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Ruin Imminent and Inevitable

Ah! City of bloodshed,

utterly deceitful, full of booty—

no end to the plunder!

The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,

galloping horse and bounding chariot!

Horsemen charging,

flashing sword and glittering spear,

piles of dead,

heaps of corpses,

dead bodies without end—

they stumble over the bodies!

Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,

gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,

who enslaves nations through her debaucheries,

and peoples through her sorcery,

I am against you,

says the L ord of hosts,

and will lift up your skirts over your face;

and I will let nations look on your nakedness

and kingdoms on your shame.

I will throw filth at you

and treat you with contempt,

and make you a spectacle.

Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,

“Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?”

Where shall I seek comforters for you?

Are you better than Thebes

that sat by the Nile,

with water around her,

her rampart a sea,

water her wall?

Ethiopia was her strength,

Egypt too, and that without limit;

Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

Yet she became an exile,

she went into captivity;

even her infants were dashed in pieces

at the head of every street;

lots were cast for her nobles,

all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.

You also will be drunken,

you will go into hiding;

you will seek

a refuge from the enemy.

All your fortresses are like fig trees

with first-ripe figs—

if shaken they fall

into the mouth of the eater.

Look at your troops:

they are women in your midst.

The gates of your land

are wide open to your foes;

fire has devoured the bars of your gates.

Draw water for the siege,

strengthen your forts;

trample the clay,

tread the mortar,

take hold of the brick mold!

There the fire will devour you,

the sword will cut you off.

It will devour you like the locust.

Multiply yourselves like the locust,

multiply like the grasshopper!

You increased your merchants

more than the stars of the heavens.

The locust sheds its skin and flies away.

Your guards are like grasshoppers,

your scribes like swarms of locusts

settling on the fences

on a cold day—

when the sun rises, they fly away;

no one knows where they have gone.

Your shepherds are asleep,

O king of Assyria;

your nobles slumber.

Your people are scattered on the mountains

with no one to gather them.

There is no assuaging your hurt,

your wound is mortal.

All who hear the news about you

clap their hands over you.

For who has ever escaped

your endless cruelty?

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet declares here, that the hearts of them all would become soft and effeminate when God would proceed to destroy Nineveh. We have said before that the hearts of men are so in the hand of God, that he melts whatever courage there may be in them, whenever he pleases: and God prepares men for ruin, when he debilitates their hearts, that they cannot bear the sight of their enemies. God indeed can leave in men their perverseness, so that they may ever run furiously into ruin, and not be able, with a courageous heart, to repel the attacks of their enemies; but he often softens their hearts and deprives them of power, that he may make more evident his judgment: God does not, however, always work in the same way; for variety in his judgments is calculated to do us good, for thereby our minds are more powerfully awakened. Were his proceedings uniformly the same, we could not so well distinguish the hand of God, as when he acts now in this way, and then in another. But, as I have already said, it is what is well known, that God enervates men and strips them of all courage, when he gives them over to destruction.

So now the Prophet speaks of the Ninevites, Behold, he says, thy people are women ²⁴⁷²⁴⁷ Both Homer and Virgil have this comparison. “Αχαιδες ουκ ετ Αχαιοι — Grecian women, not Grecians.” — “O! vere Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges — O truly Phrygian women, but not Phrygians.” The demonstrative particle, Behold, is here emphatical: for the Assyrians, no doubt, ridiculed, as a fable, the prediction of the Prophet; and it was what the Israelites found it difficult to believe. This is the reason why the Prophet pointed out, as by the finger, what surpassed the comprehensions of men. By saying, in the midst of thee, he intimates, that though they should be separated from their enemies and dwell in a fortified city, they should yet be filled with trembling. This amplification deserves to be noticed: for it is nothing wonderful, when an onset frightens us, when enemies join battle with us, and when many things present themselves before our eyes, which are calculated to deprive us of courage; but when we are frightened by report only concerning our enemies, and we become fainthearted, though walls be between us, it then appears evident, that we are smitten by the hand of God; for when we see walls of stone, and yet our hearts become brittle like glass, is it not evident, that we are inwardly terrified by the Lord, as it were, through some hidden influence, rather than through intervening and natural causes? We now then perceive the Prophet’s meaning, when he says, that the people would become women, or effeminate, in the midst of the city, in its very bowels; as though he had said, that they would not cease to tremble, even while they were dwelling in a safe place.

By opening, opened shall be thy gates, he says, to thy enemies. He shows again, that though the Assyrians were fortified, every access would be made open to their enemies, as though there was no fortress. By saying, the gates of thy land, it is probable that he speaks not only of the city, but of all their strongholds. The Assyrians, no doubt, fortified many cities, in order to keep afar off the enemy, and to preserve the chief seat of the empire free from danger and fear. I therefore understand the Prophet as referring here to many cities, when he says, By opening, opened shall be the gates of thy land to thine enemies and fire shall consume thy bars He means, that though they had before carefully fortified the whole land around, so that they thought themselves secure from all hostile invasion, yet all this would be useless; for the fire would consume all their bars. By fire, the Prophet understands metaphorically the judgment of God. For as we see that so great is the vehemence of fire, that it melts iron and brass, so the Prophet means, that there would be no strength which could defend Nineveh and its empire against the hand of God. It follows —

²⁴⁷ Both Homer and Virgil have this comparison. “Αχαιδες ουκ ετ Αχαιοι — Grecian women, not Grecians.” — “O! vere Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges — O truly Phrygian women, but not Phrygians.”