle – “feeding” – into a past-tense verb – “fed,” 4) adding the pronoun “their,” which is not in any manuscript, 5) translating cafirim as “young” instead of “young lions,” and 6) omitting the preposition (“to/for”) before cafirim. The Septuagint made a more-commendable alternate translation of that preposition, rendering it “belonging to” – “and the feeding-area; it belongs to the whelps.”
JAll the ancient versions understood this word to mean “to go in,” whereas all the modern English versions interpret it “lioness.” The two words are spelled the same in the consonantal Hebrew text. The MT cantillation supports the ancient versions by having no punctuation between “the lion goes” and “to enter there,” whereas it would have had punctuation if the phrase were “the lioness is there.” Also, the verb “went/walked” is singular, so it can only refer to one lion. Calvin, in his commentary asserted that the word can’t mean “lioness” but that it meant “old lion.” Keil, on the other hand, asserted: “אַרְיֵה is the full-grown male lion; לָבִיא, the lioness; כְּפִיר, the young lion, though old enough to go in search of prey; גּוּר אַרְיֵה, catulus leonis, the lion's whelp, which cannot yet seek prey for itself.” The second word in Keil’s list is the only one I question.
KThis word is only found here and in Gen. 49:9 (describing the tribe of Judah), Deut. 33:22 (describing the tribe of Dan), Lam. 4:3 (describing jackals), and Ezek. 19:2-5 (describing the nobles of Israel).
LDSS Nahal Hever reads with the synonym μανδραν (“barn” – grey letters are lacunae).
M“Tearing” was the characteristic damage done by a lion (Deut. 33:20, Psalm 7:2, 17:12, & 22:13, Ezek. 19:3-6 & 22:25, Hos. 5:14, and Mic. 5:8), but twice it is also mentioned as characteristic of wolves (Gen. 49:27 & Ezek. 22:27). Both the masculine and feminine noun forms of this verb occur at the end of this verse, the former often denoting “food” that has been hunted or foraged, and the latter always denoting an animal carcass that has been killed by a wild animal.
NThe only other place this verb occurs in the HOT is when Ahithophel hung himself in 2 Samuel 17:23.
OThere is actually no verb in this phrase in the original Vulgate and Hebrew; the word “come” was supplied by Douay for this translation, since a verb was demanded to make sense in English.
PIf the Hebrew were spelled a little differently מלאכיך, it would mean “your works,” but, as it is actually spelled, it is “your messengers.”
QKeil was the only commentator I saw who did not translate this “against you.” He translated it “come to you.”
RCalvin said that “in smoke” emphasized instantaneous destruction. Dathius and Owen of Thrussington thought that “smoke” just stood for “fire.” But most commentators take it straightforwardly as “with smoke.”
SAlthough the Geneva, KJV, and NASB are correct in translating the MT as “her,” no other Bibles in world history translated it thus. LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, and Targums all translated it “your,” which raises questions about the originality of the MT spelling. Contemporary translations like the NIV, NKJV, NET, and ESV go with “your.” How the LXX and Peshitta got “multitudes” instead of “chariots” (MT, Vulgate, Targum) is harder for me to tell.
TThis word can mean “land” or it can mean the whole “earth.” Douay, NASB, and NET were the only English versions I found that rendered it the former; all the rest rendered it the latter (or, like the NLT, deleted it!). To say that all predatory work would be removed from planet earth seems to be saying more than Nahum intended here. Although true of God’s eschatalogical plan, Nahum seems to be outlining a more localized plan in which Nineveh would no longer prey upon other people.
UThe ancient consonantal spelling of this word could mean either “works” or “messengers.” LXX and Peshitta interpreted it as the former, but the Vulgate, Targums, and English versions understood it as the latter. Calvin pointed out that it is not the properly spelling for “messengers,” so he suggested translating it “grinders/teeth,” but not even his English translator (Owen) was convinced, stating that the ה at the end of the word might just be a “redundancy.” Keil agreed with Owen that it was a “lengthened form [of ‘messengers’], on account of the tone at the end of the section.”
VMy
original chart includes the following copyrighted English versions:
NASB, NIV, ESV, Bauscher’s version of the Peshitta, and Cathcart’s
version of the Targums, but I remove these columns from my public,
non-copyrighted edition of this chart so as not to infringe on their
copyrights. NAW is my translation. When a translation adds words not
in the Hebrew text, but does not indicate it has done so by the use
of italics or greyed-out text, I put the added words in [square
brackets]. When one version chooses a wording which is different
from all the other translations, I underline it. When a
version chooses a translation which, in my opinion, either departs
too far from the root meaning of the Hebrew word or departs too far
from the grammar form of the original text, I use strikeout.
And when a version omits a word which is in the original text, I
insert an X. I also place an X at the end of a word if the original
word is plural but the English translation is singular. I
occasionally use colors to help the reader see correlations between
the various editions and versions when there are more than two
different translations of a given word. The only known Dead Sea
Scrolls containing Nahum 3 are 4Q82 (containing parts of verses 1-3
& 17 and dated between 30-1 BC), The Nahal Hever Greek
scroll (containing parts of vs. 1-3 & 6-16 and dated around
25BC), and the Wadi Muraba’at Scroll (containing parts of verses
1-19 and dated around 135 AD). Where the DSS is legible and in
agreement with the LXX and MT, the Greek and Hebrew is colored
purple. Where the DSS supports the
LXX/Vulgate/Peshitta with omissions or text not in the MT, I have
highlighted with
yellow the LXX and its translation into English, and where I
have accepted that into my NAW translation, I have marked it with
/forward and backward slashes\.
WSymmachus (αποτομιας=severity/μελοκοπιας=dismembering) rendered with a word closer to the meaning of the Hebrew word. (Aquilla=εξαυχενισμου=empty-boasting?)
XSymmachus (‘οπου αδιαλειπτος=where is unceasing) renders with a meaning closer to the MT, even though the word “where” is not in the MT Hebrew.
YThis is Nahum’s only Woe. Isaiah accounts for about half of the Woes in the HOT. The Woes of Hab. 2:12 and Zeph. 3:1 are the only other woes addressed to a “city.”
ZSpecial word found only here and Job 16:8, Psa. 59:12, and Hos. 7:3; 10:13; & 11:12. The verb form occurs about 2 dozen times and elsewhere I have translated it “be untrue.”
AAThis noun only occurs here and in Obadiah 1:14, where it it translated “crossroads/parting of ways.” Its verbal form occurs about 10 times. In one of the early Psalms I translated it “rip.”
ABHapex Legomenon. Vulgate & Peshitta considered it a sound characteristic of a horse, but KJV followed Strong with “irregular movement/prancing.” Nowadays, translators seem to agree on “gallop.”
ACThe unpointed Hebrew גויה could be interpreted as either “body” or “her nations,” but all the other translations made throughout history have agreed on “body.”
ADSymmachus translated with a word closer to the MT Hebrew: σκανδαλισθησονται (“shall be tripped”).
AECalvin agreed with the KJV translators that this “horseman” was making something to ascend, but he made the object the horse, which would go up the hill to the city when the horseman urged it on. With this Keil agreed.
AFThe only other places in the HOT where this word means “blade” instead of “flame” are Judges 3:22 and Job 39:23.
AGcf. Nah. 2:4, which uses this word in a similar scene.
AHThis word evidently means the body of a living being in Gen. 47:18, Neh. 9:37, Ezek. 1:11 & 23, and Dan. 10:6, but of a dead person in Jdg. 14:8-9, 1 Sam. 31:10 & 12, and Ps. 110:6. Owen of Thrussington had an odd translation which strangely denied that peger and halal and geviya were dead bodies and instead had them “dancing”!
AIQere (and one of the Cairo Geniza manuscripts from a century before the MT and “several” other manuscripts referenced without name in the BHS notes) = וְכָשְׁלוּ - vav consecutive Qal perfect instead of the Ketib Niphal imperfect, but meaning the same thing.
AJAquilla & Symmachus translated the MT Hebrew “Baal” as “owners of” (εχουσης) instead of the LXX “leaders of.”
AKFields’ edition of the LXX read λαους (“peoples”) here, but φυλας “tribes” is a better translation of the MT Hebrew mishpachot.
ALThis reflects the punctuation from the edition of the LXX that Brenton was reading. There is, however, no such disjunctive punctuation in the MT between “adulteries of” and “prostitute;” in the MT, the punctuation comes after “prostitute” and before “well favored.”
AMThe LXX Greek word is actually “tribes.” “Peoples” is a different word, both in Hebrew (עמים) and in Greek (λαοι).
ANThis word is used as a synonym in places like Lev. 19:29, for נאף (“adultery” - the thing forbidden in the 10 commandments), but, more often in the Law, the word used here by Nahum was used to refer to spiritual unfaithfulness. It described the problem of Israelites, who had covenanted to make Yahweh their god, forsaking Yahweh and worshipping other gods instead (viz. Lev. 17:7; 20:5,6; Num. 15:39; Deut. 31:16).
AOThe only other place in the HOT where this phrase occurs is Prov. 22:1 (although the two words are in close connection also in Prov. 3:4 and 13:15), but, unlike Nahum, the phrase in Proverbs describes something godly.
APThis word is the feminine form of Baal=Master/Lord and it is rare, occuring in the HOT only here, 1 Sam. 28:7 (בַּעֲלַת־אוֹב – a woman who is an expert spiritual medium), and 1 Kings 17:17 (בַּעֲלַת הַבָּיִת – landlady). Nowhere else do we find it together with “sorceries,” but it seems to be compatible to the Witch of Endor in 1 Sam. 28.
AQJohn Calvin saw these “sorceries” not as “witchcraft” but as the “juggleries and meretricious arts” of deceptive and predatory statecraft. Keil, agreeing with Calvin, wrote, “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.).” On the other hand, Matthew Henry affirmed it was “spiritual” but that it had practical manifestations; Pusey agreed, and so would I.