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CHAP. III.

WOE to the city of † blood!

She is all full of falsehood and of violence:

The prey departeth not.

A sound of the whip is there, and a sound of the
rattling wheels;

And of the prancing horses, and of the bounding
chariots, and of the horsemen mounting.
The flame of the sword is also there, and the light-
ening of the spear;

And a multitude of slain, and a heap of dead bodies;
And there is no end to the carcases; they stumble
upon their carcases.

Because of the many whoredoms of the harlot, Who is wellfavoured, and mistress of enchantments,

+ Hebr. bloods.

Hebr. multitude of the whoredoms.

1. -violence] The Vargi among the ancient Gauls were a kind of soldiers so called from the word p rapina, used here and Obad 14. Boch. Geogr. 668.

"Woe to the bloody city, she is all deceit;

"Full of devastation &c." Dr. Wheeler.

See ó Ar. Syr.

"She is all lies, and full of. Secker."

2. prancing] One sense of the word in Arab. is swift. -bounding] Subsultatque alte similisque est currus inani. Ovid of Phaeton.

--and of the horseman] V. ó. and also Ar. Syr. in the original, have the copulative.

3.

lightening] See Hab. iii. 11. Homer has

-their carcases] The carcases slain by them. These three verses are a description of Nineveh, as it was in the time of the prophet.

4. enchantments] By which she fascinates others to worship her gods.

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Who trafficketh in nations by her whoredoms, and
in tribes by her enchantments;
Behold I am against thee, saith Jehovah God of
hosts;

And I will uncover thy skirts before thy face;
And I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and
the kingdoms, thy shame.

And I will cast upon thee § abominable filth; And I will dishonour thee, and will make thee as dung.

And it shall come to pass that every one who seeth thee shall flee from thee;

And shall say, Nineveh is laid waste.

Who will bemoan thee?

Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

Art thou better than No-Ammon, that is situated among the rivers?

Waters are round about her:

The sea is her || rampart; waters are her wall. § Or. ordure.

Hebr. whose rampart is

-trafficketh in] Hebr. selleth. Hath them at her disposal: as the Israelites, whom probably she first seduced to adopt some of her idolatrous rites.

5. before thy face] Te ipsa vivente et vidente. See the phrase Lev. x. 3. and the note on Hos. ii. 3.

6. as dung] The word, for a gazing stock, occurs only here. The Jews understand it of dung, and explain ingluvies by locus sordium. See J. Buxt. lex. manuale. Perhaps the true reading occurs Isai. xxxvi. 12. П, or ', or see the various lections: which word, however read, in In Arab.

.צאת or צואת Keri is explained by the softer term

signifies deponere alvum.

8. -No-Ammon] A city in Egypt. See Ezek. xxx. 14, 15. Jer. xlvi. 25. Bochart thinks it Diospolis near Mendes, which appears from Strabo to have been situated near lakes. See Geogr. sacr. l. i. c. i. p. 6. Herodotus says that the Egyptians called Jupiter by the name of Ammon. L. ii. c. 42.

-rivers] Channels of water from the Nile may have passed through this city.

The sea] Lakes are thus called by the Hebrews. Josh. iii. 16. xii: 3.

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* Ethiopia is her strength, and Egypt; and there

is no end to it:

Put and Libya † are her help:

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Yet shall she be
captivity:

carried away: she goeth into

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Yet her little ones shall be dashed in pieces.
At the top of all the streets.

And for her honourable men they cast lots;
And all her mighty men are bound with chains.
Thou also shalt become an hireling; thou shalt
hide thyself;

Thou shalt seek a refuge from the enemy.
All thy strong holds
first ripe figs:

shall be like fig-trees with the

12

Hebr. Chus. + in her help.

Yet she for a carrying away.

§ head.

-wall] Bochart, ubi supr. quotes Isocrates as saying that Egypt was fortified by the everlasting wall of the Nile; and Heliodorus, as observing that robbers used the river as a wall. "And waters are her wall." Sy. 6.

9. Chus] See on Amos ix. 7. and Ez. xxix. 10. Put], and spargi, are the same by a common change of letters. The African Nomades are meant. Boch. ubi supr. p. 296.

-Libya] Or Lubim. See on Hos. xiii 5.

-her help] 6. Syr. Houbigant. See on Hos. xiii. 9. 10. shall be dashed] The original word may have the force of the present tense, are dashed: and Nahum may refer to a past taking of No by Sennacharib, as Prideaux supposes; see Isai. xx. 4; or, as I rather think, he may predict the taking of it by Nebuchadnezzar. Jer. xlvi. 25. Ezek. xxx. 14. See Prid. Ann.

-lots] Prædæ ducere sortes. Virg. Æn. ix. and Andromache calls her happy,

Quæ sortitus non pertulit ullos Ib. iii. 323.

11. shalt become an hireling] Shalt hire thyself out. Pretio emêris, vel mercede conducta eris. Houbigant. See 1 Sam. ii. 5. Thou shalt be reduced to a state of slavery; after having in vain endeavoured to escape.

12. like fig-trees] See Rev. vi. 13, which is very sublime." And here the image, though a common one, is very lively and expressive. See Præl. Hebr. xii. p. 138.

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13.

If they be shaken, they fall into the mouth of the

eater.

Behold, thy people are as women in the midst of

thee:

The gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies:

The fire devoureth thy bars.

Draw thee water for the siege; fortify thy strong holds:

Go into the clay, and tread the morter; repair the brick-kiln.

There shall the fire devour thee:

The sword shall cut thee off, it shall devour thee as the locust.

Increase thyself as the locust, increase thyself as the numerous-locust:

Multiply thy merchants more than the stars of

heaven:

Yet the locust hath spoiled, and hath flown away. Thy crowned princes are as the numerous-locust, and thy captains as the grasshoppers;

women] Αχαΐδες εκ επ 'Αχαιοι,

neque enim Phryges. Virg.

Hom. Vere Phrygiæ,

14. for the siege] Or, for the fortress, or citadel. And even with respect to the city, though its wall bordered on the river, it might not be safe to water there within reach of the enemy's missile weapons, and engines.

-the clay] An allusion to the bricks of clay, used for building in those countries. In Xenophon we have, and πλίνθινον τείχος. Αναβασις. p. 236, 7. ed. Hutch. 4to.

15. There] Where thou fortifiest thyself.

-as the locust] In a manner equally unsparing. Increase thyself] Six or seven MSS. add the to and two MSS. omit. And then the clause would stand: "Increase thyself as the locust, as the numerous-locust." The idea is beautifully continued from the preceding clause.

16. Multiply thy merchants] I conjecture 77. Yet shalt thou fall a prey to an enemy as devouring as the locust.

17. -as the grasshoppers] A word which, though not accurate, we are obliged to use for variety. The Hebrews have

G g

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Which encamp in the fences in the cold day;
But, when the sun ariseth, they depart, and their
place is not known where they are.

Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria;
thy nobles dwell in sloth:

Thy people are spread on the mountains, and

none assembleth them.

There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous:

many names for the locust. ó. Ar. Syr. read only one word for grasshopper. I consider the present reading in the text as an instance, either of a double reading inserted where the scribe had a doubt which was the true reading, or of a mistaken repetition not expunged. We may suppose the contracted plural for

גובים.

-cold day] Or, in the day of cold. On such days, in the sense of x, they lie inactive in the inclosures of fertile spots: but on the shining of the sun, which dries their wings and enables them to fly, they disappear. Locustæ sol accidit, et abiit. Alcamus. Boch. Hieroz. p. ii. L. iv. ii. 458.

-where they are] We have in this verse a plural and a singular participle, and a singular and a plural pronoun: and 211, a noun of multitude, may cause this difference.

18. shepherds] Rulers, as the parallelism shews. -dwell in sloth] Quiescunt. Schultens. Anim. Phil. 513. Capellus conjectures decumbunt: and Secker dormiunt.

The tributary princes deserted Nineveh in the day of her distress; and did not collect an army to succour her. See Herod, p. 52. l. 13, 14. Ed. Wess. for the conduct of the Assyrian allies in the first siege. And Diod. Sic. L. ii. p. 140. §. 26. ed. Wess. who, speaking of the siege in which Nineveh fell, says, that, 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 dispatched messengers to all his subjects, requiring forces from them to assist him: and that he thought himself able to endure the siege, and remained in expectation of the armies which were to be raised throughout his empire; relying on an oracle, that the city could not be taken till the river became its enemy.

נפוצו read

-are spread] See Hab. i. 8. Or, we may 19. healing] So 6. and n in Chald. is repressit. But Syr. and Chald. read N.

"None grieveth because of thy bruise."