Nahum 3:11-19

Even so Nineveh shall be made drunk with the cup of God's wrath, and faint and staggering shall seek refuge from the enemy. Her outer fortresses shall fall like first-ripe figs (Isaiah 28:4 *) into the mouth of the destroyer, the gateways that barred the approach to the capital shall fly open at the touch of fire, her defenders shall prove weak as women, and despite all efforts to repair the breaches the whole city shall sink beneath the flames. Her people may be numerous as the locust-swarms that encamp on the garden walls in the day of cold; but they shall vanish as completely as these same swarms when the sun shines out. And while the people are scattered over the mountains, the king and nobles shall sleep their last sleep, amid manifestations of triumphant joy from all who hear the tale of doom.

Nahum 3:11. be hid: rather faint away (with change of one letter).

Nahum 3:13. the gates of thy land: the mountain-passes where (like the Greeks at Thermopylæ) they might have made a heroic stand against the invading foe.

Nahum 3:14. go into: rather (reading bosi for bo-' i) tread, trample the clay (for bricks). lay hold of the briekmould (mg.): viz. to shape the bricks for their places in the wall.

Nahum 3:16 f. The text is both corrupt and filled out with glosses identifying the locust-swarms with the merchant-princes, nobles (?), and scribes (or marshals) of Nineveh; but the general sense is somewhat as above. On the camping and flight of locusts cf. Thomson, The Land and the Book, pp. 418f.

Nahum 3:18. Read, Ah! how do thy shepherds (leaders) slumber, thy nobles sleep (the sleep of death)! The omitted phrase, the king of Assyria, is an explanatory gloss to thy shepherds.