Nahum 3:8-19 | The Way of Scripture

Nahum 3:8-19

Why do Thebes, ripe figs, and departing locusts dismantle Nineveh’s confidence?

Berean Standard Bible

8 Are you better than Thebes, stationed by the Nile with water around her, whose rampart was the sea, whose wall was the water? 9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength; Put and Libya were her allies. 10 Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in chains. 11 You too will become drunk; you will go into hiding and seek refuge from the enemy. 12 All your fortresses are fig trees with the first ripe figs; when shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater! 13 Look at your troops— they are like your women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire consumes their bars. 14 Draw your water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Work the clay and tread the mortar; repair the brick kiln! 15 There the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down and consume you like a young locust. Make yourself many like the young locust; make yourself many like the swarming locust! 16 You have multiplied your merchants more than the stars of the sky. The young locust strips the land and flies away. 17 Your guards are like the swarming locust, and your scribes like clouds of locusts that settle on the walls on a cold day. When the sun rises, they fly away, and no one knows where. 18 O king of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your officers sleep. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them. 19 There is no healing for your injury; your wound is severe. All who hear the news of you applaud your downfall, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty?

What is the context?

Thebes supplies a warning: waters, allies, and great strength did not prevent captivity and terrible violence. Nineveh cannot claim to be beyond such a fall.

Fortresses become easily shaken ripe figs, and troops lose their expected capacity to defend. The gendered comparison belongs to the ancient war image and does not establish women’s lesser human worth.

Water, mortar, brickwork, merchants, guards, and scribes cannot finally secure the city. The locust images portray many who disappear when the conditions change.

Sleeping leaders and scattered people complete the loss of protection. The concluding applause is explained by the city’s relentless cruelty, which has reached others far and wide.

The poem ends without a healing promise for the imperial wound. It reports the oppressor’s fall rather than prescribing hatred toward a modern people.

How is this passage commonly understood?

Wesley reads the final wound through tyranny and continuing cruelty. His identification of No with Alexandria conflicts with the BSB’s Thebes and should not govern this account. The locust and fig images make the collapse vivid without providing independent evidence about every detail of the siege.

What is our position?

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