Nahum 3:2

This threat is explained in Nah 3:2., by a description of the manner in which a hostile army enters Nineveh and fills the city with corpses. Nah 3:2. "The cracking of whips, and noise of the rattling of wheels, and the horse in galloping, and chariots flying high. Nah 3:3. Riders dashing along, and flame of the sword, and flashing of the lance, and multitude of slain men and mass of dead men, and no end of corpses; they stumble over their corpses. Nah 3:4. For the multitude of the whoredoms of the harlot, the graceful one, the mistress of witchcrafts, who sells nations with her whoredoms, and families with her witchcrafts." Nahum sees in spirit the hostile army bursting upon Nineveh. He hears the noise, i.e., the cracking of the whips of the charioteers, and the rattling (ra‛ash) of the chariot-wheels, sees horses and chariots driving along (dâhar, to hunt, cf. Jdg 5:22; riqqēd, to jump, applied to the springing up of the chariots as they drive quickly along over a rugged road), dashing riders (ma‛ăleh, lit., to cause to ascend, sc. the horse, i.e., to make it prance, by driving the spur into its side to accelerate its speed), flaming swords, and flashing lances. As these words are well adapted to depict the attack, so are those which follow to describe the consequence or effect of the attack. Slain men, fallen men in abundance, and so many corpses, that one cannot help stumbling or falling over them. כּבד, the heavy multitude. The chethib יכשׁלו is to be read יכּשׁלוּ (niphal), in the sense of stumbling, as in Nah 2:6. The keri וכשׁלוּ is unsuitable, as the sentence does not express any progress, but simply exhibits the infinite number of the corpses (Hitzig). גויּתם, their (the slain men's) corpses. This happens to the city of sins because of the multitude of its w…

This chapter goes on with the burden of Nineveh, and concludes it. I. The sins of that great city are charged upon it, murder (Nah 3:1), whoredom and witchcraft (Nah 3:4), and a general extent of wickedness (Nah 3:19). II. Judgments are here threatened against it, blood for blood (Nah 3:2, Nah 3:3), and shame for shameful sins (Nah 3:5-7). III. Instances are given of the like desolations brought upon other places for the like sins (Nah 3:8-11). IV. The overthrow of all those things which they depended upon, and put confidence in, is foretold (Nah 3:12-19).

3:2-3 These short, staccato phrases dramatize the effects of seeing and hearing the battle. • Assyrian chariots and charioteers were feared far and wide.