Bible Commentaries
Nahum 3

Verses 1-4

The Price of Plunder (3:1-4)

In the first section of this chapter the poet-prophet makes no reference to God or to his ethical demands and laws, but by a skillful balancing of images he contrasts the accumulated store of evil within the city with the price now to be paid for that evil in "hosts of slain, heaps of corpses . . ." The words of the poet are emotionally freighted: those referring to the evil deeds of the Assyrians — "lies," "booty," "plunder," "harlotries" — are loaded with a sense of moral condemnation; those referring to the punishment inflicted on the "bloody city" are loaded with disgust. In this section the description of the motions of the battle is reduced to verses 2 and 3, which are reminiscent of Nahum 2:3-9; emphasis is on the rightness of the punishment inflicted.

Verses 1-19

A Taunting Dirge Over the City (3:1-19)

With the beginning of chapter 3 the tone of the long poem against Nineveh changes slightly from the descriptive poetry which is especially characteristic of 2:3-9 to a series of taunting and threatening expressions in which the full emotional reaction to the event is developed in a variety of ways.

Verses 5-7

The Public Disgrace (3:5-7)

A brief word specifically from the Lord announces the coming of shame and disgrace as the accompaniment of defeat for the city of Nineveh. The Lord again declares (as at Nahum 2:13), "I am against you," and in the light of this opposition the Lord himself will treat Nineveh with the form of public disgrace meted out to adulteresses as a part of their punishment (see Jeremiah 13:22; Jeremiah 13:26; Ezekiel 16:37; and perhaps Hosea 2:3; Hosea 2:10). Or the Lord proposes to treat the women of the conquered city in the way Assyrian soldiers had treated the women of cities they conquered. The purpose of this public exposure both for adulteresses and for Nineveh was to make all onlookers turn away and refuse to offer comfort.

It is not hard to visualize the scene in a Near Eastern town when the wronged husband led such a public exhibition of contempt and the bystanders joined in throwing filth upon the guilty woman, but it is somewhat difficult for spirits infused with Christian conceptions of mercy to see the appropriateness of the metaphor as a description of God’s attitude and threat against a pagan city. It is important to realize that in this descriptive passage the prophet-poet stresses the rightness of real punishment for a city guilty of many crimes against its neighbors and of sins against standards of morality accepted even in those cruel days. God himself has been offended by Nineveh’s evil deeds.

Verses 8-13

A Taunt Comparing Nineveh with Thebes (3:8-13)

Nineveh is now taunted as the poet compares her to the city of Thebes, which the Assyrians had sacked in 663 B.C. Addressing the city directly, the prophet reflects on that event and predicts that Nineveh, too, will be helpless in the day of her collapse, with outlying fortresses falling like the first-ripe figs and with the troops acting like women. In the same way Thebes fell, though protected — apparently — by the waters of the Nile and supported by Ethiopians, Libyans, and people from Put. How thoroughly Thebes was protected by the waters of the Nile and by its canals is not known, but the taunt is effective because the two great cities were comparable in importance in the ancient world.

Verses 14-17

The Futility of Resistance (3:14-17)

The next two divisions of the poem ironically urge the people of Nineveh to provide for resistance in the face of the inevitable doom. They are urged to draw water, which is always the target of enemy efforts to weaken the resistance of a city under siege, to get into the brickyard to provide plenty of bricks for the repair of defenses, and to be as numerous as the grasshopper and locust or as their own merchants, so as to provide for the replacement of fallen soldiers.

But all such efforts will be in vain. Workers will be cut off by the sword where they work or caught in the fires of the doomed and defeated city. And even though the population continues to be as numerous as the locusts and grasshoppers, it will disappear like the clouds of locusts which fly away with a change of the wind or weather. Resistance will be utterly futile.

Verses 18-19

The Final Scattering (3:18-19)

The final section of the poem is addressed to the king of Assyria, and at first seems to lament the ineffectiveness of Nineveh’s leadership in the day of defeat. In the Old Testament shepherds regularly represent military leaders, generally royalty. In the last hours of Nineveh, shepherds and nobles are asleep instead of vigorous in defense of the city. With none to gather them, the people are scattered like sheep upon a mountainside.

The king did not survive the downfall of the city. The final verse refers not only to the king’s personal condition but also to the fate of the city and its people.

Standing as it were amid the ruins of the great city, the prophet sums up his whole theme of satisfaction at the defeat and downfall of the city so long feared and so hated by the rest of the then civilized world. All will rejoice, for all have felt the "unceasing evil" of the Assyrian power. God’s justice will have been accomplished.