Albert Barnes Commentary Nahum 3:8

"Art thou better than No-amon, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about her; whose rampart was the sea, [and] her wall was of the sea?" — Nahum 3:8 (ASV)

Are you better - More populous or more powerful, “than the populous No?” rather than No-Ammon, so called from the idol Ammon, worshiped there. No-Ammon (or, as it is deciphered in the Cuneiform Inscriptions, Nia), meaning probably “the portion of Ammon,” was the sacred name of the capital of Upper Egypt. Under its common name, Thebes, it was far-famed, even in the time of Homer, for its continually accruing wealth, its military power, its 20,000 chariots, and its vast dimensions attested by its 100 gates.

Existing earlier as the capital of Upper Egypt, its grandeur began in the 18th dynasty, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, or Semitic conquerors of Egypt. Its Pharaohs were conquerors during the 18th to 20th dynasties (1706-1110 B.C.)—about six centuries. It was then the center of a world empire.

Under a disguised name, its rulers were also celebrated in Greek story for their worldwide conquests. The Greek statements have in some main points been verified by the decipherment of the hieroglyphics. The monuments relate their victories in far Asia and mention Nineveh itself among the people who paid tribute to them.

They warred and conquered from the Sudan to Mesopotamia. A monument of Tothmosis I (1066 B.C.) still exists at Kerman, between the 20th and 19th degrees latitude, boasting, in language like that of the Assyrian conquerors: “All lands are subdued, and bring their tributes for the first time to the gracious god.” They say, “The frontier of Egypt extends Southward to the mountain of Apta (in Abyssinia) and Northward to the furthest dwellings of the Asiatics.” The hyperbolic statements are too undefined for history, but widely-conquering monarchs could alone have used them.

“At all periods of history, the possession of the country which we call Sudan (the Black country), comprising Nubia, and which the ancients called by the collective name of Kous (Cush) or Aethiopia, has been an inexhaustible source of wealth to Egypt.

Whether by way of war or commerce, boats laden with flocks, corn, hides, ivory, precious woods, stones, and metals, and many other products of those regions, descended the Nile into Egypt to fill the treasures of the temples and of the court of the Pharaohs. This included metals, especially gold, mines of which were worked by captives and slaves, whose Egyptian name noub seems to have been the origin of the name Nubia, the first province south of Egypt.” “The conquered country of Sudan, called Kous in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, was governed by Egyptian princes of the royal family, who bore the name of ‘prince royal of Kous.’”

But the prophet’s appeal to Nineveh is more striking because No, in its situation, commerce, sources of wealth, and relation to the country between them, had been another and earlier Nineveh. However, just as No had formerly conquered and exacted tribute from all those nations, even Nineveh itself, so now, under Sargon and Sennacherib, Nineveh had reversed all those successes, displaced the Empire of Egypt with its own, and taken No itself.

Under its Tothmoses, Amenophes, Sethos, and the Ousertesens, No had sent its messengers (Nahum 2:13), the levying officers of its tribute. It had brought from Asia that countless mass of human strength—the captives who (as Israel, before its deliverance, accomplished its hard labors) completed those gigantic works which, even after 2000 years of decay, are still the marvel of the civilized world.

Tothmosis I, after subduing the Sasou, brought back countless captives from Naharina (Mesopotamia). Tothmosis III, in 19 years of conquests (1603-1585 B.C.), “raised the Egyptian empire to the height of its greatness.

Tothmosis repeatedly attacked the most powerful people of Asia, such as the Routen (Assyrians?), with a number of subordinate kingdoms like Asshur, Babel, Nineveh, and Singar; also the Remenen or Armenians, the Zahi or Phoenicians, the Cheta or Hittites, and many more. We learn, from the description of the objects of booty sent to Egypt by land and sea (counted by number and weight), many curious details about the industry of the conquered peoples of central Asia. These details honor the civilization of that time and verify the tradition that Egyptian kings set up stelae in conquered countries in memory of their victories.

Tothmosis III set up his stele in Mesopotamia, ‘for having enlarged the frontiers of Egypt.’” Amenophis too is related to have “taken the fortress of Nenii (Nineveh).” It is said: “He returned from the country of the higher Routen, where he had beaten all his enemies to enlarge the frontiers of the land of Egypt”; “he took possession of the people of the South, and chastised the people of the North.”

At Abd-el-Kournah, he was represented as “having for his footstool the heads and backs of five peoples of the South and four peoples of the North (Asiatics).” “Among the names of the peoples who submitted to Egypt are the Nubians, the Asiatic shepherds, and the inhabitants of Cyprus and Mesopotamia.” “The world in its length and its breadth” is promised by the sphinx to Tothmosis IV. He is represented as “subduer of the African peoples.”

Under Amenophis III, the Memnon of the Greeks, “the Egyptian empire extended Northward to Mesopotamia, Southward to the land of Karou.” He enlarged and beautified No, which received from him the temple of Luxor and his vocal statue, with “all people bringing their tributes, their children, their horses, a mass of silver, of iron and ivory from countries, the roads to which we know not.”

King Horus is saluted as “the sun of the nine people; great is your name to the country of Ethiopia”; “the gracious god returns, having subdued the great of all people.” Seti I (or Sethos) is exhibited as reverenced by the Armenians, conquering the Sasou, the “Hittites, Naharina (Mesopotamia), the Routen (Assyrians?), the Pount (or Arabs in the South of Arabia), the Amari or Amorites, and Kedes (perhaps Edessa).”

Rameses II, or the Great (identified with the Pharaoh of the Exodus), conquered the Hittites in the North. In the South it is recorded: “the gracious god, who defeated the nine people, who massacred myriads in a moment, annihilated the people overthrown in their blood, yet there was no other with him.”

The 20th Dynasty (1288-1110 B.C.) began again with conquests. “Rameses III triumphed over great confederations of Libyans and Syrians and the Isles of the Mediterranean. He is the only king who, as the monuments show, carried on war at once by land and sea.” Besides many names unknown to us, the Hittites, Amorites, Circesium, Aratus, Philistines, Phoenicia, Sasou, and Pount are again recognized.

North, South, East, and West are declared to be tributary to him, and of the North it is said, “The people, who knew not Egypt, come to you, bringing gold and silver, lapis-lazuli, all precious stones.” He adorned Thebes with the great temple of Medinet-Abou and the Ramesseum. The brief notices of following Rameses speak of internal prosperity and wealth.

A fuller account of Rameses XII speaks of his “being in Mesopotamia to exact the annual tribute,” how “the kings of all countries prostrated themselves before him, and the king of the country of Bouchten (it has been conjectured, Bagistan, or Ecbatana) presented to him tribute and his daughter.” It is said, “He is the last Pharaoh who goes to Mesopotamia, to collect the annual tributes of the petty kingdoms of that country.”

On this side of the Euphrates, Egypt still retained some possessions until the time of Necho, for it is said, “the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates all that belonged to the king of Egypt” (2 Kings 24:7). Thebes continued to be embellished alike by “the high priests of Ammon,” who displaced the ancient line, and by kings of the Bubastite Dynasty: Sesonchis I (or Sisak), Takelothis II, and Sesonchis III.

The Ethiopian dynasty of Sabakos and Tearko (or Tirhaka) in another way illustrates the importance of No. The Ethiopian conquerors chose it as their royal city. There, in the time of Sabakos, Syria brought it tribute; there Tirhaka set up the records of his victories. Great must have been the conqueror whom Strabo put on a line with Sesostris.

Its site marked it out for a great capital, and as such, the Ethiopian conqueror seized it. The hills on either side retired, encircling the plain, through the center of which the Nile brought down its wealth, connecting it with the untold riches of the south. “They formed a vast circus, where the ancient metropolis spread itself out. On the West, the Libyan chain presents abrupt declivities which command this side of the plain, and which bend away above Bab-el-molouk, to end near Kournah at the very bank of the river.

On the East, softer and nearer heights descend in long declivities toward Luxor and Karnak, and their crests do not approach the Nile until after Medamout, an hour or more below Karnak.” The breadth of the valley, being about 10 miles, the city (of which Strabo says, “traces are now seen of its magnitude, 80 stadia in length”) must have occupied the whole. “The city embraced the great space, which is now commonly called the plain of Thebes and which is divided by the Nile into two halves, an Eastern and a Western, the first bounded by the edge of the Arabian wilderness, the latter by the hills of the dead of the steep Libyan chain.”

The capital of Egypt, which was formerly identified with Egypt itself, thus lay under the natural guardianship of the encircling hills which expanded to receive it, divided in two by the river which was a wall to both. The chains of hills on either side were themselves fenced in on East and West by the great sand-deserts, unapproachable by an army. The long valley of the Nile was the only access for an enemy. It apparently took the victorious army of Asshurbanipal “a month and ten days” to march from Memphis to Thebes.

“At Thebes itself there are still remains of walls and fortifications—strong, skillfully constructed, and in good preservation—as there are also in other Egyptian towns above and below it. The crescent-shaped ridge of hills approaches so close to the river at each end as to admit troops defiling past, but not spreading out or maneuvering. At each of these ends is a small old fort of the purely Egyptian, i.e., the pre-Hellenic period. Both above and below, there are several similar crescent sweeps in the same chain of hills, and at each angle, a similar fort.”

All successive monarchs, during more centuries than have passed since our Lord came, successively beautified it. Everything is gigantic, bearing witness to the enormous mass of human strength which its victorious kings had gathered from all nations to toil for its and their glorification. Wonderful is it now in its decay, desolation, and death: one great idol-temple of its gods and an apotheosis of its kings, as sons of its gods. “What spires are to a modern city, what the towers of a cathedral are to the nave and choir, that the statues of the Pharaohs were to the streets and temples of Thebes.

The ground is strewn with their fragments; their avenues towered high above plain and houses. Three of gigantic size still remain. One was the granite statue of Rameses himself, who sat on the right side of the entrance to his palace. The only part of the temple or palace at all in proportion to him must have been the gateway, which rose in pyramidal towers, now broken down and rolling in a wild ruin down to the plain.”

It was that self-deifying against which Ezekiel is commanded to prophesy: “Speak and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his rivers, which has said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself” (Ezekiel 29:3).

“Everywhere the same colossal proportions are preserved. Everywhere the king is conquering, ruling, worshiping, worshiped. The palace is the temple. The king is priest. He and his horses are ten times the size of the rest of the army. Alike in battle and in worship, he is of the same stature as the gods themselves.

Most striking is the familiar gentleness with which, one on each side, they take him by each hand as one of their own order, and then, in the next compartment, introduce him to Ammon and the lion-headed goddess. Every distinction, except of degree, between divinity and royalty is entirely leveled.”

Gigantic dimensions picture to the eye the ideal greatness, which is the key to the architecture of No. “Two other statues alone remain of an avenue of eighteen similar or nearly similar statues, some of whose remnants lie in the field behind them, which led to the palace of Amenophis III—every one of the statues being Amenophis himself, thus giving in multiplication what Rameses gained in solitary elevation.” “Their statues were all of one piece.” Science still cannot explain how a mass of nearly 890 tons of granite was excavated at Syene, transported and set up at Thebes, or how it was destroyed.

Nozrani, In Egypt and Syria, p. 278: “The temper of the tools, which cut adamantine stone as sharply and closely as an ordinary scoop cuts an ordinary cheese, is still a mystery.” Everything is in proportion. The two sitting colossi, whose “breadth across the shoulders is eighteen feet, their height forty-seven feet, fifty-three above the plain, or, with the half-buried pedestal, sixty feet, were once connected by an avenue of sphinxes of eleven hundred feet with what is now ‘Kom-el-Hettan,’ or ‘the mound of sandstone,’ which marks the site of another palace and temple of Amenophis III.

To judge from the little that remains, it must have held a conspicuous rank among the finest monuments of Thebes. All that now exists of the interior are the bases of its columns, some broken statues, and Syenite sphinxes of the king, with several lion-headed figures of black granite.”

The four villages where the chief remaining temples are—Karnak, Luxor, Medinet-Abou, Kournah—form a great quadrilateral, each of whose sides is about one and a half miles, and the whole compass accordingly six miles. The avenue of six hundred sphinxes, which joined the temple of Luxor with Karnak, must have been one and a half miles long; one of its obelisks is a remarkable ornament of Paris.

Mostly, massiveness is the characteristic, since strength and might were their ideal. Yet the massive columns still preserved, as in the temple of Rameses II, are even of piercing beauty. And for the temple of Karnak! Its enclosure, which was some two miles in circumference, bears the names of Monarchs removed from one another, according to the Chronology, by over two thousand years. “A stupendous colonnade, of which one pillar only remains erect, once extended across its great court, connecting the west gate of entrance with that at its extremity.

The towers of the Eastern gate are mere heaps of stones, poured down into the court on one side and the great hall on the other; giant columns have been swept away like reeds before the mighty avalanche, and one hardly misses them. And in that hall, 170 feet by 329 feet, 134 columns of colossal proportions supported its roof: twelve of them, 62 feet high and about 35 in circumference, and on each side a forest of 66 columns, 42 feet 5 inches in height. Beyond the center avenue are seen obelisks, gateways, and masses of masonry; every portion of these gigantic ruins is covered with sculpture most admirably executed, and every column has been richly painted.”

Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, p. xli: “Imagine a long vista of courts and doorways and colonnades and halls; here and there an obelisk shooting up out of the ruins and interrupting the opening view of the forest of columns. This mass of ruins—some rolled down in avalanches of stone, others perfect and painted as when they were first built—is approached on every side by avenues of gateways. East and West, North and South, these vast approaches are found. Some are shattered, but in every approach, some remain; and in some can be traced, besides, the further avenues, still in parts remaining by hundreds together—avenues of ram-headed sphinxes.

Every Egyptian temple has, or ought to have, one of those grand gateways, formed of two sloping towers, with the high perpendicular front between.” Then, over and above, is “their multiplied concentration. Close before almost every gateway in this vast array were the colossal figures, usually in granite, of the great Rameses, sometimes in white and red marble, of Amenophis and of Thothmes. Close by them were pairs of towering obelisks, which can generally be traced by pedestals on either side. You have only to set up again the fallen obelisks which lie at your feet, to conceive the columns as they are still seen in parts overspreading the whole, to reproduce all the statues like those which still remain in their august niches, to gaze on the painted walls and pillars of the immense hall, which even now can never be seen without a thrill of awe, and you have ancient Thebes before you.”

And most of these paintings were records of their past might. “There remained on the massive buildings Egyptian letters, recording their former wealthiness. One of the elder priests, asked to interpret his native language, related that formerly 700,000 of military age lived there. With that army, King Rhamses gained possession of Libya, Ethiopia, the Medes and Persians, the Bactrian and Scythian regions, and held in his empire the countries which the Syrians, Armenians, and neighboring Cappadocians inhabit, as well as Bithynia and Lycia to the sea. There were also read the tributes imposed on the natives: the weight of silver and gold, the number of arms and horses, the gifts to the temples (ivory and frankincense), and what supplies of corn and utensils each nation should pay—not less magnificent than are now enjoined by Parthian violence or by Roman power.”

That was situated among the rivers - Literally, “the dweller, she that dwells.” Perhaps the prophet wished to express the security and ease in which she dwelt “among the rivers.” They encircled and folded around her, as it were, so that she was a little world in herself, secluded from all who would approach to hurt her.

The prophet’s word, “rivers,” is especially used of the branches or canals of the Nile, which is also called the “sea.” The Nile passed through No, and doubtless its canals encircled it. Egypt is said by a pagan to be “walled by the Nile as an everlasting wall,” “Whose rampart was (rampart is) the sea.” Wall and rampart are, properly, the outer and inner wall of a city—the wall and forewall, so to speak. For all walls and all defenses, her enfolding walls of sea would suffice.

Strong she was in herself; strong also in her helpers.