Albert Barnes Commentary Nahum 3:13

"Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire hath devoured thy bars." — Nahum 3:13 (ASV)

Behold, your people in the midst of you are women - Fierce, fearless, hard, iron men, such as their warriors still are portrayed by themselves on their monuments, they whom no toil wearied, no peril daunted, shall be, one and all, their whole people, “women.”

So Jeremiah said to Babylon, they shall become, became, women (Jeremiah 50:37; Jeremiah 51:30). He sets it before their eyes: Behold, your people are women; against nature they are such, not in tenderness but in weakness and fear.

Among the signs of the Day of Judgment, it stands, men’s hearts failing them for fear (Luke 21:26). Where sin reigns, there is no strength left, no manliness or nobleness of soul, no power to resist.

In the midst of you, where you seem most secure, and, if anywhere, there was hope of safety. The very inmost self of the sinner gives way.

To your enemies - (This is, for emphasis, prefixed) not for any good to you, but to your enemies shall be set wide open the gates of your land, not your gates, i.e., the gates of their cities (which is a distinct idiom), but the gates of the land itself, every avenue, which might have been closed against the invader, but which was “laid open.”

The Easterns, as well as the Greeks and Latins, used this term (see further Liddell and Scott, loc. cit.): for example, the πύλαι τῆς Κιλικίας καὶ τῆς Συρίας (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.4.14), the “Amsnicae Pylae” (Quintus Curtius 3.20).

Pliny speaks of the “portae Caucasiae” (Natural History 6.11) or “Iberiae” (see also Natural History 6.15; compare the “Albanian Gates” in Ptolemy 5.12). The word “gate” or “doors” was used for the mountain passes, which gave access to a land but which might be held against an enemy.

In the pass called “the Caucasian gates,” there were, in addition, doors fastened with iron bars. At Thermopylae or, as the inhabitants called them, Pylae (“gates”), the narrow pass was further guarded by a wall. Its name recalls the brilliant history of how such approaches might be held by a devoted handful of men against almost countless multitudes.

Of Assyria, Pliny says, “The Tigris and pathless mountains encircle Adiabene.” When those gates of the land gave way, the whole land was laid open to its enemies.

The fire shall devour your bars - This likely refers, as elsewhere, to the bars of the gates, which were mostly of wood, since it is expressly stated of some that they were of iron (Psalms 107:16; Isaiah 14:2) or brass (1 Kings 4:13). Regarding siege practices: “Occasionally the efforts of the besiegers were directed against the gate, which they endeavored to break open with axes, or to set on fire by application of a torch. In the hot climate of South Asia wood becomes so dry by exposure to the sun, that the most solid doors may readily be ignited and consumed.” It is even remarked in one instance that the Assyrians “have not set fire to the gates of this city, as appeared to be their usual practice in attacking a fortified place.”

So her palaces were buried as they stood, such that the traces of prolonged fire are still visible, calcining one part and leaving others which were not exposed to it, uncalcined. An archaeological account states:

“It is incontestable that, during the excavations, a considerable quantity of charcoal, and even pieces of wood, either half-burnt or in a perfect state of preservation, were found in many places. The lining of the chambers also bears certain marks of the action of fire. All these things can be explained only by supposing the fall of a burning roof, which calcined the slabs of gypsum and converted them into dust. It would be absurd to imagine that the burning of a small quantity of furniture could have left on the walls marks like these which are to be seen through all the chambers, with the exception of one, which was only an open passage.

It must have been a violent and prolonged fire to be able to calcine not only a few places, but every part of these slabs, which were ten feet high and several inches thick. So complete a decomposition can be attributed only to intense heat, such as would be occasioned by the fall of a burning roof.

Botta found on the engraved flagstones scoria and half-melted nails, so that there is no doubt that these appearances had been produced by the action of intense and long-sustained heat. He remembers, besides, at Khorsabad, that when he detached some bas-reliefs from the earthy substance which covered them, in order to copy the inscriptions that were behind, he found there coals and cinders, which could have entered only by the top, between the wall and the back of the bas-relief. This can be easily understood to have been caused by the burning of the roof, but is inexplicable in any other manner. What tends most positively to prove that the traces of fire must be attributed to the burning of a wooden roof is that these traces are perceptible only in the interior of the building.

The gypsum also that covers the wall inside is completely calcined, while the outside of the building is nearly everywhere untouched. But wherever the fronting appears to have at all suffered from fire, it is at the bottom, thus giving reason to suppose that the damage has been done by some burning matter falling outside. In fact, not a single bas-relief in a state to be removed was found in any of the chambers; they were all pulverized.”

The soul that does not rightly close its senses against the enticements of the world does, in fact, open them, and death is come up into our windows (Jeremiah 9:21). Then “whatever natural good there may still be, which, as bars, would hinder the enemy from bursting in, is consumed by the fire,” once kindled, of its evil passions.