Literal Commentary on Nahum

The revelation of the prophet Nahum, in a literal manner. The revelation of the prophet Nahum, in a literal manner, is entitled "The Burden of Nahum" concerning the destruction of the kingdom of the Assyrians at the hands of their enemies, the Babylonians. It is about the face of the fall of the Israelites and their arrogance against God and the Temple. Chapter 1. The first vision of the Lord: He calls it "the burden" that is upon her. For it was a prefiguration of the vision that the Lord was about to receive. In the book, that is, in the vision of the spirit, Nahum saw and was commanded to write in a book the burden and to deliver it to the people. "A jealous God": He calls Him "jealous" because of the zeal, for because of the evils that the Assyrians committed against His people, He is moved in wrath and seeks from them everything that they did. "The Lord of the whirlwind": He calls the whirlwind and the dust-storm that He sent against the camp of the Babylonians, by which, as by a whirlwind, the Assyrians were taken, and as by a dust-storm, He scattered and cast down all their pride. The dust-storm is that which, in the midst of the whirlwind, like a pillar and a covering of wind, rises upward in the form of a column. "The path of the Lord": He calls it His literal action. "He dries up the sea": that is, the Assyrians, and makes it dry. And "the lights" and "the powers" are those of the Assyrians that were destroyed. "He gives a sign": He gives a demonstration from the evils that He had previously wrought upon the people through the Assyrians. And "the reward of the heart": the entire remnant of the Israelites who were saved from the Assyrians, and this means that all those who at that time were saved from the Assyrians in the land of the kingdom were not saved by your power. But it was God who, through your hands, chastised His people before His wrath. "He is appeased": that is, the Israelites, for there is no one who can stand against divine wrath.

And as a fire in its wrath commands kings, rulers, and chiefs who are like mountains, the Lord passed over into the land of the Assyrian and pursued all of them by means of the Babylonians, and cast them into afflictions as if into darkness. Again, after he had pursued the enemies, he passed over into his own land, Jerusalem. How are the Jews to consider the Lord, who has decreed to finish you off with a single blow? That twice you have come near to your destruction by this first blow that finishes your kingdom. And they ate and were emboldened because they had consumed the good things of the peoples; the evil one, the divine wrath, consumed them like a plague and a curse. The wicked one went out and the evil path, the blasphemies that the messengers of the Assyrians blasphemed in the time of Hezekiah. Upon the heads of the waters, the Lord decreed concerning the Assyrians, who are the heads of all peoples, that many waters would call to the peoples. And the beginning of the word to the Assyrians, that by means of waters the peoples were all subdued. They gathered and passed over; the Assyrians were stirred up with the Babylonians and passed over with their land into captivity. And your cry in the time of Jonah, again I will not repeat. And he destroyed the engraved images. Bury her quickly, for they destroyed their fathers and were hidden with them as in graves. Or he said to them that they would be destroyed with the Babylonians, the houses of their gods. Behold, upon the mountains are his feet, when the Assyrians fell, many ran to the mountain of Zion, which promised them their own peace and the destruction of their enemies. Judah did left and right, and completed all that had been prepared beforehand for the Lord to do, because the Assyrians would no longer add to do evil in you.

He went up from the desert, and his power was diminished. Is it not God who is your protector and your guide at all times? He preserved you and watched over you to destroy all who came against you. He went up because of you against the Assyrians and cast wrath upon them by means of the Babylonians, and thus all their might, when it seized them, he broke all their high places and dashed them to the ground. Because he who is merciful is Jacob, he restored the honor that had been lost in captivity. Because Jacob is the name of the natural man. Israel, however, signifies grace. He who is merciful restored to him the honor that befits his name. Because they had cast off the yoke, he sent his hand against them, and all of them were destroyed together with the Assyrians, like a vineyard with wild beasts. Now, therefore, it is for your disciples that they may be destroyed together with the Babylonians. The reward of the contest is the prizes of their pride in battle. For the warriors of the Assyrians are appointed... they were advancing in the blood of the slain who were cast down among all peoples. And the men, the mighty men, were slaying and the covering of the corpses was like a purple garment set for them, without sparing even the infants. To show the pride of their tyranny. The poor, however, were opening the mouths of their children to their mothers, as if holding a mouth or a morsel, as if they were holding a purple garment; also their children were running like lightning through the instruments of their armor in their assaults. They seized their rulers; they seized their rulers, the Babylonians. And when they fled, their steps were entangled with fear and they stumbled over one another.

the gate of the Jews, that is, the gate of the valley, for all the misfortunes that befell the Assyrians were because they had opened the gates of Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. The Jew says, "The gate of the valleys is the Assyrians." "I set up cavalry," he says, meaning that he also set up their cavalry and went up to guard the city. But you went up to it and laid it waste along with its land in captivity. For that which you went up, as he says, "goes up and is laid waste." Also, "the great multitude of horses," and her handmaidens, the cities subject to her, are laid waste with her. A sign like the sea is in this, indicating her weakness, that she was cast down and tossed about like a deep sea in the multitude of laborers. They fled, and now all her laborers flee. They preceded him, walking among them, and he says, "I set up the Assyrians before the Babylonians." And it is not that he is astonished at his companion, but he looks and examines his writing in this, that all of them fled and ran away. "Where is that," he says, "which is remembered of their former dominion?" and he says, as if asking, "Where is that which was the square of the kings of Assyria, which is no more and has destroyed itself?" "The lion goes," he says, "of all," for all their kings used to go without any hindrance, plundering and taking captive, and there was none who stood and stopped them. Now, however, "where is it that they did not go as usual? The lion is broken..." and his square is empty, thus, as it were, for fear. "You have all been broken and you have been humbled," wealth in the form of spoils, and a breaking that suffices for the children who come after you. He calls his children "the children who are to be," and says that not only for himself and the children he has did he labor and store up treasure, but also for the children who have not yet been born.

and the fullness of its square is its kingdom and the wealth of plunder. And he destroyed its kingdom, and I will destroy you. And you will not escape, for I have come against the nations. 90. And woe to the city of blood, for he desired to cover his wickedness and gave her woe. For he lied, saying about them that the chief of the canals of Ashdod did to the people of Gobel, that he brought them to the land of the good, but it was not theirs, and it was not filled, and again it was not measured and broken as was its custom. And this measurement is from the custom of that one who in idleness measures something and takes it. The voice of a fool and the voice of the Babylonians. And the horseman who pursues is the one who with a light foot drives away the Babylonians from the hundred who came upon them, while swords and daggers flash and gleam. Prepared is the drawn sword, and it will overturn your thresholds, O city, by the hand of the Babylonians. You are afflicted with blows for your deeds of shame. While the overturning of the thresholds of the Cuthaeans strikes upon the face, upon the neck. Perhaps the good has come, seeking its prophet, that nothing new has happened to it. From the day of Amon, that perhaps the good came from the day of the city of the Egyptians, which is that of Amon, the idol, which has the sea on one side and on the other side the Nile, and the Aramean calls it Amon of the waters, and it is Alexandria, and after that Alexander dwelt in it and enlarged and widened it. Cush is with the Egyptians, and the Cushites were strong. Also in captivity, the Assyrians led her captive, and now they also received that which they did to others. Waters in distress, I have prepared for you waters that suffice for your canals on the day of battle, and fill the moats around your walls. Strengthen your knee.

and I will make you drink the cup of poison. This is the truth of my kingdom and my apostolic mission to the nations that have come, and they will help you against the Babylonians. The worm will consume you, the worm that is within your own cities. You will be renewed in the form of a serpent, a lion, and a wolf of the streets. Like a locust, I will lay waste to your nations; like a locust, by my destruction. The locust has sent forth and flown away, those nations with which I made a covenant and established a pact to help you; each one took to his own place, like a locust that, when it sends forth its wings, flies away. And your allies are like a grasshopper, in the manner of a grasshopper that gathers in the trees. When the rain came and the sun grew hot and the cold ceased, it took up its wings and flew away; thus, at the setting of the sun upon your head, all your allies who had been confounded by the mysteries of your error took up and departed. And your companions, the kings and the rulers of your land, arose and fell as in a moment, by the setting of the sun, and the rest of them went and settled in distant regions by captivity. The blow upon you is severe and incurable. The blow upon you is like a wound that has festered and become putrid, and there is no healing for it. The vision of Nahum the prophet is completed. Nahum prophesied after Jonah and gave a sign concerning Nineveh. One part of it is below in the waters of the flood, and the upper part in burning fire. He prophesied concerning the divine power, concerning the apostles. The ascent of the Babylonians. The destruction of the Babylonians. Of the Ninevites. Their complete captivity. Because of the wealth that they had before the captivity. The blow of Nineveh.

in the seventy-second year of his life, he took the cup of poison, the poison that was prepared and placed in his hands. The Lord of the wind, when he was at the head, and he moved the arches and the authorities, for he hid his grasp. And the star of the Babylonians. The wind and the star call out, for they will destroy the cup. Those who are the people of the prophet himself and the prophecies that precede the headship. For just as before the one who walks, the wind flies, so also before the Lord, the prophets flew and announced concerning the coming. The authority and the teachings and the kingdoms are like the sea. And to the rivers, he will destroy their authorities. The Assyrian is not felt or known. The dry land is in the seed and the burning sparks. Evil against the Lord is great, the measures and the Assyrian in his letter. Over the heads of the waters that flowed and passed, for they ascended in the days of Hezekiah. The rebellion in the days of Jonah. The city of the Assyrian. And your borders, I will cut off for the subjugation of the peoples who are yours. Behold, on the mountains, the feet of the one who hopes, Zerubbabel. Knowingly, the apostles perished among the Babylonians. Its leader is the angel of the house of Sennacherib. The gates of the Jews were opened for you to enter the exile. And the cup is like the sea, for the city that surrounded it and served the camp that surrounded Jerusalem. He calls it the sea. For the camp of the Assyrian was placed at its gate of Jerusalem. And woe to the city that resembles the cup. The pile of corpses is that of the Babylonians at the hands of the Assyrians. Jonah, who died, is Alexander. The water of the river. Your companions are the kings of Assyria. For like the sea, its rising is its warfare.

And also the sea and the wind, like a wall, surrounded him. He ascended to strike in your person. This is the vision that when a man blasphemed, the righteous were to the depths thus, and this that was not to strike in the person of his destroyers, they were doing as if the foundation were with the serpents of sorcery. The mothers called to the cities that were serving them. They were instructed. Like doves, not openly but secretly, upon the heels of their own. A broken heart and salvation. When seventy years had passed, and he turned the span, every region of the sky was changed. This that was turned and changed, the span in breaking and terror. And he began the blessings, the weakness. Upon his nobles they cast the nets, upon the boys and girls. Blood in the streets, like Job, the devourer of the firstborn of the figs. Thus Job-like were the captives to your fortresses. Like ashes they were, in the house of the rebel. The yoke in the ladder, the yoke among the peoples, as in a measure. And he trampled their corpses like dust. The voice of a madman. And the movement of wheels, the force of the Babylonians, in the movement of the wheels of their chariots, they scattered and destroyed in the city and laid waste. The end of the vision.