Nahum Week 4

Nahum: Week 4

3:1 Here begins a summary of why God is judging Nineveh.
3:3 "heaps of slain" - what Assyria was famous for.
3:4 "seductive mistress" - Hosea 7:11
3:7 "who will grieve for [Assyria]?" - a rhetorical question, they are hated by all nations.
3:10 The image to the right from the palace of Ashurbanipal shows the capives being led away from No Amon (Thebes). "infants dashed to pieces" - more Assyrian terror.
3:11 "You too will be drunk" - foreshadowing the fall of Babylon. Assyria will be made to taste their own medicine. "you will seek refuge" - or "strength". I.e. they will try to bolster their courage with alcohol. It doesn't work out well.
3:12 "like ripe figs" - all the cities defenses will fall at once.
3:16 "the young locust strips the land" - Assyria's wealth had become parasitic, and stripping the rest of the Western world bare.
3:17 "when the sun rises, they fly away" - now the merchants (the upper class) escape, like rich Nazis fleeing Germany to all parts of the world. Or like Adad Guppi - the Assyrian princess who assassinates the heirs of Nebuchadnezzar. Isaiah 14:12-22
3:19 "All will applaud your downfall, for who has not experienced your endless cruelty?" The motivation of the coalition to destroy Assyria.