Nahum 3:15-17

15. Nothing can save the city.

There Is understood best, as commonly, in a local sense; in that very place, fortified with extraordinary care, and even while attempting to add to its strength destruction will come. Fire shall devour the city (compare Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria, 2: 292), while the inhabitants are cut down in a terrible slaughter.

Like the cankerworm Utterly and completely (see on Joel 1:4; Joel 1:7; Joel 1:11).

With Nahum 3:15 b begins a new thought, continued in Nahum 3:16; but down to the end of Nahum 3:17 the details of interpretation are more or less uncertain. LXX. omits one of the imperative clauses in 15b; if both are retained the second must be considered a repetition for the sake of emphasis. Since both exhortations are addressed to Nineveh, both imperatives should be read as feminines, though in the present text one is masculine. The exact force of the verses and the exact relation of the separate clauses to one another are uncertain, but it seems best, on the assumption that the present Hebrew text is substantially correct, to understand 15b as a new ironical exhortation to strengthen the defenses, by summoning a greater number of defenders.

Make thyself many as the cankerworm,… locusts For the names see on Joel 1:4. The soldiers are to be increased in number until they resemble a swarm of locusts. According to the present Hebrew text the prophet continues in Nahum 3:16, again in a spirit of sarcasm: There is no need for advice; thou hast already multiplied thy numbers until they are more than the stars of heaven, but the multitudes are not soldiers prepared to fight and to beat back the attack.

Merchants The very location of Nineveh made her a prominent commercial center from a very early period; this helped to increase her wealth and splendor, but merchants, unaccustomed to hardships and often reared in luxury, do not make the best soldiers.

A more satisfactory sense would be had if the perfect of Nahum 3:16 a were changed into an imperative, and if the three imperatives, “make thyself many… , make thyself many… , (Nahum 3:15 b) multiply” (Nahum 3:16 a), were taken in a concessive sense, “though thou shouldst make thyself many… , though thou shouldst make thyself many… , though thou shouldst multiply” (G.-K., 110a). To these clauses, forming the protasis, Nahum 3:16-17 would be the apodosis; even the great numbers shall vanish away.

Nahum 3:16-17 , which belong closely together, picture the sudden disappearance of the defenders of Nineveh; they point, therefore, to the sequel of the siege the time when the enemy has entered the city. Again the prophet employs the figure of the swiftly moving swarms of locusts.

Nahum 3:16 b is the introduction to Nahum 3:17, calling attention to the point which the speaker desires to emphasize, the rapidity with which the locusts move; in Nahum 3:17 the application is made.

The cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away If this is the right translation, the cankerworm represents the enemy who plunders the city and then withdraws quickly. In the sense of spoiling the verb is not uncommon; but since in Nahum 3:15; Nahum 3:17 the Ninevites are likened to locusts, it seems better to understand here also the cankerworms as representing the Ninevites. If so, another meaning of the verb must be sought. It is used quite frequently in the sense of stripping off a garment; applied to the locusts it may refer to the stripping off of the skin that confines the wings, which enable them to fly. Margin R.V., “spreadeth himself.” The transformation progresses very rapidly; hardly has the locust freed his wings when away he flies. In this connection A.B. Davidson calls attention to Tennyson’s lines:

To-day I saw the dragon-fly

Come from the wells where he did lie;

An inner impulse rent the veil

Of his old husk;

from head to tail

Come out clear plates of sapphire mail.

He dried his wings;

like gauze they grew,

Through crofts and pastures wet with dew,

A living flash of light he flew.

17. With the same swiftness the Ninevites will disappear. This interpretation of Nahum 3:17 is preferable to that which, omitting 16b entirely, co-ordinates 17 with the concessive clauses of 15b and 16a, and sees the apodosis in Nahum 3:18. Crowned [“princes”] A word of uncertain meaning, which occurs only here in the Old Testament; it is thought to be an Assyrian loan word denoting some prominent official. Wellhausen compares it with one found in Zechariah 9:6, and Deuteronomy 23:2, “bastard” or “bastard race,” that is, a man of uncertain, impure origin; but this sense is not suitable here. Captains [“marshals”] Hebrews tiphsar, found again in Jeremiah 51:27, where it denotes a high official. It also is probably an Assyrian loan word; it resembles the Assyrian dupsharru, “the tablet writer,” who occupied a prominent place during the reign of the literary Ashurbanapal. Here it cannot be used in this narrow sense, but in the more general sense of high official (compare Judges 5:14).

Locusts See on Joel 1:4.

Great grasshoppers R.V., “swarms of grasshoppers”; literally, grasshopper of grasshopper. A peculiar construction which may be due to the accidental repetition of the one word “grasshopper” or “swarm of grasshoppers” (compare Amos 7:1); the sense is “like grasshoppers.” The point of comparison is the suddenness with which they disappear.

In the cold day The cold stiffens the wings of the locusts, therefore on a cold day they settle down in a sheltered spot.

When the sun ariseth they flee away Under the warm rays of the sun they revive, and immediately they disappear, without leaving a trace behind. So the inhabitants of Nineveh will vanish without leaving behind them a trace.