Nahum 3

Notes

Ver. 1, 4, 10. Woe to Nineveh, whose inhabitants have murdered, deceived, and spoiled the nations around; and by their infernal and artful devices have subjected them to their government, and drawn them into their idolatries. 2, 3, 5-7. The Medes and Chaldeans, many of whom fight on horses and in chariots, shall rout your armies, enter your cities, and fill your streets with multitudes of corpses; and I will render you utterly miserable and disgraced in the view of all around, without any to pity your case. 8-10. Learn from the fate of No in Egypt what you may certainly expect: though famed for the number of its inhabitants, naturally impregnable, and supported by the huge armies of almost all the north-east parts of Africa, nevertheless you Assyrians sacked it, murdering the infants, carrying captive the rest, and dividing the great men for slaves. 11-15. Ye shall be stupified with overwhelming miseries, rendered quite incapable of helping yourselves, buried in contempt and ruin, and obliged to beg assistance against the Medes and Chaldeans. Your strongholds shall, almost at the first onset, fall into the hands of the enemy; your armies and people shall be dispirited, and desert their stations, leaving all the passages quite open; and all the toilsome reparations of your walls shall be to no purpose; even in your strongholds ye shall be burned by the fire or slain by the sword. 15-19. The prodigious numbers of your troops and of hired soldiers shall but devour your wealth and then shift for themselves. Your tributary kings and mercenary commanders will promise you help, but quickly desert you whenever danger appears. Your generals and noble warriors shall be infatuated, dispirited, or murdered, and your armies and people scattered among the nations, without any one to protect or relieve them; nor shall your capital or empire be ever restored; and all the nations whom you have oppressed shall rejoice to hear of your destruction.

Reflections.—Enormous wickedness ordinarily attends great confluences of men. And curses, shame, contempt, and destruction are the certain and final issue. Little reason then have men to be proud of what can be so quickly taken from them, or rendered their plague. But if our companions in guilt or grandeur have been ruined, it is time for us to take warning and repent. And if God be against us, who can be for us? Useless are all means of preservation in the day of his wrath. Unstable are the most exalted stations on earth. And they who have rendered others miserable will certainly be themselves reduced to misery at last.

Concluding Remarks on the Book of Nahum.

The prophecies concerning Nineveh furnish a striking historical evidence of the divine origin of the Holy Scriptures. It was certainly one of the greatest and strongest cities in the world—it was the capital of a well-organized government—the commercial emporium of the world. The Euphrates and Tigris gave access to the ocean; and the city lay in the most direct track for the caravans of the East. Yet, as the prophet foretold, it is 'empty, and void, and waste.' Lucian, who lived in the second century after Christ, affirms that 'Nineveh was utterly perished; that there was no trace of it remaining; nor could any one tell where once it was situated.'

Opposite to Mosul, which is situated on the western bank of the Tigris! there are no doubt extensive ruins; but this is most probably the site of the Persian and not of the Assyrian Nineveh. What an invitation to the attentive study of prophecy in the light of history! What a conviction to infidels! What an example to commercial and ambitious nations! What a warning to indolent and luxurious rulers! Above all, what a message to the churches of Europe, to beware of the 'witchcrafts' of false doctrine, of worldliness, and of 'covetousness, which is idolatry;' lest the Lord remove their candlestick, and leave them as the seven churches in Asia, 'empty, void, and waste!' C.