Nahum 2:3

"The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the cypress spears are brandished."

This verse, and through verse ten, is as powerful and brilliant a description of the siege and fall of a city as any ever written. No, it exceeds all others. "No other, of all the prophets, except Isaiah, can be said even to equal Nahum in boldness, ardor, and sublimity."[14] The words of this description tumble forth like hot rocks from a volcano. In one clause, the besiegers are in focus; and in the next, the besieged are seen. The doomed city is referred to as "she," "they" and "he"; substantives appear without verbs; the staccato thunder of the wrath of God could not be contained in the arbitrary rules of rhetoric and grammar. The weapons of attackers and defenders alike are mentioned indiscriminately. It is the most remarkable montage ever produced, presenting with the most dramatic impact the burned palaces, the flood, the slaughter, the fleeing inhabitants, the battering rams and engines of warfare, the horses, chariots, and spears, the fevered anxiety, the drunken walk of the nobles, the looting of treasures, and the heartbreak of defeat! There were miles of walls and buildings in Nineveh covered with friezes depicting captives from all the nations tortured and destroyed by Nineveh, the most cruel and heartless of all nations. There were the lines of captives, led by chains in their lips or ears; there were the brutal slaughter of whole populations, the slave-masters with their whips, and the burden-bearers with intolerable loads; there were the treasures of palaces and temples, and the arrogant king receiving tribute from humbled kings in the act of kissing his feet! The life of the city was built upon such things; but now it was happening to them!

The efforts of modern Biblical critics to convert large sections of the holy Bible into "poetry" is in a great many instances foolishly impious. The Jews preserved the books as they were written; and while it may be true enough that some of our critics are pretty fair poets, their changing such a passage as the one before us into poetry requires altogether too much unlawful tampering with the sacred text to enable it to be received as a valid translation, which it is not! J. M. Powis Smith cites just a few of the problems confronted in making a poem out of this chapter:

"The meter of this section is rough and irregular. (In other words, it is in no sense "poetry"... J.B.C.). Hexamaters are frequent ... tetrameters are common; while a few pentameters appear. Uniformity can be attained only by taking unwarranted liberties with the text![15]

We have stressed this because some are tempted to receive such man-made poems imposed upon the sacred text as "translations." Nevertheless, some of the poems are valuable as commentary; and herewith we present this passage (Nahum 2:3-10) as it appears in the New English Bible. Translation it is not; but as commentary it certainly conveys a strong impression in general line with what the prophet wrote:

The shield of the mighty man is red,

his soldiers are clothed in scarlet.

The chariots flash like flame

when mustered in array;

the chargers prance.

The chariots rage in the streets,

they rush to and fro through the squares;

they gleam like torches

they dart like lighting.

The officers are summoned,

they stumble as they go,

they hasten to the wall,

the mantelet is set up.

The river gates are opened,

the palace is in dismay,

its mistress is stripped, she is carried off,

her maidens lamenting,

moaning like doves,

and beating their breasts.

Nineveh is like a pool

whose waters run away.

"Halt! Halt!" they cry;

but none turns back.

Plunder the silver,

plunder the gold!

There is no end of treasure,

or wealth of every precious thing.

Desolate! Desolation and ruin!

Hearts faint, and knees tremble,

anguish is on all loins,

all faces grow pale.

We shall leave the discernment of whether or not the above is "poetry" in any sense up to the individual. To us it appears as only the best that a good typesetter could do to convert masterful prose into weak poetry. How remarkable that anyone could hail the above effort as an improvement over what Nahum wrote!

"Scarlet ... red ..." Fraser and others point out that this color identified the attackers as, "The fighting men of Media. Their shield are red, as are their cloaks. It was their favorite color."[16] While true enough, we believe there is another identification intended. Babylon which pressed the attack against Nineveh here was itself the third head of the seven-headed Scarlet Sea-Beast which the apostle John saw coming up out of the sea (Revelation 13:1ff). Thus, it was a powerful suggestion that the ruin of Assyria would not mean the end of human oppression and wickedness, but only the emergence of another great world-power that would oppose God and oppress his people.