Nahumchapter 2
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Speaks with:Nahum 3×4Jeremiah 51×3Ezekiel 26×2Isaiah 5×2Joel 3×12 Chronicles 25×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The siege filmed in close-up. 'He that dasheth in pieces is come up against thee: keep the fortress, watch the way', futile orders. Shields dyed red, warriors in scarlet, chariots flashing like steel, raging in the streets and running like the lightnings; officers stumbling in their haste to the wall. Then the collapse in one line: 'the gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.' The queen is carried off, her handmaids moaning like doves and beating on their breasts; Nineveh drains away as her people flee: 'Stand, stand, they cry; but none looketh back.' Take the spoil of silver, the spoil of gold: 'she is empty, and void, and waste.'
Context
Prophecy · Nahum — Nahum overview
- A. 1–5 The shatterer comes up; chariots rage in the streets
- B. 6–10 The river gates opened; Nineveh emptied and void
- C. 11–13 Where is the lions' den now?
The outline
A.The shatterer comes up; chariots rage in the streetsvv. 1 to 5
Read vv. 1 to 5 →B.The river gates opened; Nineveh emptied and voidvv. 6 to 10
Read vv. 6 to 10 →C.Where is the lions' den now?vv. 11 to 13
Read vv. 11 to 13 →
The world behind this chapter
Nahum 2The history
This chapter is a battle report written in the present tense. Chariots rage in the streets, shields are red, the defenders stumble on the wall, and the palace is dissolved.
One line has drawn attention for a long time: "the gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." Nineveh sat where the Khosr river ran into the Tigris, and the city's water system involved dams, canals, and river gates. The Babylonian Chronicle records the city's fall to the allied army; later Greek tradition adds that a flooding river breached the defenses. How much weight the later tradition carries is debated, but the geography and the waterworks are real.
"Nineveh is of old like a pool of water" fits a city fed by an engineered water supply, including a long aqueduct built under Sennacherib whose remains have been found at Jerwan.
The lion imagery at the end of the chapter is precise and cutting. Assyrian kings hunted lions ceremonially, and the palace reliefs from Nineveh showing the royal lion hunt are among the most famous objects to come out of the ancient Near East. Nahum turns the emblem around: where is the dwelling of the lions, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion tore enough for his whelps?
The plunder is real too. Nineveh's wealth came from tribute and loot hauled in from every direction for generations. "Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold" describes a treasury built out of other people's cities being emptied by somebody else.
What it meant to them
To hear the sack of Nineveh described in advance, in detail, was to hear that the strongest fortress in the world had an appointment.
For Judah the practical meaning was survival. "The LORD turneth away the excellency of Jacob" acknowledges what Assyria had already done to God's people — and then says the empire that did it is finished.
Sources cited
- Austen Henry Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains (public domain)
- D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626–556 B.C.) in the British Museum
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Nahum 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.