Nahum 03
Nahum 3:1 Woe to the city guilty of bloodshed! She is full of lies; she is filled with plunder; she has hoarded her spoil!
Nahum gave some of the reasons for Assyria’s destruction. She was a bloody city who deceived nations. She would make a treaty with other nations and then turn on them. She filled her city with the plunder of her victims.
2 The chariot drivers will crack their whips; the chariot wheels will shake the ground; the chariot horses will gallop; the war chariots will bolt forward!
The war chariots of Babylon and Media will prepare to go to war against Assyria.
3 The charioteers will charge ahead; their swords will flash and their spears will glimmer! There will be many people slain; there will be piles of the dead, and countless casualties— so many that people will stumble over the corpses.
The Babylonians and Medians will attack Assyria in the same way in which Assyria attacked her victims. According to Assyrian historical records, the Assyrian kings were brutal to their enemies. They bragged about killing their victims in ruthless ways. For example, the kings impaled and flayed their enemies. They cut off their heads and stacked them outside of the city gates. These kings plastered their victims inside of walls so that they would starve to death.
4 “Because you have acted like a wanton prostitute— a seductive mistress who practices sorcery, who enslaves nations by her harlotry, and entices peoples by her sorcery—
Assyria was involved in the occult. She spread this spiritual prostitution to other nations. She seduced King Ahab into the occult. King Ahab asked his priests to build a pagan altar in Jerusalem similar to that of the pagan Assyrians. Basically, Assyria was a nation of satanists who spread the occult into other nations by either conquest or seduction.
5 I am against you,” declares the Lord who commands armies. “I will strip off your clothes! I will show your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms;
Jehovah is the one who commands angelic armies. He is against Assyria. Since she is seducing other nations into spiritual prostitution, Jehovah will judge her as a prostitute. He will strip off her clothes and show her nakedness to the nations. She will receive the same punishment as a Jewish prostitute who was living under the Mosaic Law.
6 I will pelt you with filth; I will treat you with contempt; I will make you a public spectacle.
After Assyria is stripped naked and shown publicly to the other nations, they will throw human excrement at her. They will treat her with contempt. Jehovah will humiliate Assyria in front of all of the Gentile nations.
7 Everyone who sees you will turn away from you in disgust; they will say, ‘Nineveh has been devastated! Who will lament for her?’ There will be no one to comfort you!”
All of the nations will see Assyria stripped naked. They will turn away from her in disgust. When Ninevah is destroyed, no one will come to her funeral and sing her a funeral song of lamentation. There will be no one to comfort Ninevah when she falls.
8 You are no more secure than Thebes— she was located on the banks of the Nile; the waters surrounded her, her rampart was the sea, the water was her wall.
Thebes was a large and powerful city of Egypt. It was the capital of upper Egypt. Thebes was larger and more powerful than Ninevah. There were four channels of the Nile River which surrounded her. She possessed an army of over 20,000 chariots. She was better protected and more fortified than Ninevah, yet she fell. The same kind of destruction will happen to Ninevah.
9 Cush and Egypt had limitless strength; Put and the Libyans were among her allies.
Thebes was in alliance with four other nations, but she still fell.
10 Yet she went into captivity as an exile; even her infants were smashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her nobility; all her dignitaries were bound with chains.
Despite all of the strong defenses of Thebes, she still fell to the Assyrians. When Assyria captured the city of Thebes, she bashed the heads of the infants on the streets of the center square. The purpose was to keep Thebes from repopulating the city and amassing a future army against them. All of the leaders of Thebes were taken to Assyria with hooks in their noses.
11 You too will act like drunkards; you will go into hiding; you too will seek refuge from the enemy.
As the Babylonians and Medes are sieging Ninevah, Ninevah will become overconfident. She will engage in a drinking festival. The rains will come, flood the Euphrates River, flood the canals, and then knock down two miles of the city wall. The Babylonian and Median armies will enter the city of Ninevah. The Assyrian soldiers will desert their posts and run away from the battle.
12 All your fortifications will be like fig trees with first-ripe fruit: If they are shaken, their figs will fall into the mouth of the eater!
The fortifications of Assyria will be like the first ripe fruit of a fig tree. It will be picked and eaten very quickly.
13 Your warriors will be like women in your midst; the gates of your land will be wide open to your enemies; fire will consume the bars of your gates.
According to ancient Greek history, the Assyrians had a bisexual king who dressed in woman’s clothing. There was a rare summer rain which caused the Euphrates River to flood. The canals inside the city flooded and caused two miles of the walls to fall. The Babylonian and Median army rushed through the breach and began killing the Ninevite soldiers. The Ninevite king went to a funeral pyre and burned himself with his concubines.
14 Draw yourselves water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Trample the mud and tread the clay! Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!
Nahum called the Assyrians to prepare for siege warfare, but it will do them no good.
15 There the fire will consume you; the sword will cut you down; it will devour you like the young locust would. Multiply yourself like the young locust; multiply yourself like the flying locust!
Just as a young locust devours a crop, so will the Assyrians be devoured by fire and sword.
16 Increase your merchants more than the stars of heaven! They are like the young locust which sheds its skin and flies away.
The merchants of Ninevah will loot their own city in massive mobs.
17 Your courtiers are like locusts, your officials are like a swarm of locusts! They encamp in the walls on a cold day, yet when the sun rises, they fly away; and no one knows where they are.
The leaders of Ninevah run away just like a swarm of locusts flies away.
18 Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria!
Your officers are slumbering! Your people are scattered like sheep on the mountains and there is no one to regather them!
The shepherds of Ninevah were the leaders. They were asleep and unprepared for this military invasion. They were not taking care of their sheep. The people of Ninevah panicked and ran to the mountains. They were scattered like sheep with no leader to regather them.
19 Your destruction is like an incurable wound; your demise is like a fatal injury! All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy, for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty!
The attack on Ninevah will cause a fatal wound. Ninevah will never recover. She will die as a nation. All of the other nations will rejoice when they hear that Ninevah has died.
In conclusion, this was the prophecy which Jonah would have enjoyed giving to Ninevah. However God was patient. He gave Ninevah 120 years to change their ways, but they refused. When an individual or nation fills God's cup of wrath, then judgment comes.