The final chapter pronounces woe on “the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder,” and describes the horror of her fall, heaps of corpses, charging cavalry, flashing swords. The reason for judgment is named: Nineveh’s endless cruelty and her “harlotries” and “sorceries” by which she seduced and enslaved the nations. Nahum reminds her of Thebes (No-amon) in Egypt, a mighty city that also fell despite its defenses, and warns that Nineveh will fare no better: her fortresses are like ripe figs that fall at a shake, her troops like women, her merchants and officials scattered like locusts that vanish in the sun. The book ends with a fitting epitaph for a tyrant: “There is no easing your hurt... All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?”
Nahum study chapter
Nahum 3
c. 640 BCWoe on the bloody city for its violence and seductions, and the certainty of its fall, like Thebes before it.
My notes
Saved to your account, so they are on every device you sign in on, and private unless you specifically share them with another.
A different version of this note was saved in this browser before notes moved to accounts. Your account’s copy is above and was left alone; copy anything worth keeping out of this one, then let it go.
Notes are kept with your account rather than in this browser, so what you write here is still there on your phone, on another machine, and after you clear your history. Signing in takes an email address and one click, there is no password to remember.
Saved in this browser before notes moved to accounts. Sign in and it will be carried up to your account; it stays here until then.