Nahum 3:14 - Exposition

Nahum ironically bids the Ninevites prepare for the siege they were about to sustain. Draw thee waters for the siege. The drinking water necessary for a long siege is meant. This injunction is not particularly applicable to Nineveh, which from its situation was abundantly supplied with water, unless there was danger that the enemy would divert the courses of the rivers. But the warning would come home with peculiar force to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, among whom Nahum prophesied ( 2 Kings 20:20 ; Isaiah 22:11 ; Isaiah 30:20 ). Fortify thy strong holds ; strengthen thy fortresses. Repair all defects in thy defences ( 2 Chronicles 11:11 ). The mode of doing this in the Assyrian fashion is then denoted. Go into clay, and tread the mortar. The soil round Nineveh was of a tenacious quality; and when moistened with water and kneaded either with feet or hands, with the addition usually of a little chopped straw, was easily formed into bricks. These, even without the aid of fire, became dry and hard in the course of a few days. But it is plain from the investigations of ruins that the Assyrians used both kiln-baked and sun-dried bricks, though the mass of the walls was usually composed of the latter, the more durable material being employed merely as an accessory. Xenophon, 'Anab.,' 3.4. 11, speaks of the brick wall ( πλίνθινον τεῖχος ) of a town he calls Mespila. Make strong the brick kiln. There is an uncertainty about the meaning of the last word ( malben ) , which occurs only in two other places ( 2 Samuel 12:31 and Jeremiah 43:9 ). In the latter passage it may possibly mean "a square" or "open quadrangle." Jerome has, tene laterem ; the LXX ; κατακράτησον ὑπερ πλίνθον "make them strong above (equivalent to 'stronger than') brick," connecting it with the following verse. Some translate it, "brick mould." If the Anglican Version is correct, the prophet bids them repair their kilns, unused in the days of prosperity, when they had no need to look to the security of their walls. Virtually the same sense is elicited by rendering, "lay hold of the brick mould."