Nahum 3:10

Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:8-19 Strong-holds, even the strongest, are no defence against the judgments of God. They shall be unable to do any thing for themselves. The Chaldeans and Medes would devour the land like canker-worms. The Assyrians also would be eaten up by their own numerous hired troops, which seem to be meant by the word rendered merchants. Those that have done evil to their neighbours, will find it come home to them. Nineveh, and many other cities, states, and empires, have been ruined, and should be a warning to us. Are we better, except as there are some true Christians amongst us, who are a greater security, and a stronger defence, than all the advantages of situation or strength? When the Lord shows himself against a people, every thing they trust in must fail, or prove a disadvantage; but he continues good to Israel. He is a strong-hold for every believer in time of trouble, that cannot be stormed or taken; and he knoweth those that trust in Him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Yet was she - (also ) carried away, literally, "She also became an exile band," her people were carried away, with all the barbarities of pagan war. All, through whom she might recover, were destroyed or scattered abroad; "the young," the hope of another age, cruelly destroyed (see Hosea 14:1-9; Isaiah 13:16; 2 Kings 8:12); "her honorable men" enslaved (see Joel 3:3), "all her great men prisoners." God's judgments are executed step by step. Assyria herself was the author of this captivity, which Isaiah prophesied in the first years of Hezekiah when Judah was leaning upon Egypt (see Isaiah 20:1-6). It was repeated by all of the house of Sargon. Jeremiah and Ezekiel foretold fresh desolation by Nebuchadnezzar Jeremiah 46:25-26; Ezekiel 30:14-16. God foretold to His people, "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee" Isaiah 43:3; and the Persian monarchs, who fulfilled prophecy in the restoration of Judah, fulfilled it also in the conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia. Both perhaps out of human policy in part.

But Cambyses' wild hatred of Egyptian idolatry fulfilled God's word. Ptolemy Lathyrus carried on the work of Cambyses; the Romans, Ptolemy's. Cambyses burned its temples ; Lathyrus its four-or five-storied private houses ; the Roman Gallus leveled it to the ground . A little after it was said of her , "she is inhabited as so many scattered villages." A little after our Lord's Coming, Germanicus went to visit, not it, but "the vast traces of it." : "It lay overwhelmed with its hundred gates" and utterly impoverished. No was powerful as Nineveh, and less an enemy of the people of God. For though these often suffered from Egypt, yet in those times they even trusted too much to its help (see Isaiah 30). If then the judgments of God came upon No, how much more upon Nineveh! In type, Nineveh is the image of the world as oppressing God's Church; No, rather of those who live for this life, abounding in wealth, ease, power, and forgetful of God. If, then, they were punished, who took no active part against God, fought not against God's truth, yet still were sunk in the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, what shall be the end of those who openly resist God?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. Notwithstanding all her might, she was overcome.

cast lots for her honourable men—They divided them among themselves by lot, as slaves (Joe 3:3).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

She was carried away: it is probable this might be about thirty years before; for about A.M. 3207, as Calvisius, or 3277, as Archbishop Usher, Sabacon king of Ethiopia invaded Egypt, took Bocchoris, and burnt him, which was not likely to be done without slaughter of men and sacking of towns, among which time No might be ruined. Now, as Calvisius and Helvicus account, about A.M. 3238, or as Usher, 3307, Nahum appears and flourisheth. She went into captivity: this ingemination confirms the certainty of the thing, and intends to affect the Ninevites the more.

Her young children; their innocent age was no safeguard to them.

Were dashed in pieces; first barbarously murdered, and then trod under foot in the streets, as was usual with those cruel, bloody soldiers, 2 Kings 8:12 Psalm 137:9 Isaiah 13:16.

They cast lots; either to put a scorn upon them, or else to prevent any contest about them, being taken among many others together, and none could say, This is my prisoner.

Honourable men; citizens of note, or some officers or governors.

Great men; great in place, strength, valour, wisdom, and so likely to do the conqueror a displeasure, should they not be secured.

Were bound in chains of iron, or manacled, used as worst slaves.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity,.... Not by Nebuchadnezzar; though this city was afterwards taken, and its inhabitants carried captive, by that monarch, as was foretold, Jeremiah 46:25 but the prophet here does not predict an event to be accomplished, and instance in that, and argue from it, which could have no effect on Nineveh and its inhabitants, or be an example or terror to them; but refers to what had been done, a recent fact, and which they were well acquainted with. Aben Ezra says, this city No was a city of the land of Egypt, which the king of the Chaldeans took as he went to Nineveh; but when, and by whom it was taken, is nowhere said. According to Bishop Usher (s) and Dean Prideaux (t), the destruction of the city of Thebes was by Sennacherib, in his expedition against Egypt, which he harassed for three years together, from one end to the other; at which time Sevechus, the son of Sabacon, or So, the Ethiopian, was king of Egypt; and Egypt and Ethiopia were as one country, and helped each other; but could not secure this city from falling into the hands of Sennacherib, about three years before he besieged Jerusalem; and so, according to Mr. Whiston (u), it was destroyed three years before the army of Sennacherib was destroyed at Jerusalem:

her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: against the walls of the houses, or upon the stones and pavements of the streets; which cruelties were often used by conquerors upon innocent babes at the sacking of cities, Psalm 137:9,

and they cast lots for her honourable men; the soldiers did, who should have them, and sell them for slaves; which was done without any regard to their birth and breeding, Joel 3:3,

and all her great men were bound in chains; as nobles may be meant by "honourable men", by "great men" may be designed the gentry, merchants, and others; these were taken, and bound in iron chains, handcuffed, and pinioned, and so led captive into a foreign land; and Nineveh might expect the same treatment.

(s) Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3292. (t) Connexion, par. 1. B. 1. p. 22, 23. (u) Chronological Tables, cent. 8.

Geneva Study Bible

Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. children were dashed in pieces] A barbarous practice in ancient warfare; the children were taken hold of and their heads dashed against the wall or stones. The term used appears technical, 2 Kings 8:12; Isaiah 13:16; Hosea 13:16 (14:1 Heb.); cf. however the two passages, Isaiah 13:18; Hosea 10:14. The object of this savage act was to exterminate the whole population with which war was waged; a similar practice was to rip up the women with child, Amos 1:13; Hosea 13:16.

cast lots for her honourable men] Lots were cast for the nobles who were taken as captives. Joel 3:3, Obadiah 1:11.

No Amon was celebrated in antiquity as Thebes of the hundred gates (2:9. 381). It possessed a famous library, and was filled with temples and other buildings of extraordinary magnificence. Its riches were fabulous; compare the statements of Assurbanipal regarding the wealth his armies carried away when they captured it (Schrader, ii. 149 ff.). The splendid ruins of Karnac and Luxor attest the former magnificence of the city.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - Yet was she carried away. In spite of her strong position and infinite resources, Thebes was captured and despoiled; and shall Nineveh fare better? Surely not. This capture of Thebes took place B.C. 664, and must have been in men's minds when Nahum wrote his prophecy. The Assyrians twice took Thebes in the days of Assurbanipal. The first time it is merely recorded that the soldiers, under the commander of the satraps, made a slaughter in the city. The second capture is thus described in the monarch's own tablet (Brugsch, 'Egypt,' 1:272-275, Eng. transl.): "Urdamaneh fled alone, and entered Thebes, the city of his kingdom... I directed my march in pursuit of him. I came to Thebes. He saw the strength of my army, and left Thebes, and fled to the city of Kipkip. Of that whole city (Thebes), with thanksgiving to Asur and Istar, my hands took the complete possession. Silver, gold, metals, stones, all the treasures of its palace whatsoever, dyed garments of before and linen, great horses [elephants?] men and women, great and small, works of zakah [basalt?] and marble, their kelal and manzas, the gates of their palace... I tare away and carried to Assyria. I made spoil of the animals of the land without number, and carried them forth in the midst out of Thebes I caused a catalogue to be made of the spoil. I returned in safety to Nineveh" (see a different version in O. Smith, 'Assurbanipal,' p. 52, etc.). Were dashed in pieces. The prophet describes the usual treatment of captured cities (comp. 2 Kings 8:12; Psalm 137:9; Isaiah 13:16). At the top of all the streets. In the most public places, where many streets converge (Lamentations 2:19). Cast lots. The victors divided the nobles among themselves by lot (see note on Obadiah 1:11). Were bound in chains. We find in the Assyrian monuments delineations of captives with their arms bound together by a rope held by a soldier, sometimes men, sometimes women and children; the women are tearing their hair in despair (see Bonomi, 'Nineveh and its Palaces,' pp. 226, 277). In a bas-relief at Khorsabad captives were led by a rope fastened to a ring in the lip (comp. 2 Kings 19:28; see Rawlinson, 'Ant. Men.,' 1:904; Layard, 'Nineveh,' fig. 60, and col. 1. p. 376). Nahum 3:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Nineveh will share the fate of No-Ammon. - Nahum 3:8. "Art thou better than No-amon, that sat by rivers, waters round about her, whose bulwark was the sea, her wall of sea? Nahum 3:9. Ethiopians and Egyptians were (her) strong men, there is no end; Phut and Libyans were for thy help. Nahum 3:10. She also has gone to transportation, into captivity; her children were also dashed in pieces at the corners of all roads; upon her nobles they cast the lot, and all her great men were bound in chains." התיטבי for התיטבי, for the sake of euphony, the imperfect kal of יטב, to be good, used to denote prosperity in Genesis 12:13 and Genesis 40:14, is applied here to the prosperous condition of the city, which was rendered strong both by its situation and its resources. נא אמון, i.e., probably "dwelling (נא contracted from נוא, cf. נאות) of Amon," the sacred name of the celebrated city of Thebes in Upper Egypt, called in Egyptian P-amen, i.e., house of the god Amun, who had a celebrated temple there (Herod. i. 182, ii. 42; see Brugsch, Geogr. Inschr. i. p. 177). The Greeks called it Διὸς πόλις, generally with the predicate ἡ μεγάλη (Diod. Sic. i. 45), or from the profane name of the city, which was Apet according to Brugsch (possibly a throne, seat, or bank), and with the feminine article prefixed, Tapet, or Tape, or Tepe, Θήβη, generally used in the plural Θῆβαι. This strong royal city, which was described even by Homer (Il. ix. 383) as ἑκατόμπυλος, and in which the Pharaohs of the 18th to the 20th dynasties, from Amosis to the last Rameses, resided, and created those works of architecture which were admired by Greeks and Romans, and the remains of which still fill the visitor with astonishment, was situated on both banks of the river Nile, which was 1500 feet in breadth at that point, and was built upon a broad plain formed by the falling back of the Libyan and Arabian mountain wall, over which there are now scattered nine larger or smaller fellah-villages, including upon the eastern bank Karnak and Luxor, and upon the western Gurnah and Medinet Abu, with their plantations of date-palms, sugar-canes, corn, etc. היּשׁבה בּיארים, who sits there, i.e., dwells quietly and securely, on the streams of the Nile. The plural יארים refers to the Nile with its canals, which surrounded the city, as we may see from what follows: "water round about her." אשׁר־חיל, not which is a fortress of the sea (Hitzig), but whose bulwark is sea. חיל (for חילהּ) does not mean the fortified place (Hitzig), but the fortification, bulwark, applied primarily to the moats of a fortification, with the wall belonging to it; then, in the broader sense, the defence of a city in distinction from the actual wall (cf. Isaiah 26:1; Lamentations 2:8). מיּם, consisting of sea is its wall, i.e., its wall is formed of sea. Great rivers are frequently called yâm, sea, in rhetorical and poetical diction: for example, the Euphrates in Isaiah 27:1; Jeremiah 51:36; and the Nile in Isaiah 18:2; Isaiah 19:5; Job 41:23. The Nile is still called by the Beduins bahr, i.e., sea, and when it overflows it really resembles a sea.

To the natural strength of Thebes there was also added the strength of the warlike nations at her command. Cush, i.e., Ethiopians in the stricter sense, and Mitsraim, Egyptians, the two tribes descended from Ham, according to Genesis 10:6, who formed the Egyptian kingdom before the fall of Thebes, and under the 25th (Ethiopian) dynasty. עצמה, as in Isaiah 40:29; Isaiah 47:9, for עצם, strength; it is written without any suffix, which may easily be supplied from the context. The corresponding words to עצמה in the parallel clause are ואין קצה (with Vav cop.): Egyptians, as for them there is no number; equivalent to an innumerable multitude. To these there were to be added the auxiliary tribes: Put, i.e., the Libyans in the broader sense, who had spread themselves out over the northern part of Africa as far as Mauritania (see at Genesis 10:6); and Lubim equals Lehâbhı̄m, the Libyans in the narrower sense, probably the Libyaegyptii of the ancients (see at Genesis 10:13). בּעזרתך (cf. Psalm 35:2) Nahum addresses No-amon itself, to give greater life to the description. Notwithstanding all this might, No-amon had to wander into captivity. Laggōlâh and basshebhı̄ are not tautological. Laggōlâh, for emigration, is strengthened by basshebhı̄ into captivity. The perfect הלכה is obviously not to be taken prophetically. The very antithesis of גּם־היא הלכה and גּם־אתּ תּשׁכּרי (Nahum 3:11) shows to itself that הלכה refers to the past, as תּשׁכּרי does to the future; yea, the facts themselves require that Nahum should be understood as pointing to the fate which the powerful city of Thebes had already experienced. For it must be an event that has already occurred, and not something still in the future, which he holds up before Nineveh as a mirror of the fate that is awaiting it. The clauses which follow depict the cruelties that were generally associated with the taking of an enemy's cities. For עלליה וגו roF .se, see Hosea 14:1; Isaiah 13:16, and 2 Kings 8:12; and for ידּוּ גורל, Joel 3:3 and Obadiah 1:11. Nikhbaddı̄m, nobiles; cf. Isaiah 23:8-9. Gedōlı̄m, magnates; cf. Jonah 3:7. It must be borne in mind, however, that the words only refer to cruelties connected with the conquest and carrying away of the inhabitants, and not to the destruction of No-amon.

We have no express historical account of this occurrence; but there is hardly any doubt that, after the conquest of Ashdod, Sargon the king of Assyria organized an expedition against Egypt and Ethiopia, conquered No-amon, the residence of the Pharaohs at that time, and, as Isaiah prophesied (Isaiah 20:3-4), carried the prisoners of Egypt and Ethiopia into exile. According to the Assyrian researches and their most recent results (vid., Spiegel's Nineveh and Assyria in Herzog's Cyclopaedia), the king Sargon mentioned in Isaiah 20:1 is not the same person as Shalmaneser, as I assumed in my commentary on 2 Kings 17:3, but his successor, and the predecessor of Sennacherib, who ascended the throne during the siege of Samaria, and conquered that city in the first year of his reign, leading 27,280 persons into captivity, and appointing a vicegerent over the country of the ten tribes. In Assyrian Sargon is called Sar Kin, i.e., essentially a king. He was the builder of the palace at Khorsabad, which is so rich in monuments; and, according to the inscriptions, he carried on wars in Susiana, Babylon, the borders of Egypt, Melitene, Southern Armenia, Kurdistan, and Media; and in all his expeditions he resorted to the removal of the people in great numbers, as one means of securing the lasting subjugation of the lands (see Spiegel, l.c. p. 224). In the great inscription in the palace-halls of Khorsabad, Sargon boasts immediately after the conquest of Samaria of a victorious conflict with Pharaoh Sebech at Raphia, in consequence of which the latter became tributary, and also of the dethroning of the rebellious king of Ashdod; and still further, that after another king of Ashdod, who had been chosen by the people, had fled to Egypt, he besieged Ashdod with all his army, and took it. Then follows a difficult and mutilated passage, in which Rawlinson (Five Great Monarchies, ii. 416) and Oppert (Les Sargonides, pp. 22, 26, 27) find an account of the complete subjugation of Sebech (see Delitzsch on Isaiah, at Isaiah 20:5-6). There is apparently a confirmation of this in the monuments recording the deeds of Esarhaddon's successor, whose name is read Assur-bani-pal, according to which that king carried on tedious wars in Egypt against Tirhaka, who had conquered Memphis, Thebes, and sundry other Egyptian cities during the illness of Esarhaddon, and according to his own account, succeeded at length in completely overcoming him, and returned home with rich booty, having first of all taken hostages for future good behaviour (see Spiegel, p. 225). If these inscriptions have been read correctly, it follows from them that from the reign of Sargon the Assyrians made attempts to subjugate Egypt, and were partially successful, though they could not maintain their conquests. The struggle between Assyria and Egypt for supremacy in Hither Asia may also be inferred from the brief notices in the Old Testament (2 Kings 17:4) concerning the help which the Israelitish king Hosea expected from So the king of Egypt, and also concerning the advance of Tirhaka against Sennacherib.

(Note: From the modern researches concerning ancient Egypt, not the smallest light can be obtained as to any of these things. "The Egyptologists (as J. Bumller observes, p. 245) have hitherto failed to fill up the gaps in the history of Egypt, and have been still less successful in restoring the chronology; for hitherto we have not met with a single well-established date, which we have obtained from a monumental inscription; nor have the monuments enabled us to assign to a single Pharaoh, from the 1st to the 21st, his proper place in the years or centuries of the historical chronology.")