Nahum Commentaries Series: Chapter 3

Nahum Commentaries Series from 4 commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon, Adam Clarke, John Wesley & Matthew Henry

Their combined CHAPTER 3 SUMMARY:

The sins of Nineveh, and judgments pursuing them. Instances of like judgments for like sins. The overthrow of all wherein they trusted.
The sins of that great city are charged upon it, murder, whoredom and witchcraft.
Because Nineveh is a city wholly given up to the grossest superstition, and is an instructress of other nations in her abominable rites, therefore she shall come to a most ignominious end. Her final ruin shall be similar to that of No, a famous city of Egypt.

Some Verse Highlights:

The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels,

and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.

The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear:

and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases;

and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:

Nahum 3:2,3

Wesley: The horsemen - The Chaldeans and their confederates.

 

Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot,

the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms,

and families through her witchcrafts.

Nahum 3:4

Clarke: Because of the multitude of the whoredoms - Ninevites .. here they are represented under the emblem of a harlot or public prostitute, enticing all men to her, inducing the nations to become idolatrous, and, by thus perverting them, rendering them also objects of the Divine wrath.

Henry: There is a multitude of whoredoms in it, that is, idolatries, spiritual whoredoms, by which she defiled herself, and to which she seduced the neighbouring nations, as a well-favored harlot, and sold and ruined nations through her whoredoms. She is a mistress of witchcrafts, and by them she sells families. That which Nineveh aimed at was a universal monarchy, to be the metropolis of the world, and to have all her neighbors under her feet to compass this, she used not only arms, but arts, compelling some, deluding others, into subjection to her, and wheedling them as a harlot by her charms to lay their necks under her yoke, suggesting to them that it would be for their advantage. She courted them to join with her in her idolatrous rites.

Wesley: And families - This may intimate the seducing of some particular and eminent families to an hereditary service of the Assyrian idols, or to witchcrafts, in which the devil imitated God's institution, in taking a family to his service.

 

Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers,

that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea,

and her wall was from the sea?

Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite;

Put and Lubim were thy helpers.

Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity:

her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets:

and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

Nahum 3:8-10

Spurgeon: So one city is a warning to another. No in Egypt is a warning to Nineveh in Assyria, and both of these a warning to our city, and a warning to every man.

Henry: Art thou better than populous No? He takes them off from their vain confidences by quoting precedents. Now, concerning No, observe, 1. How firm her standing seemed to be. She was fortified both by nature and art, was situate among the rivers. Nile, in several branches, not only watered her fields, but guarded her wall. Her rampart was the sea, the lake of Mareotis, an Egyptian sea, like the sea of Tiberias. Her wall was from the sea it was fenced with a wall which was thought to make the place impregnable. But, 2. See how fatal her fall proved to be. Yet was she carried away, and her strength failed her even she that was so strong, so secure, yet went into captivity.

Clarke: Great men were bound in chains - These were reserved to grace the triumph of the victor.

 

Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria:

thy nobles shall dwell in the dust:

thy people is scattered upon the mountains,

and no man gathereth them.

Nahum 3:18

Clarke: Thy shepherds slumber - That is, the rulers and tributary princes, who, as Herodotus informs us, deserted Nineveh in the day of her distress, and came not forward to her succor.

Henry: The king of Assyria is told, and it is a shame he needs to be told it that his shepherds slumber they have no life or spirit to appear for the flock. Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust, and be buried in silence.