For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Nahum 3:1-7

1 Woe to the city of blood,
    full of lies,
full of plunder,
    never without victims!
2 The crack of whips,
    the clatter of wheels,
galloping horses
    and jolting chariots!
3 Charging cavalry,
    flashing swords
    and glittering spears!
Many casualties,
    piles of dead,
bodies without number,
    people stumbling over the corpses –
4 all because of the wanton lust of a prostitute,
    alluring, the mistress of sorceries,
who enslaved nations by her prostitution
    and peoples by her witchcraft.

5 ‘I am against you,’ declares the Lord Almighty.
    ‘I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness
    and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will pelt you with filth,
    I will treat you with contempt
    and make you a spectacle.
7 All who see you will flee from you and say,
    ‘‘Nineveh is in ruins – who will mourn for her?”
    Where can I find anyone to comfort you?’

A. Find Out:

1. How is Nineveh first described again? v.1
2. List the description of the battle. v.2,3
3. What had Nineveh been involved in? v.4
4. So what does the Lord say He will do? v.5,6
5. What will be the outcome? v.7

B. Think:

1. Again how would you sum up Nineveh’s recent history?
2. What misdemeanours in God’s eyes have also now been identified?
3. How would you sum up what is going to happen to them?

C. Comment:

These verses can perhaps be considered as covering two things: what Nineveh has done and what will happen to her.

First what Nineveh has done.  Verse 1 encapsulates her violent past.  Because it was the capital city, it was responsible for the shedding of blood across the nations.  It unrighteously justified its actions (lies), was full of the plunder taken from the nations, and always had a new victim nation in its sights.  What a picture of unfeeling abuse of power!

But in verse 4 it is described in the prophetic language of condemnation for spiritual failure.  They are part of the human race and should know better (see Rom 1:18 -20), and they became a spiritual prostitute using sorcery and witchcraft to get guidance and obtain power, and what was even worse, they took it to other nations as well!

Second, there is what was going to happen to them.  This is described in two ways. First the very graphic word pictures of verses 2 and 3 describing the invading army’s destruction.  But then there is the awful general description of the Lord’s activity, what He is going to do with them in all this.  They had appeared strong, dressed in the finery of power and sorcery.  The Lord is going to strip all this away and show them naked to the world and when the world sees them stripped they will deride and abandon Nineveh to a memory in history.   The end of Nineveh is clearly decreed again and there is no one to help!

D. Application:

1. Sorcery in any form is an abomination to the Lord.  Avoid it!
2. Abuse of power in any form is an abomination to the Lord.  Avoid it!

Passage: Nahum 3:8-13

8 Are you better than Thebes,
    situated on the Nile,
    with water around her?
The river was her defence,
    the waters her wall.
9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength;
    Put and Libya were among her allies.
10 Yet she was taken captive
    and went into exile.
Her infants were dashed to pieces
    at every street corner.
Lots were cast for her nobles,
    and all her great men were put in chains.
11 You too will become drunk;
    you will go into hiding
    and seek refuge from the enemy.

12 All your fortresses are like fig-trees
    with their first ripe fruit;
when they are shaken,
    the figs fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Look at your troops –
    they are all weaklings.
The gates of your land
    are wide open to your enemies;
    fire has consumed the bars of your gates.

A. Find Out:

1. Who does the prophet now consider for comparison? v.8a
2. On what had she relied? v.8b,9
3. Yet what had happened? v.10
4. So what will yet happen to Nineveh ? v.11
5. What are their defences like? v.12
6. What does he say is the reality about their troops? v.13

B. Think:

1. What point is the prophet making in verses 8 to 10?
2. What point is he making in verse 12?
3. What point is he making in verse 13?

C. Comment:

Nineveh was standing strong and feeling secure and so Nahum’s words might easily be rejected.  So, he says, you think you are any better than the mighty city of Thebes in Egypt (otherwise known as No Amon).  They had water as their defence, they had alliances with other nations and felt secure; look at what happed to them!  Thebes had fallen in 664/663.  The same thing is going to happen to you.  You are going to get into a fearful state where you will go into hiding from the enemy.  Nineveh was under siege from invaders for three months before she fell – with all her great people hiding behind the defences – but that hasn’t happened yet.

You feel strong, he implies.  Well I tell you that all your fortresses or strong defensive towers are just like ripe fruit on a tree waiting to be shaken off.  That’s the thing about ripe fruit it hardly takes anything to shake it down, and that’s what the defences of Nineveh are like to the Lord!  As for your troops – these troops who have plundered mercilessly for decades – when this happens, they’ll be like women and all their strength will evaporate.  I tell you, he continues, you are wide open to the enemy because the power of heaven has removed the strength of your gates.  You think you look strong, but the truth is quite different, because if God has said that is how it is, then that IS how it is!

D. Application:

1. Appearances can be deceiving. Don’t feel secure because of looks.
2. Our security is in the Lord alone.

Passage: Nahum 3:14-19

14 Draw water for the siege,
    strengthen your defences!
Work the clay,
    tread the mortar,
    repair the brickwork!
15 There the fire will consume you;
    the sword will cut you down –
    and it will devour you like a swarm of locusts.
Multiply like grasshoppers,
    multiply like locusts!
16 You have increased the number of your merchants
    till they are more numerous than the stars in the sky,
but like locusts they strip the land
    and then fly away.
17 Your guards are like locusts,
    your officials like swarms of locusts
    that settle in the walls on a cold day –
but when the sun appears they fly away,
    and no one knows where.

18 King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber;
    your nobles lie down to rest.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
    with no one to gather them.
19 Nothing can heal you;
    your wound is fatal.
All who hear the news about you
    clap their hands at your fall,
for who has not felt
    your endless cruelty?

A. Find Out:

1. What does the prophet call Nineveh to do? v.14
2. Yet why does he say that will be a waste of time? v.15
3. How had they been like locusts? v.16,17
4. What was the state of the leaders? v.18
5. What was their ultimate state? v.19a
6. What was the feeling of the on-looking world? v.19b,c

B. Think:

1. What do you think is the point of verse 14?
2. What is the literary transition from verse 15 to 16?
3. What is the end picture of Nineveh?

C. Comment:

In this last passage of our study in Nahum there is a clever literary transition; the prophet’s imagery flows on like a changing river.  In verses 11-13 he had warned about the inevitability of their fall, but in verse 14 he challenges them to get ready for the coming siege.  It’s as if he says, I know you’ll struggle to the end so go for it.  But verse 15 cuts right back across that so it’s as if he is saying, but don’t worry it will all be in vain for fire and sword WILL destroy you whatever you do!  

In alluding to their destruction he uses the picture of grasshoppers coming and eating everything.  At the end of verse 15 his cry is for the grasshoppers to multiply, even worse, multiply like locusts, and we assume that he refers to he coming invaders.  But then in verses 16 and 17 he talks about how the Assyrians themselves had been like locusts, stripping the lands they had invaded; merchants and soldiers alike from Assyria had done the same thing.

Then comes the final picture-painting of the state of Assyria and of Nineveh.  Their leaders are in a state of complacency, relaxed, careless in their strong victorious state, but in no state to rule the people against an invader, and so the people are scattered. An alternative understanding of this could be that verse 18 describes the death of all the leaders – prophecy is often ambiguous.  The end is decreed (v.19) and when the surrounding nations see it, they will rejoice because the day of the harsh invader is ended!  This is God’s decree!

D. Application:

1. The lesson is the same: human might is transitory and deceptive.
2. The lesson is the same: God cannot be withstood.