Nahum 2:6
in Nahum 2The river gates are thrown open and the palace collapses.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.
KJV
The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.
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This verse in Nahum 2
Commentary
8 notes on this verseThe gates of the rivers shall be opened - I have already referred to this, see the note on Nah 1:8; but it will be necessary to be more particular. The account given by Diodorus Siculus, lib. ii., is very surprising. He begins thus: Ην δ’ αυτῳ λογιον παραδεδομενον εκ προγονων, κ.τ.λ. - “There was a prophecy received from their forefathers, that Nineveh should not be taken till the river first became an enemy to the city.
This site's exposition
The gates of the rivers shall be opened
on Nahum 2:6-8
The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved: the chapter's exactest stroke, and the evidence lane carries it, since the accounts of Nineveh's fall record the river turned against the city and a stretch of wall carried away, water doing what siege engines could not. Huzzab led away with her maids mourning as with the voice of doves takes the readings named, the queen, or the city personified, or a name; the bench does not settle it and neither does the note. Nineveh of old like a pool of water, and now the pool drains: stand, stand, shall they cry, but none shall look back.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
(Verse 3 and following) The shield of the strong is ablaze, the men of the army in scarlet; the fiery chariots are on the day of its preparation; and the drivers are asleep, they are disturbed on the journey, the chariots collide in the streets. Their appearance is like torches, like lightning running to and fro. They will remember their mighty men, they will rush on their way, they will quickly climb its walls, and the shelter will be prepared.
A commentator
Ambrose of MilanExposition of the Christian Faith 3.14.115-16 · Written before 397.
proposed
But is this the only place we read of "substance"? Has it not also been said in another passage: "The gates of the cities are broken down, the mountains are fallen, and his substance is revealed"? What, does the word mean something created here also? Some, I know, are accustomed to say that the substance is substance in money. Then, if you give this meaning to the word, the mountains fell in order that someone's possessions of money might be seen.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
); those gates of Nineveh which open upon the river Tigris (on which Nineveh was built) shall be first forced by, or betrayed to, the enemy, and by those gates they shall enter. And then the palace shall be dissolved, either the king's house or the house of Nisroch his god; the same word signifies both a palace and a temple.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
The gates of the rivers shall be opened,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
Traces of dams ("gates," or sluices) for regulating the supply are still visible, so that the whole city could be surrounded with a water barrier (Na 2:8). Besides, on the east, the weakest side, it was further protected by a lofty double rampart with a moat two hundred feet wide between its two parts, cut in the rocky ground.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be disolved - All gives way in an instant at the will of God; the strife is hushed; no more is said of war and death; there is no more resistance or bloodshed; no sound except the wailing of the captives, the flight of those who can escape, while the conquerors empty it of the spoil, and then she is left a waste. The swelling of the river and the opening made by it may have given rise to the traditional account of Ctesias, although obviously exaggerated as to the destruction of the wall. The exaggerated character of that tradition is not inconsistent with, it rather implies, a basis of truth. It is inconceivable that it should have been thought, that walls, of the thickness which Ctesias had described, were overthrown by the swelling of any river, unless some such event as Ctesias relates, that the siege was ended by an entrance afforded to the enemy through some bursting in of the river, had been true. Nahum speaks nothing of the wall, but simply of the opening of “the gates of the river,” obviously the gates, by which the inhabitants could have access to the rivers , which otherwise would be useless to them except as a wall. These “rivers” correspond to the “rivers,” the artificial divisions of the Nile, by which No or Thebes was defended, or “the rivers of Babylon” Psa 137:1 which yet was washed by the one stream, the Euphrates. […]
The words behind it
5 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| שַׁעֲרֵ֥י | shaarei | [the] gates of | H8179 → | |
| הַנְּהָר֖וֹת | haneharot | the rivers | H5104 → | |
| נִפְתָּ֑חוּ | niftachu | they have been opened | H6605 → | 144 times |
| וְהַֽהֵיכָ֖ל | vehaheikhal | and the palace | H1964 → | |
| נָמֽוֹג׃ | namog | it has melted away | H4127 → |
שַׁעֲרֵ֥י[the] gates of
shaareiH8179 →
הַנְּהָר֖וֹתthe rivers
haneharotH5104 →
נִפְתָּ֑חוּthey have been opened
niftachuH6605 →144 times
וְהַֽהֵיכָ֖לand the palace
vehaheikhalH1964 →
נָמֽוֹג׃it has melted away
namogH4127 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Nahum
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Christian Faith 3.14.115-16; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Nahum; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.