Nahum 3:18

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. THY SHEPHERDS - i:e., thy leaders. SLUMBER - are carelessly secure (Maurer). Rather, 'lie in death's sleep, having been slain' (Jerome). (Ezek. 15:16; .) THY NOBLES SHALL DWELL IN THE DUST - (, "Let him (the enemy) lay mine honour in the dust;" ). THY PEOPLE IS SCATTERED - the necessary consequence of their leaders being laid low ()....

He confirms the preceding verse, and says that there would be no counsel nor wisdom in the leading men: for the_shepherds _of the king of Assyria were his counselors, in whose wisdom he trusted, as we know that kings usually depend on their counselors: for they think that there is in them prudence enough, and therefore they commit to them the care of the whole people. But the Prophet ridicules the confidence of the king of Assyria, because the shepherds would not have so much vigilance as to take care of themselves, and of the people, and of the whole kingdom. He speaks in the past tense, either to show the certainty of the prediction, or because the change of tenses is common in Hebrew. _Lie still, _he says,_shall thy mighty men; _(250) that is, they shall remain idle; they shall not be able to sally out against their enemies, to stop their progress. _They shall _then _lie still: _and t...

8-19 Strong-holds, even the strongest, are no defence against the judgments of God. They shall be unable to do any thing for themselves. The Chaldeans and Medes would devour the land like canker-worms. The Assyrians also would be eaten up by their own numerous hired troops, which seem to be meant by the word rendered "merchants." Those that have done evil to their neighbours, will find it come home to them. Nineveh, and many other cities, states, and empires, have been ruined, and should be a warning to us. Are we better, except as there are some true Christians amongst us, who are a greater security, and a stronger defence, than all the advantages of situation or strength? When the Lord shows himself against a people, every thing they trust in must fail, or prove a disadvantage; but he continues good to Israel. He is a strong-hold for every believer in time of trouble, that cannot be st...

Verse Nahum 3:18. _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 succour. _Diodorus Siculus_ says, lib. ii., when the enemy shut up the king in the city, many nations revolted, each going over to the besiegers, for the sake of their liberty; that the king despatched messengers to all his subjects, requiring power from them to succour him; and that he thought himself able to endure the siege, and remained in expectation of armies which were to be raised throughout his empire, relying on the _oracle_ that _the city would_ not be taken _till the river became its enemy_. Nahum 2:6....

THY SHEPHERDS - that is, they who should counsel for the people’s good and feed it, and “keep watch over their flocks by night,” but are now like their master, the “King of Assyria,” are his shepherds not the shepherds of the people whom they care not for; these slumber, at once through listlessness and excess, and now have fallen asleep in death, as the Psalmist says, “They have slept their sleep” Psalms 76:6. The prophet speaks of the future, as already past in effect, as it was in the will of God. All “the shepherds of the people” , all who could shepherd them, or hold them to together, themselves sleep “the sleep of death;” their mighty men dwelt in that abiding-place, where they shall not move or rise, the grave; and so as Micaiah, in the vision predictive of Ahab’s death, “saw all Israel scattered on the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd”...

EXPOSITION NAHUM 3:1 Part III. THE CAUSE OF THE JUDGMENT—SINS OF THE CITY, WHICH BRING INEVITABLE PUNISHMENT. NAHUM 3:1 § 1. _The prophet specifies the crimes which have brought this ruin upon Nineveh._ NAHUM 3:1 THE BLOODY CITY; literally, _city of bloods_, where Mood is shed without scruple (comp. Ez

THY SHEPHERDS SLUMBER, O KING OF ASSYRIA,.... Who this king of Assyria was is not easy to say; some think Esarhaddon, who is the last of the kings of Assyria the Scriptures speak of; according to Diodorus Siculus n, Sardanapalus was the last of these kings, and in him the Assyrian monarchy ended; though, according to Alexander Polyhistor o, Saracus, perhaps the Chyniladanus of Ptolemy, was king when Nineveh was destroyed: it is very likely that Sardanapalus and Saracus design the same person, though set at a great distance by historians; since the same things are said of the one as of the other; particularly that, when they saw their danger, they burnt themselves and theirs in the royal palace at Nineveh; nor is it probable that the same city with the empire should be destroyed and subverted twice by the same people, the Medes and Babylonians, uniting together; and it is remarkable that...

Nahum 3:1. _Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;_ Assyria became a great empire through violence, falsehood, and robbery. The soldiery had no respect for justice; they trod out the last spark of liberty, and crushed all nations under their feet. Nahum 3:2. _The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing 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 carcasses; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:_ When the Medo-Babylonian army came against the great city, it inflicted a terrible slaughter, killing the inhabitants without mercy, making a very h

CHAPTER 3 Nineveh's Guilt and Well-Deserved Judgment _ 1. The great wickedness of Nineveh (Nahum 3:1) _ 2. Her fate to be like the fate of No-Amon (Nahum 3:8) 3. Her well-deserved and complete judgment (Nahum 3:14) Nahum 3:1. Nineveh was a bloody city, for her kings never knew peace, but were constantly at war. The Hebrew Ir-Damim means “city of blood drops.” They boasted of making the blood of their enemies run like rivers. It was a city full of lies and rapine. Her word could not be trusted; she broke truces and covenants and deceived nations with lying promises of help and protection. As stated in the second chapter

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.