Charles Spurgeon Commentary Nahum 3
Charles Spurgeon Commentary
Nahum 3
Charles Spurgeon Commentary
Nahum 3
"Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and rapine; the prey departeth not." — Nahum 3:1 (ASV)
Assyria became a great empire through violence, falsehood, and robbery. The soldiery had no respect for justice; they stamped out the last spark of liberty, and crushed all nations under their feet.
"The noise of the whip, and the noise of the rattling of wheels, and prancing horses, and bounding chariots, the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, and the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies; they stumble upon their bodies;-" — Nahum 3:2-3 (ASV)
When the Medo-Babylonian army came against the great city, it inflicted a terrible slaughter, killing the inhabitants without mercy, making a veritable scene of utter carnage of human bodies. But, since it was a den of criminals, this horrible execution was well deserved. Yet the story is dreadful.
"because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts, and I will uncover thy skirts upon thy face; and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame." — Nahum 3:4-5 (ASV)
Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts;
These people had been steeped in sin of the worst kind; they had led other nations into it; and had practiced the witchcrafts which God abhors. Therefore again Jehovah says, I am against you.
When God is in arms against a triumphant nation, he soon makes an end of it.
"Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts, and I will uncover thy skirts upon thy face; and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock." — Nahum 3:5-6 (ASV)
And I will uncover your skirts upon your face, and I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon you, and make you vile, and will set you as a gazingstock.
See what God can do. They were the proudest of the proud, and now he makes them the scorn of the scorner, and sets them as a spectacle. May God never deal in that way with any proud person here! He can easily do it; when we set ourselves up to be little gods, he can soon make us utterly mean and contemptible, and bring us down to nothing at all. It is his way to deal in this way with the proud.
"And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?" — Nahum 3:7 (ASV)
If you could go today, and see the vast heaps of Kouyunjik, and of the great monuments of that mighty city all destroyed and crumbling into powder, you would know something of what God can do. It does not look likely to you that London can ever become a heap of ruins; and yet it may be, for its sins reek up to heaven as the sins of Nineveh did. The Lord can smite this city as he smote that.
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