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Wednesday, October 30th, 2024
the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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New Living Translation

Nahum 3:14

Get ready for the siege! Store up water! Strengthen the defenses! Go into the pits to trample clay, and pack it into molds, making bricks to repair the walls.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Armies;   Brick;   Brick-Kiln;   Mortar;   Thompson Chain Reference - Slime;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Sieges;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Bricks;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Clay;   Media;   Mortar;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Brickkiln;   Kiln;   Mortar;   Nahum;   Siege;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Brick;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Brick-Kiln;   Morter;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Assyria;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Clay;   Drawer of Water;   Fortification;   Nahum, the Book of;   Kitto Biblical Cyclopedia - Bricks;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Brick;  

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
Get water and store it inside your city, because the enemy soldiers will surround your city. Make your defenses strong! Get clay to make more bricks and mix the mortar. Get the molds for making bricks.
New American Standard Bible
Draw for yourself water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!
New Century Version
Get enough water before the long war begins. Make your defenses strong! Get mud, mix clay, make bricks!
Update Bible Version
Draw yourself water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brickkiln.
Webster's Bible Translation
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.
Amplified Bible
Draw water for a [long, continued] siege! Strengthen your fortresses! Go down to the clay pits, trample the mortar! Prepare the brick kiln [to burn bricks for the rampart]!
English Standard Version
Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold!
World English Bible
Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Drawe vp to thee water for asegyng, bilde thi strengthis; entre in fen, and trede, thou vndurgoynge holde a tiel stoon.
English Revised Version
Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses: go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln.
Berean Standard Bible
Draw your water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Work the clay and tread the mortar; repair the brick kiln!
Contemporary English Version
Your city is under attack. Haul in extra water! Strengthen your defenses! Start making bricks! Stir the mortar!
American Standard Version
Draw thee water for the siege; strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brickkiln.
Bible in Basic English
Get water for the time when you are shut in, make strong your towns: go into the potter's earth, stamping it down with your feet, make strong the brickworks.
Complete Jewish Bible
Draw water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go down in the clay, tread the mortar, Take hold of the mold for bricks!
Darby Translation
Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar, lay hold of the brickmould.
King James Version (1611)
Draw thee waters for the siege: fortifie thy strong holdes, goe into clay, and tread the morter: make strong the bricke-kill.
New Life Bible
Store up water to drink when you are shut in by armies! Make your walls stronger! Go into the clay to make more clay blocks for building!
New Revised Standard
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; trample the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!
Geneva Bible (1587)
Drawe thee waters for the siege: fortifie thy strong holdes: go into the clay, and temper the morter: make strong bricke.
George Lamsa Translation
Draw water for the siege, fortify your strongholds; mix the clay, tread the mortar, strengthen the foundations.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Siege-water, draw for thyself, strengthen thy fortresses, - go into the clay, and tread thou the mortar, make strong the brick.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Draw thee water for the siege, build up thy bulwarks: go into the clay, and tread, work it and make brick.
Revised Standard Version
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; go into the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Drawe thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortes, go into the clay, treade the morter, make strong the brickyll.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Draw thee water for a siege, and well secure thy strong-holds: enter into the clay, and be thou trodden in the chaff, make the fortifications stronger than brick.
Good News Translation
Draw water to prepare for a siege, and strengthen your fortresses! Trample the clay to make bricks, and get the brick molds ready!
Christian Standard Bible®
Draw water for the siege;strengthen your fortresses.Step into the clay and tread the mortar;take hold of the brick-mold!
Hebrew Names Version
Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.
King James Version
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.
Lexham English Bible
Draw water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go to the mud pit! Trample the clay! Grasp the brick mold!
Literal Translation
Draw water of the siege for you! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread in the mortar! Make the mold strong!
Young's Literal Translation
Waters of a siege draw for thyself, Strengthen thy fortresses, Enter into mire, and tread on clay, Make strong a brick-kiln.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Drawe water now agaynst thou be beseged, make vp thy stroge holdes, go into the claye, tempre the morter, make stronge bricke:
THE MESSAGE
Store up water for the siege. Shore up your defenses. Get down to basics: Work the clay and make bricks. Sorry. Too late. Enemy fire will burn you up. Swords will cut you to pieces. You'll be chewed up as if by locusts. Yes, as if by locusts—a fitting fate, for you yourselves are a locust plague. You've multiplied shops and shopkeepers— more buyers and sellers than stars in the sky! A plague of locusts, cleaning out the neighborhood and then flying off. Your bureaucrats are locusts, your brokers and bankers are locusts. Early on, they're all at your service, full of smiles and promises, But later when you return with questions or complaints, you'll find they've flown off and are nowhere to be found. King of Assyria! Your shepherd-leaders, in charge of caring for your people, Are busy doing everything else but. They're not doing their job, And your people are scattered and lost. There's no one to look after them. You're past the point of no return. Your wound is fatal. When the story of your fate gets out, the whole world will applaud and cry "Encore!" Your cruel evil has seeped into every nook and cranny of the world. Everyone has felt it and suffered.
New English Translation
Draw yourselves water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Trample the mud and tread the clay! Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!
New King James Version
Draw your water for the siege! Fortify your strongholds! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Make strong the brick kiln!
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!
Legacy Standard Bible
Draw for yourself water for the siege!Strengthen your fortifications!Go into the clay and tread the mortar!Take hold of the brick mold!

Contextual Overview

8 Are you any better than the city of Thebes, situated on the Nile River, surrounded by water? She was protected by the river on all sides, walled in by water. 9 Ethiopia and the land of Egypt gave unlimited assistance. The nations of Put and Libya were among her allies. 10 Yet Thebes fell, and her people were led away as captives. Her babies were dashed to death against the stones of the streets. Soldiers threw dice to get Egyptian officers as servants. All their leaders were bound in chains. 11 And you, Nineveh, will also stagger like a drunkard. You will hide for fear of the attacking enemy. 12 All your fortresses will fall. They will be devoured like the ripe figs that fall into the mouths of those who shake the trees. 13 Your troops will be as weak and helpless as women. The gates of your land will be opened wide to the enemy and set on fire and burned. 14 Get ready for the siege! Store up water! Strengthen the defenses! Go into the pits to trample clay, and pack it into molds, making bricks to repair the walls. 15 But the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down. The enemy will consume you like locusts, devouring everything they see. There will be no escape, even if you multiply like swarming locusts. 16 Your merchants have multiplied until they outnumber the stars. But like a swarm of locusts, they strip the land and fly away. 17 Your guards and officials are also like swarming locusts that crowd together in the hedges on a cold day. But like locusts that fly away when the sun comes up, all of them will fly away and disappear.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Draw: 2 Chronicles 32:3, 2 Chronicles 32:4, 2 Chronicles 32:11, Isaiah 22:9-11, Isaiah 37:25

fortify: Nahum 2:1, Isaiah 8:9, Jeremiah 46:3, Jeremiah 46:4, Jeremiah 46:9, Joel 3:9-11

Reciprocal: Genesis 11:3 - brick Exodus 1:14 - in mortar Jeremiah 43:9 - in the brickkiln Jeremiah 51:12 - the standard

Cross-References

Genesis 3:1
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?"
Genesis 3:15
And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."
Genesis 3:20
Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live.
Genesis 9:6
If anyone takes a human life, that person's life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image.
Leviticus 20:25
"You must therefore make a distinction between ceremonially clean and unclean animals, and between clean and unclean birds. You must not defile yourselves by eating any unclean animal or bird or creature that scurries along the ground. I have identified them as being unclean for you.
Psalms 72:9
Desert nomads will bow before him; his enemies will fall before him in the dust.
Isaiah 29:4
Then deep from the earth you will speak; from low in the dust your words will come. Your voice will whisper from the ground like a ghost conjured up from the grave.
Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat hay like a cow. But the snakes will eat dust. In those days no one will be hurt or destroyed on my holy mountain. I, the Lord , have spoken!"
Micah 7:17
Like snakes crawling from their holes, they will come out to meet the Lord our God. They will fear him greatly, trembling in terror at his presence.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Draw thee waters for the siege,.... Before the siege is begun, fetch water from the river, wells, or fountains without the city, and fill cisterns, and such like receptacles of water, with them; that there may be sufficiency of it to hold out, which is often wanting in long sieges; the want of which gives great distress to the besieged: this is put for all necessary provisions, which should be made when a city is in danger of being blocked up: this, and what follows, are said ironically; signifying, let them do what they would or could for their support and security, it would be all in vain:

fortify thy strong holds; repair the old fortifications, and add new ones to them; fill them with soldiers, arms, and ammunition:

go into clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brick kiln; repair the brick kilns, keep them in good order; employ men in digging clay, and treading it, and making it into bricks, and burning them in the kiln, that there be no want of bricks to repair the fortifications, or such breaches as might be made by the enemy. Bricks were much used instead of stone in those countries; but when they had done their utmost, they would not be able to secure themselves, and keep out the enemy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds - This is not mere mockery at man’s weakness, when he would resist God. It foretells that they shall toil, and that, heavily. Toil is added upon toil. Nineveh did undergo a two years’ siege. Water stands for all provisions within. He bids them, as before Nahum 2:1, strengthen what was already strong; strongholds, which seemed to “cut off” all approach. These he bids them strengthen, not repairing decays only but making them exceeding strong 2 Chronicles 11:12. Go into clay. We seem to see all the inhabitants, like ants on their nest, all poured out, every one busy, every one making preparation for the defense. Why had there been no need of it? What needed she of towers and fortifications, whose armies were carrying war into distant lands, before whom all which was near was hushed? Now, all had to be renewed. As Isaiah in his mockery of the idol-makers begins with the forging of the axe, the planting and rearing of the trees, which were at length to become the idol (Isaiah 44:12, following), Nahum goes back to the beginning. The neglected brick-kiln, useless in their prosperity, was to be repaired; the clay, which abounded in the valley of the Tigris , was to be collected, mixed and kneaded by treading, as still represented in the Egyptian monuments. The conquering nation was to do the work of slaves, as Asiatic captives are represented, under their taskmasters , on the monuments of Egypt, a prelude of their future. Xenophon still saw the massive brick wall, on the stone foundation .

Yet, though stored within and fenced without, it shall not stand (see Isaiah 27:10-11).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Nahum 3:14. Draw thee waters for the siege — The Tigris ran near to Nineveh, and here they are exhorted to lay in plenty of fresh water, lest the siege should last long, and lest the enemy should cut off this supply.

Go into clay, and tread the mortar — This refers to the manner of forming bricks anciently in those countries; they digged up the clay, kneaded it properly by treading, mixed it with straw or coarse grass, moulded the bricks, and dried them in the sun. I have now some of the identical bricks, that were brought from this country, lying before me, and they show all these appearances. They are compact and very hard, but wholly soluble in water. There were however others without straw, that seem to have been burnt in a kiln as ours are. I have also some fragments or bats of these from Babylon.


 
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