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Selected Verse: Nahum 3:11 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Na 3:11 |
King James |
Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
drunken--made to drink of the cup of Jehovah's wrath (Isa 51:17, Isa 51:21; Jer 25:15).
hid--covered out of sight: a prediction remarkably verified in the state in which the ruins of Nineveh have been found [G. V. SMITH]. But as "hid" precedes "seek strength," &c., it rather refers to Nineveh's state when attacked by her foe: "Thou who now so vauntest thyself, shalt be compelled to seek a hiding-place from the foe" [CALVIN]; or, shalt be neglected and slighted by all [MAURER].
seek strength because of the enemy--Thou too, like Thebes (Nah 3:9), shalt have recourse to other nations for help against thy Medo-Babylonian enemy. |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
| Thou also - As thou hast done, so shall it be done unto thee. The cruelties on No, in the cycle of God's judgments, draw on the like upon Nineveh who inflicted them. "Thou also shalt be drunken" with the same cup of God's anger, entering within thee as wine doth, bereaving thee of reason and of counsel through the greatness of thy anguish, and bringing shame on thee , and a stupefaction like death. "Thou shalt be hid, a thing hidden" from the eyes of men, "as though thou hadst never been." Nahum had foretold her complete desolation: he had asked, where is she? Here he describes an abiding condition; strangely fulfilled, as perhaps never to that extent besides; her palaces, her monuments, her records of her glorious triumphs existed still in their place, but hidden out of sight, as in a tomb, under the hill-like mounds along the Tigris. "Thou also shalt seek strength, or a stronghold from the enemy," out of thyself, since thine own shall be weakness. Yet in vain, since God, is not such to thee Nah 1:7. "They shall seek, but not find." "For then shall it be too late to cry for mercy, when it is the time of justice." "He shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy" Jam 2:13. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
| The same, or rather a worse fate than No-amon suffered, is now awaiting Nineveh. Nah 3:11. "Thou also wilt be drunken, shalt be hidden; thou also wilt seek for a refuge from the enemy. Nah 3:12. All thy citadels are fig-trees with early figs; if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. Nah 3:13. Behold thy people, women in the midst of thee; the gates of thy land are thrown quite open to thine enemies; fire consumes thy bolts." גּם־אתּ corresponds to גּם־היא in Nah 3:10 : as she, so also thou. "The fate of No-amon is a prophecy of thine own" (Hitzig). תּשׁכּרי, thou wilt be drunken, viz., from the goblet of divine wrath, as at Oba 1:16. תּהי נעלמה might mean, "thou wilt be hiding thyself;" but although this might suit what follows, it does not agree with תּשׁכּרי , since an intoxicated person is not in the habit of hiding himself. Moreover, נעלם always means "hidden," occultus; so that Calvin's interpretation is the correct one: "Thou wilt vanish away as if thou hadst never been; the Hebrews frequently using the expression being hidden for being reduced to nothing." This is favoured by a comparison both with Nah 1:8 and Nah 2:12, and also with the parallel passage in Oba 1:16, "They will drink, and be as if they had not been." This is carried out still further in what follows: "Thou wilt seek refuge from the enemy," i.e., in this connection, seek it in vain, or without finding it; not, "Thou wilt surely demand salvation from the enemy by surrender" (Strauss), for מאויב does not belong to תּבקשׁי, but to מעוז (cf. Isa 25:4). All the fortifications of Nineveh are like fig-trees with early figs (עם in the sense of subordination, as in Sol 4:13), which fall into the mouth of the eater when the trees are shaken. The tertium compar. is the facility with which the castles will be taken and destroyed by the enemy assaulting them (cf. Isa 28:4). We must not extend the comparison so far, however, as to take the figs as representing cowardly warriors, as Hitzig does. Even in Nah 3:13, where the people are compared to women, the point of comparison is not the cowardliness of the warriors, but the weakness and inability to offer any successful resistance into which the nation of the Assyrians, which was at other times so warlike, would be reduced through the force of the divine judgment inflicted upon Nineveh (compare Isa 19:16; Jer 50:37; Jer 51:30). לאיביך belongs to what follows, and is placed first, and pointed with zakeph-katon for the sake of emphasis. The gates of the land are the approaches to it, the passes leading into it, which were no doubt provided with castles. Tuch (p. 35) refers to the mountains on the north, which Pliny calls impassable. The bolts of these gates are the castles, through which the approaches were closed. Jeremiah transfers to Babel what is here said of Nineveh (see Jer 51:30). |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Thou also - Thou shalt drink deep of the bitter cup of God's displeasure. Hid - Thou shalt hide thyself. O Nineveh, as well as Alexandria. Shalt seek - Shalt sue for, and intreat assistance. |
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.
15 For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.
21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:
17 Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the LORD the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out.
13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
7 The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.
30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
37 A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed.
16 In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it.
13 Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.
4 And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.
13 Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,
4 For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
16 For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.
12 The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin.
8 But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.
16 For as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the heathen drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and they shall be as though they had not been.
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.
13 Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.
12 All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.
11 Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.