Charles Ellicott Commentary Nahum 2

Keep the munition. —Better, guard the fortress. These four sententious directions to Nineveh are, of course, ironic, like Elijah’s instructions to the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18:27. He that dasheth in pieces may perhaps be identified with Cyaxares.

Better, For Jehovah restores the glory of Jacob, so that it is as the glory of [ancient] Israel, though the plunderers plundered them and marred their vine shoots. The sacred nation is Jehovah’s vine, destined to send out its tendrils all over the earth. But Jehovah has allowed its hedge to be broken down. “All they that go by do pluck her ...” (Psalms 80:12–13).

In the punishment of one notoriously oppressive world-power the prophet sees a pledge that the branch of Jehovah shall be again “beautiful and glorious” (Isaiah 4:2). The construction in the first part of the verse is perplexing. It appears best to attach a special emphasis to the names “Jacob” and “Israel” in connection with their original meaning. “Jacob” is the birth-name—the nation regarded apart from its religious privileges, the homeless exile, the downtrodden “worm” (Isaiah 41:14), the younger son among nations.

But “Israel” is the chosen of God; he who “had power over the angel and prevailed”; the “beloved son, called out of Egypt.” The name given by Jehovah is from now on to have its full meaning, as in the days of old. “Jacob,” the name so often used after the deportation of the ten tribes, is again to be identified as “Israel,” the favored people of God. Some commentators render, “For Jehovah restores alike the glory of Jacob and the glory of Israel,” etc., making “Jacob” the designation of the southern, “Israel” that of the northern kingdom. But the term “Jacob” nowhere else has this distinctive force.

His mighty men. —That is, those of the besieger of Nahum 2:1.

Made red. —That is, with blood; not with reference to the bright red copper, which was the material of the shield, for the word usually means “dyed red.”

In scarlet. —Red was the favourite colour, not only of the Medes, from whom Xenophon says the Persians obtained their purple tunics, but also of the Babylonians; compare the description in Ezekiel 23:14-15, and Layard’s Nineveh, p. 347. Both Medes and Babylonians were engaged in the present siege. The rest of the verse runs, the chariots are [equipped] with flashing steel in the day of his preparation, and the cypress lances are brandished.

The “flashing steel” may refer to ornaments of this material attached to the chariot, or, as we incline to think, to scythes or sharp instruments fastened to the wheels. Some form of this weapon may well have been in use long before the present date. Xenophon relates that Cyrus was the first to introduce the scythe-chariot. Ctesias, however, speaks of it as of much earlier origin. The older Hebrew commentators render this word p ’ lâdôth, “torches,” as in the Authorised Version. With this rendering, the swiftly-moving war-chariots are likened to flashing torches, as they are in the next verse.

Nahum 2:4–5 describe the state of the city while sustaining this siege. There is a slight contrast between this portraiture and that of Nahum 2:3, which has been made the most of by Kleinert. “Without, God arranges His hosts; within is the disorder of wild terror: without, a steady approach against the city; within, a frantic rushing here and there: without, a joyful splendour; within, a deadly paleness, like torch-light.” The last part of Nahum 2:4 is thus made a description of the aspect of the Ninevites, not their chariots.

This appears to us a fanciful interpretation. In support of this, the description of a panic in Isaiah 13:8 has been cited: They shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. But it is obviously better to restrict the reference throughout to the chariots of the besieged city, darting back and forth in wild undisciplined attempts to resist the invader’s onset.

And the defence shall be prepared. —Better, but [there] the storming-shed has been prepared. Here, the surprise and disorder of Nineveh are more plainly portrayed. The Assyrian king thinks of his strongest warriors, but they stumble in their paths in nervous perplexity. Men ran to the city wall, but against it the besiegers had already erected their storming-shed—a procedure that should have been prevented by the discharge of stones and other missiles from the walls. The storming-shed protected the battering-rams.

Concerning the representations of these preserved in the monuments of Nineveh, Professor Rawlinson writes as follows: “All of them were covered with a framework, which was of osier wood, felt, or skins, for the better protection of those who worked the implement.... Some appear to have been stationary, others provided with wheels.... Again, sometimes combined with the ram and its framework was a movable tower containing soldiers, who simultaneously fought the enemy on a level and protected the engine from their attacks (Ancient Monarchies, i. 470).”

The gates of the rivers. This verse is one of great importance. The account of Ctesias, preserved by Diodorus Siculus, states that for over two years the immense thickness of the walls of Nineveh baffled the besiegers' engineering skill. He further recounts that “in the third year, due to continual great storms, the Euphrates (sic), being swollen, inundated part of the city and overthrew the wall for a length of twenty stadia.” The king saw in this the fulfillment of an oracle, which had declared that the city should fall when “the river became an enemy to the city.” Determined not to fall into the hands of his enemies, he shut himself up with all his treasures in the royal citadel, which he then set on fire.

We believe that this account, though inaccurate in detail, may be regarded as based on a foundation of historical fact. So gigantic were the fortifications of Nineveh that, concerning those on the east where the city was most vulnerable to attack, Mr. Layard writes: “The remains still existing ... almost confirm the statements of Diodorus Siculus that the walls were a hundred feet high, and that three chariots could drive upon them abreast” (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 660). Against ramparts such as these, the most elaborate testudo of ancient times may well have been comparatively powerless. On the other hand, the force of a swollen river has often proved suddenly fatal to the strongest modern masonry.

It would be especially destructive where, as in the case of Nineveh, the inundated walls were of sun-dried brick or “clay-bat.” Thus, the fate of the city may well have been precipitated in accordance with the terse prediction of this verse.

The “gates of the rivers” (i.e., the dams that protected the Khausser, which ran through Nineveh, and the Tigris, which was outside it) are forced open by the swelling torrents, and then, suddenly, the city’s fate is sealed! Ramparts against which the battering-ram might have plied in vain are sapped at their very foundations; palace walls are undermined and literally “dissolve.” The besieger quickly takes advantage of the disaster, and (in the single word of Nahum 2:7) it-is-decided.

It is unnecessary to identify the specific “palace” that thus succumbs. Nor is it a reasonable objection that the palaces of Khorsabad and Kouyunjik, lying near the Khausser, bear the marks of fire, not water. If Nahum must have had a particular palace in mind, it can be fairly argued that water is not as evident an agent as its sister element, fire; indeed, nothing would conceal the damage from the inundation as effectively as the subsequent fires set by the victorious besieger.

Therefore, we understand the verb nâmôg, “dissolved,” in its literal sense of a solid substance dissolving through water action, not figuratively, as Dr. Pusey suggests, referring to the “dissolution of the empire itself.”