NAUM. 3 CHAPTER I.-II. avenges VERSES 1-3. stubble fully dry. "Out of thee shall proceed a device against the Lord, counselling evil things hostile to him. 12 Thus with the Lord who rules over says many waters, Even thus shall they be sent away, and the report of thee shall not be heard any more. 13 And now will I break his rod from off thee, and will burst thy bonds. 14 And the Lord shall give a command concerning thee; there shall no more of thy name be scattered: I will utterly destroy the graven images out of the + Heb. house of thy god, and the ambiguous. molten images: I will make thy grave; for they are swift.* 1. THE burden of Nineve: the book of the vision of Naum the Elkesite. God is jealous, and the Lord the Lord avenges; wrath; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he cuts off his enemies. The Lord is long-suffering, and his power is great, and the Lord will not hold any guiltless: his way is in destruction and in the whirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He threatens the sea, and dries it up, and exhausts all the rivers: the land of Basan, and Carmel are brought low, and the flourishing trees of Libanus have come to nought. 5 The moun+ Gr. by him. tains quake 'at him, and the hills are shaken, and the earth recoils at his presence, even the world, and all that dwell in it. Who shall stand before his anger? and who shall withstand in the anger of his wrath? his wrath brings to nought kingdoms, and the rocks are burst asunder by him. The Lord is good to them that wait on him in the day of affliction; and he knows them that reverence him. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end: darkness shall pursue those that rise up against him and his enemies. What do ye devise against the Lord? he will make a complete end: he will not take vengeance by affliction twice at the same time. 10 For the enemy shall be laid bare even to the foundation, and shall be devoured as twisted yew, and as 9 6 15 Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that brings glad tidings, and publishes peace! O Juda, keep thy feasts, pay thy vows: * Compare Heb. for they shall no more pass through thee to thy decay. the sense of 2. It is all over with him, he has been removed, one * who has read with been delivered from afflic- T tion has come up panting into thy presence, watch the way, strengthen thy loins, be very valiant in thy strength. For the Lord has turned aside the pride of Jacob, as the pride of Israel: for they have utterly rejected them, and have destroyed their branches. 3 They have destroyed the arms of their power from among men, their mighty men sporting with fire: the reins of their chariots shall be destroyed in the membered. 6 5 + 4 5 day of his preparation, and the horse- of the rumbling of wheels, and of the men shall be thrown into confusion pursuing horse, and of the bounding 4in the ways, and the chariots shall chariot, and of the 'mount-or, rider on clash together, and shall be entangled ing rider, and of the glitter- horseback. in each other in the broad ways: their ing sword, and of the gleaming arms, and appearance is as lamps of fire, and of a multitude of slain, and of heavy fallas gleaming lightnings. And their ing: and there was no end to her nations, Or, be re- mighty men shall bethink but they shall be weak in their bodies themselves and flee by day; because of the abundance of fornicaand they shall be weak as they go; tion: she is a fair harlot, and welland they shall hasten to her walls, and favoured, skilled in sorcery, that sells + Or, watches. shall prepare their 'de- the nations by her fornication, and fences. The gates of the cities have peoples by her sorceries. Behold, I been opened, and the palaces have am against thee, says the Lord God fallen into ruin, and the foundation Almighty, and I will uncover thy has been exposed; and she has gone skirts in thy presence, and I will show up, and her maid-servants were led the nations thy shame, and the kingaway as doves moaning in their hearts. doms thy disgrace. And I will cast And as for Nineve, her waters shall abominable filth upon thee according be as a pool of water: and they fled, to thine unclean ways, and will make and staid not, and there was none to thee a public example. And it shall look back. 9 They plundered the be that every one that sees thee shall silver, they plundered the gold, and go down from thee, and shall say, there was no end of their adorning; Wretched Nineve! who shall lament they were loaded with it upon all their for her? whence shall I seek comfort pleasant vessels. 10 There is thrusting for her? 8 Prepare thee a portion, forth, and shaking, and tumult, and tune the chord, prepare a portion for heart-breaking, and loosing of knees, Ammon: she that dwells among the and pangs on all loins; and the faces rivers, water is round about her, whose of all are as the blackening of a pot. dominion is the sea, and whose walls "Where is the dwelling-place of the are water. 9 And Ethiopia is her lions, and the pasture that belonged to strength, and Egypt; and there was the whelps? where did the lion go, no limit of the flight of her enemies; that the lion's whelp should enter in and the Libyans became her helpers. there, and there was none to scare him 10 Yet she shall go as a prisoner into away? 12The lion seized enough prey captivity, and they shall dash her for his whelps, and strangled for his infants against the ground at the top young lions, and filled his lair with of all her ways: and they shall cast prey, and his dwelling-place with lots upon all her glorious possessions, spoil. 13 Behold, I am against thee, and all her nobles shall be bound in says the Lord Almighty, and I will chains. "And thou shalt be drunken, burn up thy multitude in the smoke, and shalt be overlooked; Or, despised. and the sword shall devour thy lions; and thou shalt seek for thy-q. d. estaband I will utterly destroy thy prey self strength because of from off the land, and thy deeds shall thine enemies. no more at all be heard of. 3. O city of blood, wholly false, +Or, felt after. full of unrighteousness; See Acts 17. 27. the prey shall not be 'handled. The noise of whips, and the noise 2 lishment. -pro בכור 12 All thy bably read as strong-holds are as fig-trees pa having watchers: if they be shaken, they shall fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, thy people within thee are as women: the gates of thy land shall surely be opened to thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars. 14Draw | multitude has suddenly departed as the + Gr. of. thee water for a siege, and grasshopper, as the locust perched on well secure thy strong-holds: enter a hedge in a frosty day; the sun arises, Alex. tread into the clay, and 'be thou and it flies off, and knows not its thou. trodden in the chaff, make place: woe to them! 18 Thy shepherds the fortifications stronger than brick. have slumbered, the Assyrian king has 15 There the fire shall devour thee; laid low thy mighty men: thy people the sword shall utterly destroy thee, it departed to the mountains, and there shall devour thee as the locust, and was none to receive them. + Or, wait for. thou shalt be pressed down as a palmer-19 There is no healing for thy bruise; 16 Thou hast multiplied thy thy wound has rankled: all that hear merchandize beyond the stars of the report of thee shall clap their hands heaven: the palmerworm has attacked against thee: for upon whom has not it, and has flown away. "Thy mixed thy wickedness passed continually? worm. 905 AMBACUM. 4 CHAPTER I.-II. VERSES 1-3. longs to my God. 12 Art not thou from the beginning, O Lord God, my Holy One? and surely we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast established it for judgment, and he has formed me to chasten with his correction. 13 His eye is too pure to behold evil doings, and to look upon grievous afflictions: wherefore dost thou look upon despisers? wilt thou be silent when the ungodly swallows up the just? 14And wilt thou make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the reptiles which have no guide? 15 He has brought up destruction with a hook, and drawn one with a casting net, and caught another in his drags: therefore shall his heart rejoice and be glad. 16 Therefore will he sacrifice to his drag, and burn incense to his casting-net, because by them he has made his portion fat, and his meats choice. 17 Therefore will he cast his net, and will not spare to slay the nations continually. 1. THE burden which the prophet mound, and take possession of it. Ambacum saw. 2 How long, O Lord,"1 Then shall he change his spirit, and shall I cry out, and thou wilt not he shall pass through, and make an hearken? how long shall I cry out to atonement, saying, This strength_bethee being injured, and thou wilt not save? Wherefore hast thou shown me troubles and griefs to look upon, misery and ungodliness? judgment is before me, and the judge receives a reward. Therefore the law is frustrated, and judgment proceeds not effectually, for the ungodly man prevails over the just; therefore perverse judgment will proceed. +5 Behold, ye +Acts 13. 41. despisers, and look, and wonder marvellously, and vanish: for I work a work in your days, which ye will in nowise believe, though a man declare it to you. 6 Wherefore, behold, I stir up the Chaldeans, the bitter and hasty nation, that walks upon the breadth of the earth, to inherit tabernacles not his own. He is terrible and famous; his judgment shall proceed of himself, and his 'dig+ Lit. burden. nity shall come out of himself. And his horses shall explains this. bound more swiftly than leopards, and they are fiercer than the wolves of Arabia: and his horsemen 2. I will stand upon my watch, and shall ride forth, and shall rush from mount upon the rock, and watch to see far; and they shall fly as an eagle what he will say 'by me, and Or, in. See hasting to eat. 9 Destruction shall what I shall answer when I possibly as a come upon ungodly men, resisting am reproved. And the Lord Hebraism 'to' with their adverse front, and he shall answered me and said, Write the vision, gather the captivity as the sand. 10 And and that plainly on a tablet, that he he shall be at his ease with kings, and that reads it may run. 3 For the vision princes are his toys, and he shall mock is yet for a time, and it shall shoot at every strong-hold, and shall cast a forth at the end, and not in vain: נָשָׂא .Heb 8 7 E. V. margin, me. + Heb. 10. 37-39. tor, any man. + Rom. 1. 17. Or, faith in See Heb. 10.38. me. + 8 4 the graven image, that they have A PRAYER OF THE PROPHET though he should tarry, wait for him; | 16 Drink thou also thy fill of disgrace *for he will surely come, instead of glory: shake, O heart, and and will not tarry. If the quake, the cup of the right hand of should draw back, my soul the Lord has come round upon thee, has no pleasure in him: and dishonour has gathered upon thy but the just shall live by glory. "For the ungodliness of Li+ * my faith. 5 But the arro- banus shall cover thee, and distress gant man and the scorner, the boastful because of wild beasts shall dismay man, shall not finish anything; who thee, because of the blood of men, and has enlarged his desire as the grave, the sins of the land and city, and of and like death he is never satisfied, all that dwell in it. 18 What profits it and he will gather to himself all the nations, and will receive to himself all the peoples. Shall not all these take up a parable against him? and a proverb to tell against him? and they shall say, Woe to him that multiplies to himself the possessions which are + Or, for a not his! how long? and long while. who heavily loads his yoke. For suddenly there shall arise up those that bite him, and they that plot against thee shall awake, and thou shalt be a plunder to them. Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the 3. nations that are left shall spoil thee, because of the blood of men, and the sins of the land and city, and of all that dwell in it. Woe to him that covets an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evils. 10 Thou hast devised shame to thy house, thou hast utterly destroyed many nations, and thy soul has sinned. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beetle out of + Possibly, the timber shall speak. 12 Woe to him that builds a city with blood, and establishes a + Gr. prepares. city by unrighteousness. 13 Are not these things of the Lord Almighty? surely many people have been exhausted in the fire, and many nations have fainted. 14 For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord; it shall cover them as water. 15 Woe to him that gives his neighbour to drink the thick lees of wine, and intoxicates him, that he may look upon their secret parts. 'knot.' 3 2 O Lord, I have heard thy report, and was afraid: I considered thy works, and was amazed: thou shalt be known between the two living creatures, thou shalt be acknowledged when the years draw nigh; thou shalt be manifested when the time is come; when my soul is troubled, thou wilt in wrath remember mercy. God shall come from Thaman, and the Holy One from the dark shady Mount Pharan. + See note on Pause.* 4 His excellence Psalm 3. 2. covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness shall be as light; there were horns in his hands, and he caused a mighty love of his strength. 5 Before his face shall go a report, and it shall go forth into the plains, the earth stood at his feet and trembled: he beheld, and the nations melted away: the mountains were violently burst through, the everlasting hills melted at his everlasting going forth. Because of troubles I looked upon the tents of the Ethiopians: 7 6 |