Albert Barnes Commentary Nahum 2

He that dasheth in pieces - Rather, “the Disperser,” the instrument of God, by which he would “break her in pieces like a potter’s vessel, or should scatter” her in all lands, has come up against your face, O Nineveh, that is, either, “over against you,” confronting her, as it were, face to face, or directed against you. From the description of the peace of Judah, the prophet turns suddenly to her oppressor, to whom, not to Judah, the rest of the prophecy is directed.

Jacob and Israel are spoken of, not addressed. The destroyer of Nineveh “went up against the face of Nineveh,” not in the presence of Judah and Jacob, who were far away and knew nothing of it.

Keep the munition. While all in Judah is now peace, all in Nineveh is tumult.

God whom they had defied, saying that Hezekiah could not turn away the face of one captain of the least of his servants (Isaiah 36:9), now bids them prepare to meet Him whom He would send against them. Gird up thy loins now, like a man (Job 40:7).

You who would lay waste others, now, if you can, keep yourself. The strength of the words is the measure of the irony. They had challenged God; He in turn challenges them to put forth all their might.

Fence your defenses - we might say. Their strong walls, high though they were, unassailable by any then known skill of besiegers, would not be secure.

The prophet uses a kindred and allusive word, that their protection needed to be protected itself; and this, by continued watchfulness.

He adds, Watch the way; spy out (as far as you can) the coming of the enemy; strengthen the loins, the seat of strength.

Elsewhere they are said to be girded up for any exertion. Fortify thy strength exceedingly. The expression is rare: commonly it is said of some part of the human frame—knees, arms, or mind—or of man by God.

The same words are strong mockery to those who resist God, good counsel to those who trust in God.

Keep the munition, for He who keepeth thee will not sleep (Psalms 121:3); watch the way, by which the enemy may approach from afar, for Satan approaches, sometimes suddenly, sometimes very stealthily and subtly, transforming himself into an angel of light.

Jerome says: “Watch also the way by which you are to go, as it is said, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein (Jeremiah 6:16), so that, having stood in many ways, we may come to that Way which says, I am the Way.”

Then, make thy loins strong, as the Savior commands His disciples, Let your loins be girded about (Luke 12:35), and the Apostle says, Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth (Ephesians 6:14); for nothing so strengthens as the Truth.

For Christ being the Truth, the one who with his whole heart has believed in Christ is strong against himself, and has power over the loins, the seat of the passions.

Then, since this warfare is hard, he adds, be strong, fortify thy power mightily; resist not listlessly, but vehemently; and that, in His strength who has strengthened our nature, taking it to Himself and uniting it with the Godhead. For without Him, strong though you are, you will avail nothing.

For the Lord has turned away—or rather, restores—the excellency of Jacob. He speaks of what should come as if it has already come. For Nineveh falls because God restores His people, whom Nineveh had oppressed.

The restoration of God’s favor to His Church is the season of His punishment of their enemies; likewise, His displeasure against her enemies is a token of His favor to her. When Herod was smitten by God, the word of God grew and multiplied (Acts 12:24). A long captivity was still before Judah, yet the destruction of the Assyrian was the earnest that every oppressing city should cease (Isaiah 33:1).

The excellency of Jacob—The word “excellency” is used in a good or bad sense: bad, if man takes the excellency to himself; good, as given by God. This is decisive against a modern popular rendering, “has returned to the excellency of Jacob,” for Scripture knows of no “excellency of Jacob” except God Himself or grace from God. Jacob, if separated from God or left by Him, has no excellency to which God could return.

As the excellency of Israel—Both the ten and the two tribes had suffered by the Assyrian. The ten had been carried captive by Shalmaneser, the two had been harassed by Sennacherib. After the captivity of the ten tribes, the name Jacob is used of Judah only. It may be, then, that the restoration of God’s favor is promised to each separately. Or, there may be an emphasis in the names themselves. Their forefather bore the name of Jacob in his troubled days of exile; that of Israel was given him on his return (Genesis 32:28). It would then mean the afflicted people (Jacob) shall be restored to its utmost glory as Israel. The sense is the same.

For the emptiers have emptied them out—Their chastisement is the channel of their restoration. Unlike the world, their emptiness is their fullness, just as the fullness of the world is its emptiness. The world is cast down, not to arise, for woe to him that is alone when he falleth: for he hath not another to help him up (Ecclesiastes 4:10).

The Church falls, but to arise (Micah 7:8). The people are restored because they had borne chastening (Ezekiel 36:3, Ezekiel 36:6–7). This is because the Lord hath restored the excellency of Jacob, for the emptiers have emptied them out and marred their vinebranches .

The phrase “marred their vinebranches” means its fruit-bearing branches were damaged so that, as far as it was in the emptiers' power, the vine should not bear fruit to God. But to cut the vine is, by God’s grace, to make it shoot forth and bear fruit more abundantly.

Army is arrayed against army; the armies, thus far, of God against the army of His enemy; all outside is order; all within, confusion. The assailing army, from its compactness and unity, is spoken of both as many and one. The might is of many; the order and singleness of purpose is as of one. The shield, collectively, not shields. His mighty men—He who was last spoken of was Almighty God, as He says in Isaiah: I have commanded My consecrated ones; I have also called My mighty ones, them that rejoice in My highness (Isaiah 13:3).

Is reddened – Either with the blood of the Assyrians, shed in some previous battle before the siege began, or (which is the meaning of the word elsewhere) an artificial color, the color of blood being chosen as expressive of fiery fierceness.

The valiant men are in scarlet, for beauty and terror, as again being the color of blood. It was especially the color of the dress of their nobles, one chief color of the Median dress, from whom the Persians adopted theirs.

The chariots shall be with flaming torches—literally, “with the fire of steels,” or of sharp, incisive instruments. Either way, the words seem to indicate that the chariots were in some way armed with steel. For steel was not an ornament, nor do the chariots appear to have been ornamented with metal.

Iron would have hindered the primary object of lightness and speed. Steel, as distinct from iron, is made only for incisiveness. In either way, it is probable that scythed chariots were already in use. Against such generals as the younger Cyrus and Alexander, they were of no avail, but they must have been terrific instruments against undisciplined armies.

The rush and noise of the British chariots disturbed for a time even Caesar’s Roman troops. They were probably in use long before. Their use among the ancient Britons, Gauls and Belgians, as also probably among the Canaanites, evinces that they existed among very unrefined peoples.

The objection that the Assyrian chariots are not represented in the monuments as armed with scythes is an oversight, since these spoken of by Nahum may have been Median, certainly not Assyrian. In the day of His preparation, when He musters the hosts for the battle; and the fir-trees shall be terribly shaken; i.e., fir-spears (the weapon being often named from the wood of which it is made) shall be made to quiver through the force with which they shall be hurled.

The chariots shall rage – (or madden, as the driving of Jehu is said to be “furiously,” literally, in madness) in the streets. The city is not yet taken; so, since this takes place in the streets and broad ways, they are the confused preparations of the besieged. They shall justle one against another, shall run rapidly to and fro, restlessly; their show is like torches (English margin), leaving streaks of fire as they pass rapidly along. They shall run vehemently, like the lightnings—swift, but vanishing.

He shall recount his worthies – The Assyrian king wakes as if from a sleep, literally, “he remembers his mighty men” (Judges 5:13; Nehemiah 3:5); they stumble in their walk, literally, paths, not only because of haste and eager fear, but from a lack of inward might and the aid of God. Those whom God leads do not stumble (Isaiah 63:13): “Perplexed in every way and not knowing what they ought to do, their mind wholly darkened and almost drunk with ills, they reel to and fro, turn from one thing to another, and in all” labor in vain.

They shall make haste to the walls thereof, and the defense – (literally, “the covering”) shall be prepared. The Assyrian monuments leave no doubt that a Jewish writer is largely correct in describing this as a covered shelter, under which an enemy approached the city; “a covering of planks with skins upon them; under it those who fight against the city come to the wall and mine the wall underneath, and it is a shield over them from the stones, which are cast from the wall.”

The monuments, however, show this shelter connected not with mining but with a battering ram, usually with a sharp point, by which they loosened the walls. Another covering was employed to protect individual miners who picked out single stones with a pick-axe. The Assyrian sculptures show, by the means employed against or in defense of their engines, how central a part of the siege they formed. Seven of them are represented in one siege. The “ram” (Ezekiel 4:2) is mentioned in Ezekiel as the well-known and ordinary instrument of a siege.

Thus, Nahum 2:3 describes the attack, and Nahum 2:4 describes the defense. The first two clauses of Nahum 2:5 describe the defense; the last two clauses describe the attack. This quick interchange only makes the whole account more vivid.

: “But what does it avail to build the house, unless the Lord builds it? What good does it do to shut the gates, which the Lord unbars?” On both sides, the full strength of man is put forth; there seems to be a standstill to see what will happen, and God brings about His own work in His own way.

The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved. 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 and 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 it made may have given rise to the traditional account of Ctesias, although it was obviously exaggerated regarding the destruction of the wall. The exaggerated character of that tradition is not inconsistent with a basis of truth; rather, it implies one. It is inconceivable that walls of the thickness Ctesias described would have been thought to be overthrown by the swelling of any river, unless an event like the one Ctesias relates—where the siege ended because the river burst in and provided an entrance for the enemy—had actually occurred.

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 access the rivers, which otherwise would be useless to them except as a wall. These rivers correspond to the artificial divisions of the Nile by which No or Thebes was defended, or to the rivers of Babylon (Psalms 137:1), which yet was washed by the one stream, the Euphrates.

But Nineveh was surrounded and guarded by actual rivers: the Tigris and the Khausser, and (assuming those larger dimensions of Nineveh, which are supported by such varied evidence) the greater Zab, which was called “the frantic Zab” on account of the violence of its current. “The Zab contained,” says Ainsworth, “when we saw it, a larger body of water than the Tigris, whose tributaries are not supplied by so many snow-mountains as those of the Zab.” Of these rivers, if the Tigris is now on a level lower than the ruins of Nineveh, it may not have been so formerly.

The Khausser, in its natural direction, ran through Nineveh where, now as of old, it turns a mill, and must necessarily have been fenced by gates; otherwise, any invader might enter at will, just as in modern times, Mosul has its “gate of the bridge.” A break in these gates would obviously let in an enemy and might all the more paralyze the inhabitants if they had any tradition that the river alone could or would be their enemy, as Nahum himself prophesied. Subsequently, inaccuracy or exaggeration might easily represent this as an overthrow of the walls themselves. It made no difference how the breach was made.

The palace shall be dissolved. The prophet unites the beginning and the end. The river-gates were opened; what had been the fence against the enemy became an entrance for them. With the river, the tide of the enemy’s people also poured in.

The palace, then—the imperial abode, the center of the empire, embellished with the history of its triumphs—sank, was dissolved, and ceased to be. This is not a physical loosening of the sun-dried bricks by the stream, which would usually flow harmlessly by, but the dissolution of the empire itself: “The temple, that is, his kingdom was destroyed.” The palaces of both Khorsabad and Kouyunjik lay near the Khausser, and both bear the marks of fire.