Nahum 3
English Standard Version

Woe to Nineveh
3 Woe to the bloody city,
    all full of lies and plunder--
    no end to the prey!
2 The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel,
    galloping horse and bounding chariot!
3 Horsemen charging,
    flashing sword and glittering spear,
hosts of slain,
    heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end--
    they stumble over the bodies!
4 And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute,
    graceful and of deadly charms,
who betrays nations with her whorings,
    and peoples with her charms.

5 Behold, I am against you,
    declares the LORD of hosts,
    and will lift up your skirts over your face;
and I will make nations look at your nakedness
    and kingdoms at your shame.
6 I will throw filth at you
    and treat you with contempt
    and make you a spectacle.
7 And all who look at you will shrink from you and say,
“Wasted is Nineveh; who will grieve for her?”
    Where shall I seek comforters for you?

8 Are you better than Thebes
    that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
    her rampart a sea,
    and water her wall?
9 Cush was her strength;
    Egypt too, and that without limit;
    Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

10 Yet she became an exile;
    she went into captivity;
her infants were dashed in pieces
    at the head of every street;
for her honored men lots were cast,
    and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You also will be drunken;
    you will go into hiding;
you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are like fig trees
    with first-ripe figs--
if shaken they fall
    into the mouth of the eater.
13 Behold, your troops
    are women in your midst.
The gates of your land
    are wide open to your enemies;
    fire has devoured your bars.

14 Draw water for the siege;
    strengthen your forts;
go into the clay;
    tread the mortar;
    take hold of the brick mold!
15 There will the fire devour you;
    the sword will cut you off.
    It will devour you like the locust.
Multiply yourselves like the locust;
    multiply like the grasshopper!
16 You increased your merchants
    more than the stars of the heavens.
    The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

17 Your princes are like grasshoppers,
    your scribes like clouds of locusts
settling on the fences
    in a day of cold--
when the sun rises, they fly away;
    no one knows where they are.

18 Your shepherds are asleep,
    O king of Assyria;
    your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
    with none to gather them.
19 There is no easing your hurt;
    your wound is grievous.
All who hear the news about you
    clap their hands over you.
For upon whom has not come
    your unceasing evil?

Again, judgment is proclaimed over Nineveh.  Though they were full of plunder, they were also full of lies.  Though they were strong, they used that strength to commit violence against everyone and strike fear into the hearts of their neighbors (not just their enemies).  Though they were numerous, they engaged in all kinds of sexual perversion including prostitution.  They were given over to idolatry.  For these and many more abominations, they will be judged.

The LORD will shame them in front of all the nations that they tried to terrorize and devour.  Those who survive will become filthy and contemptable vagabonds--a people without a home, without a place, and without any positive reputation or goodwill.  No one will pity them or try to offer them aid.

They did not learn from the other peoples that the LORD had done similar things to when they become proud and idolatrous peoples.  They should have learned from Thebes, the people of Cush and of Egypt, and Put and the Libyans.  They all were so rich and strong and powerful and feared that no one imagined they could be defeated, but the LORD had no trouble destroying them when their time came.  Did Nineveh think they were any better?  Apparently they did. 

They too would be counted among those who were the exiled nations--what we would call refugees today.  They will try to make themselves drunk to dull their senses, but their problems will persist.  They will go near and far looking for refuge from those that are their enemies and will find none.  They will look for shelter in their fortresses, but they will all be shaken to pieces like a fig tree that lets loose of its early fruit with the slightest shaking.  Their men will be killed so that they will have to depend on their women to fight for them.  They who devoured everyone else will now be devoured by their enemies.

They can try to stock up supplies and build up their fortifications, but it will do no good against the hand of the LORD.  They will be devoured by fire and cut off by the sword.  Though they multiply like a swarm of locusts or grasshoppers, that will not be enough to save them from the hand of the LORD.  They are but like locusts and grasshoppers in His sight.  They swarm and devour until the seasons change and then they disappear never to be seen again.  In the same way, these people will one day disappear never to be seen or thought of again (like I said, many imagined that the Bible had to be wrong about their existence because we could find no record of them until recently, but we have found them mentioned, and we have found their ancient city destroyed just as this book prophesied).

Even the other Assyrians will not be able to save them or come to their defense.  The Ninevites will be scattered to live in the desolate places on the tops of mountains.  No one will be able to ease their pain or heal their wound.  All who hear about what happened to the city and its people will rejoice.  They will reap what they have sown and everyone will see that that the time of reckoning is upon them.

Nahum 2
English Standard Version

The Destruction of Nineveh
2 The scatterer has come up against you.
    Man the ramparts;
    watch the road;
dress for battle;
    collect all your strength.

2 For the LORD  is restoring the majesty of Jacob
    as the majesty of Israel,
for plunderers have plundered them
    and ruined their branches.

3 The shield of his mighty men is red;
    his soldiers are clothed in scarlet.
The chariots come with flashing metal
    on the day he musters them;
    the cypress spears are brandished.
4 The chariots race madly through the streets;
    they rush to and fro through the squares;
they gleam like torches;
    they dart like lightning.
5 He remembers his officers;
    they stumble as they go,
they hasten to the wall;
    the siege tower is set up.
6 The river gates are opened;
    the palace melts away;
7 its mistress is stripped; she is carried off,
    her slave girls lamenting,
moaning like doves
    and beating their breasts.
8 Nineveh is like a pool
    whose waters run away.
“Halt! Halt!” they cry,
    but none turns back.
9 Plunder the silver,
    plunder the gold!
There is no end of the treasure
    or of the wealth of all precious things.

10 Desolate! Desolation and ruin!
    Hearts melt and knees tremble;
anguish is in all loins;
    all faces grow pale!
11 Where is the lions' den,
    the feeding place of the young lions,
where the lion and lioness went,
    where his cubs were, with none to disturb?
12 The lion tore enough for his cubs
    and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he filled his caves with prey
    and his dens with torn flesh.

13 Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will burn your chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard.

The LORD is sending judgment on Nineveh so that the majority of the people of Israel will be restored.  The wording here is interesting because it too is exactly what happened.  Though the Israelites are offered the opportunity to return to the Land, not all of them do (even today, some still choose to remain in the foreign lands to where they were exiles).  It will not be until the Lord comes to rule from the throne of David that all of Israel will once again come together to live as a united people and a single nation with a single king.

The LORD describes the men that would come to conquer Nineveh--men dressed in red with red shields.  Note, this is not a warning to Nineveh about the coming judgment (that already happened in the book of Jonah, the people repented, and they were given a reprieve, but now, about 150 years later, they are even more wicked than before and judgment is being declared so that all the nations will know that it is the LORD who acted to destroy them--He alone should get the glory when it happens).

This invading army will have lots of chariots and lots of spears made of cypress wood (not cheap).  Remember how large we said this city was when we talked about it in Jonah?  It would take three days just to walk through it from one end to the other.  However, these fast-moving chariots made quick work of the city, despite its vastness.  They set up siegeworks to tear down the wall of Nineveh and "the river gates are opened" (this sounds like there was a dam that was destroyed that caused the city to flood--which is what we have archeological evidence of).

All the people great and small were carried away screaming in the flood.  The palace was completely destroyed and all that remains is a pool of water where the once great city used to stand.  Those who do survive run away never to return and the conquering army plunders their silver and gold and everything valuable that they can get to.  All the wealth they accumulated for themselves was worthless when it came to the salvation they needed and it became the wealth of those who conquered them.

The people of Nineveh used to be seen as fierce apex predators like lions and lionesses.  Now where have they gone?  Where is their den (their home) that they have run off to for shelter?  Their great city has been destroyed, and the LORD has made it clear that there is nowhere safe for them to run and hide.  As He said in chapter 1, He is destroying them completely and leaving them with no descendants.  Though they had more than enough provisions to endure a siege, they were not prepared for the flood that was unleashed upon them.

We are not given the identity of the invading army because their identity is not important.  It is the LORD that is against them (remember in the past books how the LORD said He was against Israel and Judah, but now He is once again against their enemies and for His people, this is a great turning point for them).  The LORD will destroy all the mighty weapons of war of Nineveh and destroy all of its men, women and children.  Its reign of terror has come to an end (that is a fair label for them--terrorists), and no one will even again need to live in fear of them.

Nahum 1
English Standard Version

1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.

God's Wrath Against Nineveh
2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God;
    the LORD is avenging and wrathful;
the LORD  takes vengeance on his adversaries
    and keeps wrath for his enemies.
3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power,
    and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
    and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
    he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
    the bloom of Lebanon withers.
5 The mountains quake before him;
    the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
    the world and all who dwell in it.

6 Who can stand before his indignation?
    Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
    and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
7 The LORD is good,
    a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
8     But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
    and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
9 What do you plot against the LORD?
    He will make a complete end;
    trouble will not rise up a second time.
10 For they are like entangled thorns,
    like drunkards as they drink;
    they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
11 From you came one
    who plotted evil against the LORD,
    a worthless counselor.

12 Thus says the LORD,
“Though they are at full strength and many,
    they will be cut down and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
    I will afflict you no more.
13 And now I will break his yoke from off you
    and will burst your bonds apart.”

14 The LORD has given commandment about you:
    “No more shall your name be perpetuated;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
    the carved image and the metal image.
I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

15 Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him
    who brings good news,
    who publishes peace!
Keep your feasts, O Judah;
    fulfill your vows,
for never again shall the worthless pass through you;
    he is utterly cut off.

The book of Nahum is only three chapters, but, as promised when talking about the book of Jonah, it wraps up the story about the city of Nineveh and what happened to the people there (and why it took us so long to find any remnants of that massive city that would seem like it should have been easy to find).  Actually, for years, the city and people of Nineveh were mocked by secular archeologists who refused to believe the prophecies of the book of Nahum as an explanation for what happened to that city and culture.  Yet, we have recently found the city, destroyed exactly as the book of Nahum prophesied.  This should be a lesson to anyone who points to a yet undiscovered civilization as evidence against the Bible as every time this has happened in the past, the Bible has been right and the critics have had to eat crow (or move on to something new and pretend they never took their position).

The people of the northern kingdom have been crying out for the LORD to avenge them, and the LORD tells that that He has seen everything, is jealous of them and will avenge them.  Those who are His adversaries will feel His wrath.  His eye is on all people, including those that think they are far off from Him and call Him their enemy.  Though His eye is on His people to protect and bless them, His eye is on His enemies to account for all their evil and make sure they get a just punishment.

The LORD is the same one who can cause the Red Sea to dry up so His people can cross and dry ground and cause the Egyptians to become stuck in what had been dry ground and the sea closed in on top of them.  What was a mighty empire fell in a single day because they hardened their hearts and mad the LORD hand His people their enemy.  This is the same LORD who dried up the Jordan River so that His people could cross over into the Promised Land and defeat all of the Canaanite to bring judgment upon them.  He will once again move heaven and earth if necessary to save His people--this time from an even greater enemy.

Will any stand before Him in His Day of Wrath and survive?  Only those who belong to the LORD can be saved from the fury of His wrath.  Not even the mighty people of Nineveh are strong enough to oppose Him.  However, isn't it good to know that if you belong to the LORD, you have nothing to fear from Him?  In that Day, it will be the day of their salvation, not a day of wrath and judgment.  He will put an end to all the adversaries of His people and they will never again live in fear of either war or exile.  The wicked can only live in a fantasy land compared to that of a drunkard pretending that the Day of LORD will never come, and they surround themselves with foolish counselors that tell them the lies that they wish to hear.  Therefore, that Day of Judgment will come as a surprise to them.

The LORD is not impressed with the might or size of the army of the Ninevites.  They day is coming when the LORD will no longer afflict Israel and will set them free, but when that day comes, judgment will already have come for Nineveh, and they will have been utterly destroyed.  No more will people speak of them or their gods (this was true and why it was so hard for the archeologist to believe that they had been the great and powerful civilization mentioned in the Bible).  The nations would see how vile the people of Nineveh were and would celebrate the judgment that the LORD was bringing upon them (some of them not thinking that they were probably worthy of similar judgment and many of them likewise would be destroyed).

The day is coming when there will be a message of peace and blessing spread through the Beautiful Land again.  It is now the responsibility of the people of Judah (whom this message is given to) to keep the worthless men from the outside out and to expel the worthless men from within. This is to be a sign of how such worthless men are cut off from the LORD, His blessing and His kingdom not just in the here and now, but in an eternal sense.