Nahum 3:1

The city of blood will have the shame, which it has inflicted upon the nations, repaid to it by a terrible massacre. The prophet announces this with the woe which opens the last section of this threatening prophecy. Nah 3:1. "Woe to the city of blood! She all full of deceit and murder; the prey departs not." ‛Ir dâmı̄m, city of drops of blood, i.e., of blood shed, or of murders. This predicate is explained in the following clauses: she all full of lying and murder. Cachash and pereq are asyndeton, and accusatives dependent upon מלאה. Cachash, lying and deceit: this is correctly explained by Abarbanel and Strauss as referring to the fact that "she deceived the nations with vain promises of help and protection." Pereq, tearing in pieces for murder, - a figure taken from the lion, which tears its prey in pieces (Psa 7:3). לא ימישׁ, the prey does not depart, never fails. Mūsh: in the hiphil here, used intransitively, "to depart," as in Exo 13:22; Psa 55:12, and not in a transitive sense, "to cause to depart," to let go; for if ‛ı̄r (the city) were the subject, we should have tâmı̄sh.

Here is, I. Nineveh arraigned and indicted. It is a high charge that is here drawn up against that great city, and neither her numbers nor her grandeur shall secure her from prosecution. 1. It is a city of blood, in which a great deal of innocent blood is shed by unrighteous war, or under colour and pretence of public justice, or by suffering barbarous murders to go unpunished; for this the righteous God will make inquisition. 2. It is all full of lies; truth is banished from among them; there is no such thing as honesty; one knows not whom to believe nor whom to trust. 3. It is all full of robbery and rapine; no man cares what mischief he does, nor to whom he does it: The prey departs not, that is, they never know when they have got enough by spoil and oppression. They shed blood, and told lies, in pursuit of the prey, that they might enrich themselves. 4. There is a multitude of whoredoms in it, that is, idolatries, spiritual whoredoms, by which she defiled herself, and to which she seduced the neighbouring nations, as a well-favoured harlot, and sold and ruined nations through her whoredoms. 5. She is a mistress of witchcrafts, and by them she sells families, Nah 3:4. That which Nineveh aimed at was a universal monarchy, to be the metropolis of the world, and to have all her neighbours under her feet; to compass this, she used not only arms, but arts, compelling some, deluding others, into subjection to her, and wheedling them as a harlot by her charms to lay their necks under her yoke, suggesting to them that it would be for their advantage. She courted them to join with her in her idolatrous rites, to tie them the faster to her interests, and made use of her wealth, power, and greatness, to draw people into alliances with her, by which she gained advantages over th…

3:1 city of murder: The Assyrians’ graphic cruelty is well documented. Their practices included cutting off external body parts—such as noses, ears, hands, and feet—and execution by impalement on stakes. They heaped up severed heads before the gates of besieged cities. The eyes of victims might also be put out and their skin stripped from their bodies while they were still alive.