The Book of Nahum
1* The boding for Nineveh; the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
2* Jehovah is a jealous deity and takes revenge;
Jehovah takes revenge and is fierce in temper;
Jehovah takes revenge on his foes
and bears his enemies in mind.
3 Jehovah is patient and powerful,
and Jehovah does not acquit an offender.
His walk is in gale and tempest,
and clouds are the dust of his feet;
4** He speaks sternly to the sea and dries it out,
and dries off all the rivers;
Bashan wilts, and Carmel,
and the young leafage of Lebanon stands forlorn.
5* The mountains quake at him,
and the hills surge,
And the earth is in commotion before him,
the world and all who inhabit it.
6* Before his hostility who may stand,
and who stand up amid the heat of his anger?
His choler is like a stream of fire,
and the rocks break down before him.
Jehovah knows those who take refuge in him,
8* and carries them through cloudbursts.
He makes a finish of those who stand up against him,
and chases his enemies into darkness.
10* for even briers matted in a tangle, and soaked as they can be, will be eaten up like stubble fully dry. 11 Out of you came one who planned mischief against Jehovah, who proposed a vicious policy.
12* Says Jehovah, If waters gush out and rage withal, so do they subside and pass off; I did grind you down, I will not again. 13 And now I will break his yoke-bow off from you and snap your tether.
14* And Jehovah will give a commission against you: there shall not again be any of your name engendered; out of the house of your gods I will eradicate carving and casting; I will make your grave a dunghill.
15* There on the mountains are the feet of a messenger of good news, a herald of peace: celebrate your feasts, Judah, pay your vows, for never again shall the reprobates pass through you, they are done with, they are extinct.
2** A hammer has come in your face: mount guard, keep a lookout on roads, brace waists, rally strength to the utmost.
2** For Jehovah has brought back Jacob’s pride like Israel’s, because riflers had rifled them and had wrecked their branches.
3* His champions’ shields are reddened, stalwart men in scarlet; steel was softened in fire on the day of his making ready, and cypresses were made to reel. 4** In the open the chariots are running wild, they are hurtling through the suburbs; their look is like torches, they shoot along like lightning-flashes. 5*** He remembers his heroes; they stumble in their going; they hurry to the wall and the barricade is got ready. 6 The river gates are opened and the palace collapses, 7** and madame is made to stand exposed, with her slave-girls droning like pigeons’ notes, drumming on their chests. 8* And Nineveh is like a reservoir of water with its water running out; “stop, stop,” but no one turns his face. 9 Plunder silver, plunder gold, and there is no end of the supply, fortunes in every kind of choice article. 10* Clearing out, cleaning out, clawing out, and hearts melting down and knees giving way and cramps in all backs, and all their faces are contorted. 11* Where is the lions’ lair, that was feeding-place for the two-year-olds, where walked lion, lioness, lion’s cub with no one to alarm it? 12 the lion tore up as much as his cubs wanted and broke necks for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey and his lairs with carcasses. 13*** Have at you, quoth Jehovah of Armies! I will smoke out your thicket, and swords shall eat up your two-year-olds, and I will rid earth of your kills, and the sound of your roar shall not be heard again.
3 Ha, bloody city, all trickery, full of prey, never without a kill!
2 Hark, a sound of whips, a sound of wheels jarring, and galloping ponies and jumping chariot! 3* rearing horse and flame of sword and lightning of spear and multitudes of dying and masses of corpses; there is no end of the bodies, they stumble on the bodies, 4* for the multitudinous debaucheries of the handsome prostitute, mistress of witchcraft, who blotted out nations with her debaucheries and clans with her witchcraft. 5 Have at you, quoth Jehovah! I will turn your skirts up over your face and let nations see your nakedness and clans your ignominy, 6 and I will throw carrion over you and make you an object of disdain and a spectacle. 7* And everyone that sees you shall make off, and say “Nineveh is smitten! who is to lament her? where shall I look for comforters for you?”
8* Are you to be better than Amon’s Thebes, seated on the branching Nile with water around her, whose wall was a bulwark of sea, consisted of sea; 9 whose forces the Nubians were, and the Egyptians, no end of them; whose auxiliaries were Put and the Libyans? 10 She too went to slavery in exile; she too had children’s brains dashed out at every street-end, and over her aristocrats they threw lots and all her great men were chained in fetters. 11 You too shall overdrink and be stupefied; you too shall hunt for a refuge from an enemy.
12 All your fortresses are trees with rareripe figs, if they are shaken they drop into an eater’s mouth; 13 you find your people women in you; the gates of your country are thrown open to your enemies, fire has consumed your bars. 14 Draw yourself water for a siege; strengthen your fortresses; get into the mud and trample clay, handle a brick-mold; 15* there fire will consume you, swords will make an end of you, they will eat you up like marching grasshoppers. 16* Come on in masses like marching grasshoppers, come on in masses like flying grasshoppers; you have drawn more traders than there are stars in the sky—the hoppers cast their skins and take wing. 17 Your policemen are like grasshoppers and your clerks like young grasshoppers that camp in the hedges on a cold day; the sun is up and off they go, and there is no knowing what place they were in. 18* Your shepherds are drowsy, king of Assyria, your heroes are asleep; your people are scattered over the mountains with no one to draw them together. 19* There is no healing for your broken bones; your wound is gangrened; all who hear about you will clap their hands over you—for over whom has not your vileness taken its course continually?
MARGINAL NOTES TO NAHUM
Most of the first chapter is a poem whose lines begin with the different letters of the Hebrew alphabet in their proper order. The poem is not complete; it goes as far as verse 8 or 10 and covers the first half of the alphabet. It begins either in verse 2 or in verse 3; if it begins in verse 2, part of verses 2 and 3 is out of place. The words which in Hebrew begin with the successive letters of the alphabet are those which here begin with a heavier letter. [Not actually shown by translator in his copy.]
1:2 See verse 9
1:4-5 Or spoke . . . dried . . . dried . . . wilted . . . stood . . . quaked . . . surged . . . was
1:4 Codd. Bashan stands forlorn (not giving the right letter of the alphabet)
1:5 Var. Mountains (without The)
1:6 Lit. is poured like fire
1:7 Codd. distress, and knows (not giving the right letter of the alphabet)
1:8 Codd. him; with a cloudburst sweeping through he makes Conj. in cloudbursts sweeping through he saves them
1:9 (last six words) Var. he will not take revenge twice for the same thing
1:9-10 Conj. (putting part of verse 2 here)
He will not take revenge twice on his foes,
for he will do thorough work;
what do you plan against Jehovah?
2 Jehovah takes revenge and is fierce in temper;
Jehovah takes revenge on his foes
and bears his enemies in mind;
10 they are all mowed briars, they will be eaten up like stubble fully dry
1:10-11 Conj. dry stubble. Was it not out of you that one came out who
1:12 Codd. If safe and sound and thus many, thus they are sheared off and he will pass; and I will grind you down, I will not again
1:14 Codd. I will render your grave because you are paltry
1:15 Var. through you, they are totally extinct.
2:1 (mount guard) Or watch a rampart Or throw up an entrenchment
2:1 (keep a lookout on roads) Or plank a road
2:2 Lit. emptiers had emptied them
2:2 The word means branches of a grapevine
2:3 Unc.; susp.; var. and horses were made to curvet (unc.)
2:4 Or In the streets
2:4 Or through the squares
2:5 (first words) Susp.
2:5 Or in their gangways
2:5 (barricade) Unc.
2:7 Codd. and Hussab is exposed, is carried up, with
2:7 Conj. madame is brought out and exposed with her slavegirls leading her, droning like pigeons’ notes
2:8 Codd. like a reservoir of water from the days it is, and they are running away
2:10 (contorted) Unc.
2:11 Conj. that was a cave for
[2:13 (Have at) that is, go at or deal with hostilely]
2:13 Or burn out your thicket with smoke Codd. burn her chariots with smoke Conj. smoke out your couching-place
2:13 (roar) Codd. messengers (misspelled)
3:3 Codd. on their bodies
3:4 Codd. who sold nations
3:7 Or who will condole with her
3:8 Conj. Nile, around her a bulwark of sea, water her wall, her forces the Nubians and the Egyptians too, no end of them, her auxiliaries Put and
3:15-16 Susp.
3:16 Or make their raid and take wing
3:18 Conj. to omit king of Assyria
3:19 Or your wound is a paralyzing one