_THE SIEGE AND FALL OF NINIVEH_
NAHUM ii., iii
The scene now changes from the presence and awful arsenal of the
Almighty to the historical consummation of His vengeance. Nahum
foresees the siege of Niniveh. Probably the Medes have already overrun
Assyria.[253] The _Old Lion_ has withdrawn to his inner den, and is
making his last stand. The suburbs are full of the enemy, and the great
walls which made the inner city one vast fortress are invested. Nahum
describes the details of the assault. Let us try, before we follow him
through them, to form some picture of Assyria and her capital at this
time.[254]
As we have seen,[255] the Assyrian Empire began about 625 to shrink
to the limits of Assyria proper, or Upper Mesopotamia, within the
Euphrates on the south-west, the mountain-range of Kurdistan on the
north-east, the river Chabor on the north-west and the Lesser Zab
on the south-east.[256] This is a territory of nearly a hundred and
fifty miles from north to south, and rather more than two hundred and
fifty from east to west. To the south of it the Viceroy of Babylon,
Nabopolassar, held practically independent sway over Lower Mesopotamia,
if he did not command as well a large part of the Upper Euphrates
Valley. On the north the Medes were urgent, holding at least the
farther ends of the passes through the Kurdish mountains, if they had
not already penetrated these to their southern issues.
The kernel of the Assyrian territory was the triangle, two of whose
sides are represented by the Tigris and the Greater Zab, the third
by the foot of the Kurdistan mountains. It is a fertile plain, with
some low hills. To-day the level parts of it are covered by a large
number of villages and well-cultivated fields. The more frequent
mounds of ruin attest in ancient times a still greater population.
At the period of which we are treating, the plains must have been
covered by an almost continuous series of towns. At either end lay a
group of fortresses. The southern was the ancient capital of Assyria,
Kalchu, now Nimrud, about six miles to the north of the confluence of
the Greater Zab and the Tigris. The northern, close by the present
town of Khorsabad, was the great fortress and palace of Sargon,
Dur-Sargina:[257] it covered the roads upon Niniveh from the north,
and standing upon the upper reaches of the Choser protected Niniveh’s
water supply. But besides these there were scattered upon all the main
roads and round the frontiers of the territory a number of other forts,
towers and posts, the ruins of many of which are still considerable,
but others have perished without leaving any visible traces. The roads
thus protected drew in upon Niniveh from all directions. The chief
of those, along which the Medes and their allies would advance from
the east and north, crossed the Greater Zab, or came down through
the Kurdistan mountains upon the citadel of Sargon. Two of them were
distant enough from the latter to relieve the invaders from the
necessity of taking it, and Kalchu lay far to the south of all of them.
The brunt of the first defence of the land would therefore fall upon
the smaller fortresses.
Niniveh itself lay upon the Tigris between Kalchu and Sargon’s city,
just where the Tigris is met by the Choser. Low hills descend from
the north upon the very site of the fortress, and then curve east and
south, bow-shaped, to draw west again upon the Tigris at the south end
of the city. To the east of the latter they leave a level plain, some
two and a half miles by one and a half. These hills appear to have
been covered by several forts. The city itself was four-sided, lying
lengthwise to the Tigris and cut across its breadth by the Choser. The
circumference was about seven and a half miles, enclosing the largest
fortified space in Western Asia, and capable of holding a population of
three hundred thousand. The western wall, rather over two and a half
miles long, touched the Tigris at either end, but between there lay a
broad, bow-shaped stretch of land, probably in ancient times, as now,
free of buildings. The north-western wall ran up from the Tigris for
a mile and a quarter to the low ridge which entered the city at its
northern corner. From this the eastern wall, with a curve upon it, ran
down in face of the eastern plain for a little more than three miles,
and was joined to the western by the short southern wall of not quite
half a mile. The ruins of the western wall stand from ten to twenty,
those of the others from twenty-five to sixty, feet above the natural
surface, with here and there the still higher remains of towers. There
were several gates, of which the chief were one in the northern and two
in the eastern wall. Round all the walls except the western ran moats
about a hundred and fifty feet broad—not close up to the foot of the
walls, but at a distance of some sixty feet. Water was supplied by the
Choser to all the moats south of it; those to the north were fed from
a canal which entered the city near its northern corner. At these and
other points one can still trace the remains of huge dams, batardeaux
and sluices; and the moats might be emptied by opening at either end
of the western wall other dams, which kept back the waters from the
bed of the Tigris. Beyond its moat, the eastern wall was protected
north of the Choser by a large outwork covering its gate, and south of
the Choser by another outwork, in shape the segment of a circle, and
consisting of a double line of fortification more than five hundred
yards long, of which the inner wall was almost as high as the great
wall itself, but the outer considerably lower. Again, in front of this
and in face of the eastern plain was a third line of fortification,
consisting of a low inner wall and a colossal outer wall still rising
to a height of fifty feet, with a moat one hundred and fifty feet
broad between them. On the south this third line was closed by a large
fortress.
Upon the trebly fortified city the Medes drew in from east and north,
far away from Kalchu and able to avoid even Dur-Sargina. The other
fortresses on the frontier and the approaches fell into their hands,
says Nahum, like _ripe fruit_.[258] He cries to Niniveh to prepare
for the siege.[259] Military authorities[260] suppose that the Medes
directed their main attack upon the northern corner of the city.
Here they would be upon a level with its highest point, and would
command the waterworks by which most of the moats were fed. Their
flank, too, would be protected by the ravines of the Choser. Nahum
describes fighting in the suburbs before the assault of the walls, and
it was just here, according to some authorities,[261] that the famous
suburbs of Niniveh lay, out upon the canal and the road to Khorsabad.
All the open fighting which Nahum foresees would take place in these
_outplaces_ and _broad streets_[262]—the mustering of the _red_
ranks,[263] the _prancing horses_[264] and _rattling chariots_[265] and
_cavalry at the charge_.[266] Beaten there the Assyrians would retire
to the great walls, and the waterworks would fall into the hands of
the besiegers. They would not immediately destroy these, but in order
to bring their engines and battering-rams against the walls they would
have to lay strong dams across the moats; the eastern moat has actually
been found filled with rubbish in face of a great breach at the north
end of its wall. This breach may have been effected not only by the
rams but by directing upon the wall the waters of the canal; or farther
south the Choser itself, in its spring floods, may have been confined
by the besiegers and swept in upon the sluices which regulate its
passage through the eastern wall into the city. To this means tradition
has assigned the capture of Niniveh,[267] and Nahum perhaps foresees
the possibility of it: _the gates of the rivers are opened, the palace
is dissolved_.[268]
Now of all this probable progress of the siege Nahum, of course, does
not give us a narrative, for he is writing upon the eve of it, and
probably, as we have seen, in Judah, with only such knowledge of the
position and strength of Niniveh as her fame had scattered across the
world. The military details, the muster, the fighting in the open, the
investment, the assault, he did not need to go to Assyria or to wait
for the fall of Niniveh to describe as he has done. Assyria herself
(and herein lies much of the pathos of the poem) had made all Western
Asia familiar with their horrors for the last two centuries. As we
learn from the prophets and now still more from herself, Assyria was
the great Besieger of Men. It is siege, siege, siege, which Amos, Hosea
and Isaiah tell their people they shall feel: _siege and blockade,
and that right round the land!_ It is siege, irresistible and full of
cruelty, which Assyria records as her own glory. Miles of sculpture
are covered with masses of troops marching upon some Syrian or Median
fortress. Scaling ladders and enormous engines are pushed forward to
the walls under cover of a shower of arrows. There are assaults and
breaches, panic-stricken and suppliant defenders. Streets and places
are strewn with corpses, men are impaled, women led away weeping,
children dashed against the stones. The Jews had seen, had felt these
horrors for a hundred years, and it is out of their experience of them
that Nahum weaves his exultant predictions. The Besieger of the world
is at last besieged; every cruelty he has inflicted upon men is now
to be turned upon himself. Again and again does Nahum return to the
vivid details,—he hears the very whips crack beneath the walls, and the
rattle of the leaping chariots; the end is slaughter, dispersion and a
dead waste.[269]
Two other points remain to be emphasised.
There is a striking absence from both chapters of any reference
to Israel.[270] Jehovah of Hosts is mentioned twice in the same
formula,[271] but otherwise the author does not obtrude his
nationality. It is not in Judah’s name he exults, but in that of
all the peoples of Western Asia. Niniveh has sold _peoples_ by her
harlotries and _races_ by her witchcraft; it is _peoples_ that shall
gaze upon her nakedness and _kingdoms_ upon her shame. Nahum gives
voice to no national passions, but to the outraged conscience of
mankind. We see here another proof, not only of the large, human heart
of prophecy, but of that which in the introduction to these Twelve
Prophets we ventured to assign as one of its causes. By crushing all
peoples to a common level of despair, by the universal pity which her
cruelties excited, Assyria contributed to the development in Israel of
the idea of a common humanity.[272]
The other thing to be noticed is Nahum’s feeling of the incoherence and
mercenariness of the vast population of Niniveh. Niniveh’s command of
the world had turned her into a great trading power. Under Assurbanipal
the lines of ancient commerce had been diverted so as to pass through
her. The immediate result was an enormous increase of population, such
as the world had never before seen within the limits of one city. But
this had come out of all races and was held together only by the greed
of gain. What had once been a firm and vigorous nation of warriors,
irresistible in their united impact upon the world, was now a loose
aggregate of many peoples, without patriotism, discipline or sense of
honour. Nahum likens it to a reservoir of waters,[273] which as soon as
it is breached must scatter, and leave the city bare. The Second Isaiah
said the same of Babylon, to which the bulk of Niniveh’s mercenary
populace must have fled:—
_Thus are they grown to thee, they who did weary thee,
Traders of thine from thy youth up;
Each as he could escape have they fled;
None is thy helper._[274]
The prophets saw the truth about both cities. Their vastness and their
splendour were artificial. Neither of them, and Niniveh still less
than Babylon, was a natural centre for the world’s commerce. When
their political power fell, the great lines of trade, which had been
twisted to their feet, drew back to more natural courses, and Niniveh
in especial became deserted. This is the explanation of the absolute
collapse of that mighty city. Nahum’s foresight, and the very metaphor
in which he expressed it, were thoroughly sound. The population
vanished like water. The site bears little trace of any disturbance
since the ruin by the Medes, except such as has been inflicted
by the weather and the wandering tribes around. Mosul, Niniveh’s
representative to-day, is not built upon it, and is but a provincial
town. The district was never meant for anything else.
The swift decay of these ancient empires from the climax of their
commercial glory is often employed as a warning to ourselves. But
the parallel, as the previous paragraphs suggest, is very far from
exact. If we can lay aside for the moment the greatest difference of
all, in religion and morals, there remain others almost of cardinal
importance. Assyria and Babylonia were not filled, like Great Britain,
with reproductive races, able to colonise distant lands, and carry
everywhere the spirit which had made them strong at home. Still
more, they did not continue at home to be homogeneous. Their native
forces were exhausted by long and unceasing wars. Their populations,
especially in their capitals, were very largely alien and distraught,
with nothing to hold them together save their commercial interests.
They were bound to break up at the first disaster. It is true that
we are not without some risks of their peril. No patriot among us
can observe without misgiving the large and growing proportion of
foreigners in that department of our life from which the strength of
our defence is largely drawn—our merchant navy. But such a fact is
very far from bringing our empire and its chief cities into the fatal
condition of Niniveh and Babylon. Our capitals, our commerce, our life
as a whole are still British to the core. If we only be true to our
ideals of righteousness and religion, if our patriotism continue moral
and sincere, we shall have the power to absorb the foreign elements
that throng to us in commerce, and stamp them with our own spirit.
We are now ready to follow Nahum’s two great poems delivered on the
eve of the Fall of Niniveh. Probably, as we have said, the first of
them has lost its original opening. It wants some notice at the outset
of the object to which it is addressed: this is indicated only by
the second personal pronoun. Other needful comments will be given in
footnotes.
1.
_The Hammer[275] is come up to thy face!
Hold the rampart![276]Keep watch on the way!
Brace the loins![277] Pull thyself firmly together![278]
The shields[279] of his heroes are red,
The warriors are in scarlet;[280]
Like[281] fire are the ...[282]of the chariots in the day
of his muster,
And the horsemen[283] are prancing.
Through the markets rage chariots,
They tear across the squares;[284]
The look of them is like torches,
Like lightnings they dart to and fro.[285]
He musters his nobles....[286]
They rush to the wall and the mantlet[287] is fixed!
The river-gates[288] burst open, the palace dissolves.[289]
And Huṣṣab[290] is stripped, is brought forth,
With her maids sobbing like doves,
Beating their breasts.
And Niniveh! she was like a reservoir of waters,
Her waters ...[291]
And now they flee. “Stand, stand!” but there is
none to rally.
Plunder silver, plunder gold!
Infinite treasures, mass of all precious things!
Void and devoid and desolate[292] is she.
Melting hearts and shaking knees,
And anguish in all loins,
And nothing but faces full of black fear._[293]
_Where is the Lion’s den,
And the young lions’ feeding ground[294]?
Whither the Lion retreated,[295]
The whelps of the Lion, with none to affray:
The Lion, who tore enough for his whelps,
And strangled for his lionesses.
And he filled his pits with prey,
And his dens with rapine._
_Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts):
I will put up thy ...[296] in flames,
The sword shall devour thy young lions;
I will cut off from the earth thy rapine,
And the noise of thine envoys shall no more be heard._
2.
_Woe to the City of Blood,
All of her guile, robbery-full, ceaseless rapine!_
_Hark the whip,
And the rumbling of the wheel,
And horses galloping,
And the rattling dance of the chariot![297]
Cavalry at the charge,[298] and flash of sabres,
And lightning of lances,
Mass of slain and weight of corpses,
Endless dead bodies—
They stumble on their dead!
—For the manifold harlotries of the Harlot,
The well-favoured, mistress of charms,
She who sold nations with her harlotries
And races by her witchcrafts!_
_Lo, I am at thee (oracle of Jehovah of Hosts):
I will uncover thy skirts to thy face;[299]
Give nations to look on thy nakedness,
And kingdoms upon thy shame;
Will have thee pelted with filth, and disgrace thee,
And set thee for a gazingstock;
So that every one seeing thee shall shrink from thee and say,
“Shattered is Niniveh—who will pity her?
Whence shall I seek for comforters to thee?”_
_Shalt thou be better than No-Amon,[300]
Which sat upon the Nile streams[301]—waters were round her—
Whose rampart was the sea,[302] and waters her wall?[303]
Kush was her strength and Miṣraim without end;
Phut and the Lybians were there to assist her.[304]
Even she was for exile, she went to captivity:
Even her children were dashed on every street corner;
For her nobles they cast lots,
And all her great men were fastened with fetters._
_Thou too shalt stagger,[305] shalt grow faint;
Thou too shalt seek help from[306] the foe!
All thy fortresses are fig-trees with figs early-ripe:
Be they shaken they fall on the mouth of the eater.
Lo, thy folk are but women in thy midst:[307]
To thy foes the gates of thy land fly open;
Fire has devoured thy bars._
_Draw thee water for siege, strengthen thy forts!
Get thee down to the mud, and tramp in the clay!
Grip fast the brick-mould!
There fire consumes thee, the sword cuts thee off.[308]
Make thyself many as a locust swarm,
Many as grasshoppers,
Multiply thy traders more than heaven’s stars,
—The locusts break off[309] and fly away.
Thy ...[310] are as locusts and thy ... as grasshoppers,
That hive in the hedges in the cold of the day:[311]
The sun is risen, they are fled,
And one knows not the place where they be._
_Asleep are thy shepherds, O king of Assyria,
Thy nobles do slumber;[312]
Thy people are strewn on the mountains,
Without any to gather.
There is no healing of thy wreck,
Fatal thy wound!
All who hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hand at thee,
For upon whom hath not thy cruelty passed without ceasing?_
FOOTNOTES:
[253] See above, pp. 22 ff.
[254] The authorities are very full. First there is M. Botta’s huge
work _Monument de Ninive_, Paris, 5 vols., 1845. Then must be mentioned
the work of which we availed ourselves in describing Babylon in _Isaiah
xl.—lxvi._, Expositor’s Bible, pp. 52 ff.: “Memoirs by Commander
James Felix Jones, I.N.,” in _Selections from the Records of the
Bombay Government_, No. XLIII., New Series, 1857. It is good to find
that the careful and able observations of Commander Jones, too much
neglected in his own country, have had justice done them by the German
Colonel Billerbeck in the work about to be cited. Then there is the
invaluable _Niniveh and its Remains_, by Layard. There are also the
works of Rawlinson and George Smith. And recently Colonel Billerbeck,
founding on these and other works, has published an admirable monograph
(lavishly illustrated by maps and pictures), not only upon the military
state of Assyria proper and of Niniveh at this period, but upon the
whole subject of Assyrian fortification and art of besieging, as well
as upon the course of the Median invasions. It forms the larger part of
an article to which Dr. Alfred Jeremias contributes an introduction,
and reconstruction with notes of chaps. ii. and iii. of the Book of
Nahum: “Der Untergang Niniveh’s und die Weissagungschrift des Nahum von
Elḳosh,” in Vol. III. of _Beiträge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen
Sprachwissenschaft_, edited by Friedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt, with
the support of Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S.A.: Leipzig,
1895.
[255] Pages 20 f.
[256] Colonel Billerbeck (p. 115) thinks that the south-east frontier
at this time lay more to the north, near the Greater Zab.
[257] First excavated by M. Botta, 1842-1845. See also George Smith,
_Assyr. Disc._, pp. 98 f.
[258] iii. 12.
[259] iii. 14.
[260] See Jones and Billerbeck.
[261] Delitzsch places the עיר רחבות of Gen. x. 11, the “ribit Nina” of
the inscriptions, on the north-east of Niniveh.
[262] ii. 4 Eng., 5 Heb.
[263] ii. 3 Eng., 4 Heb.
[264] _Ibid._ LXX.
[265] iii. 2.
[266] iii. 3.
[267] It is the waters of the Tigris that the tradition avers to have
broken the wall; but the Tigris itself runs in a bed too low for this:
it can only have been the Choser. See both Jones and Billerbeck.
[268] ii. 6.
[269] If the above conception of chaps. ii. and iii. be correct, then
there is no need for such a re-arrangement of these verses as has been
proposed by Jeremias and Billerbeck. In order to produce a continuous
narrative of the progress of the siege, they bring forward iii. 12-15
(describing the fall of the fortresses and gates of the land and the
call to the defence of the city), and place it immediately after ii.
2, 4 (the description of the invader) and ii. 5-11 (the appearance of
chariots in the suburbs of the city, the opening of the floodgates,
the flight and the spoiling of the city). But if they believe that the
original gave an orderly account of the progress of the siege, why do
they not bring forward also iii. 2 f., which describe the arrival of
the foe under the city walls? The truth appears to be as stated above.
We have really two poems against Niniveh, chap. ii. and chap. iii.
They do not give an orderly description of the siege, but exult over
Niniveh’s imminent downfall, with gleams scattered here and there of
how this is to happen. Of these “impressions” of the coming siege there
are three, and in the order in which we now have them they occur very
naturally: ii. 5 ff., iii. 2 f., and iii. 12 ff.
[270] ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. See above, pp. 94 f.
[271] ii. 13, iii. 5.
[272] See above, Vol. I., Chap. IV., especially pp. 54 ff.
[273] ii. 8.
[274] _Isaiah xl.—lxvi._ (Expositor’s Bible), pp. 197 ff.
[275] Read מַפֵּץ with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade’s _Wörterbuch_,
sub פּוּץ) for מֵפִיץ, _Breaker in pieces_. In Jer. li. 20 Babylon is
also called by Jehovah His מַפֵּץ, _Hammer_ or _Maul_.
[276] _Keep watch_, Wellhausen.
[277] This may be a military call to attention, the converse of “Stand
at ease!”
[278] Heb. literally: _brace up thy power exceedingly_.
[279] Heb. singular.
[280] Rev. ix. 17. Purple or red was the favourite colour of the Medes.
The Assyrians also loved red.
[281] Read כאשׁ for באשׁ.
[282] פלדות, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur
elsewhere. LXX. ἡνίαι; Vulg. _habenæ_. Some have thought that it means
_scythes_—cf. the Arabic _falad_, “to cut”—but the earliest notice of
chariots armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish
literature they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias,
_op. cit._, p. 97, where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum
are applicable to the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian
monuments, from which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf.
_ibid._, p. 167, n. ***. But from the parallelism of the verse it is
more probable that ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots
were covered with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p. 167).
[283] So LXX., reading פרשים for ברשים of Heb. text, that means
_fir-trees_. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose
with Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were
meant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls
by engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be the
cavalry and chariots in the open that are here described.
[284] Or _broad places_ or _suburbs_. See above, pp. 100 f.
[285] See above, p. 106, end of n. 282.
[286] Heb. _They stumble in their goings._ Davidson holds this is
more probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the
besiegers. See next note.
[287] הסֹּכֵךְ. Partic. of the verb _to cover_, hence covering thing:
whether _mantlet_ (on the side of the besiegers) or _bulwark_ (on
the side of the besieged: cf. מָסָךְ, Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain.
Billerbeck says, if it be an article of defence, we can read ver. 5
as illustrating the vanity of the hurried defence, when the elements
themselves break in vv. 6 and 7 (p. 101: cf. p. 176, n. *).
[288] _Sluices_ (Jeremias) or _bridge-gates_ (Wellhausen)?
[289] Or _breaks into motion_, i.e. _flight_.
[290] הֻצּב, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of נצב and has been
taken to mean _it is determined, she_ (Niniveh) _is taken captive_.
Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: _it is settled_. LXX. ὑπόστασις =
מצב. Vulg. _miles_ (as if some form of צבא?). Hitzig points it הַצָּב,
_the lizard_, Wellhausen _the toad_. But this noun is masculine (Lev.
xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other הַצָּב,
fem., the _litter_ or _palanquin_ (Isa. lxvi. 20): “in lieu of anything
better one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the
woman or lady, just as in Arab. ḍḥa’inah means a woman’s litter and
then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of הַצְּבי, _the beauty_.
The Targ. has מלכתא, _the queen_. From as early as at least 1527
(_Latina Interpretatio_ Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited
for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of
scholars as a proper name, Huṣṣab. So Ewald and others. It may be an
Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is
corrupt.
Mr. Paul Ruben (_Academy_, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead of
העלתה, _is brought forth_, to read העתלה, and to translate it by
analogy of the Assyrian “etellu,” fem. “etellitu” = great or exalted,
_The Lady_. The line would then run _Huṣṣab, the lady, is stripped_.
(With העתלה Cheyne, _Academy_, June 21st, 1896, compares עתליה, which,
he suggests, is “Yahwe is great” or “is lord.”)
[291] Heb. מֵימֵי הִיא for מימי אשר היא, _from days she was_. A.V. _is
of old_. R.V. _hath been of old_, and Marg. _from the days that she
hath been_. LXX. _her waters_, מֵימֶיהָ. On waters fleeing, cf. Ps.
civ. 7.
[292] Buḳah, umebuḳah, umebullāḳah. Ewald: _desert and desolation and
devastation_. The adj. are feminine.
[293] Literally: _and the faces of all them gather lividness_.
[294] For מרעה Wellhausen reads מערה, _cave_ or _hold_.
[295] LXX., reading לבוא for לביא.
[296] Heb. _her chariots_. LXX. and Syr. suggest _thy mass_ or
_multitude_, רבכה. Davidson suggests _thy lair_, רבצכה.
[297] Literally _and the chariot dancing_, but the word, merakedah, has
a rattle in it.
[298] Doubtful, מַעֲלֶה. LXX. ἀναβαίνοντος.
[299] Jeremias (104) shows how the Assyrians did this to female
captives.
[300] Jer. xlvi. 25: _I will punish Amon at No_. Ezek. xxx. 14-16:
_... judgments in No.... I will cut off No-Amon_ (Heb. and A.V.
_multitude of No_, reading המון; so also LXX. τὸ πλῆθος for אמון)
_... and No shall be broken up_. It is Thebes, the Egyptian name of
which was Nu-Amen. The god Amen had his temple there: Herod. I. 182,
II. 42. Nahum refers to Assurbanipal’s account of the fall of Thebes.
See above, p. 11.
[301] היארים. Pl. of the word for Nile.
[302] Arabs still call the Nile the sea.
[303] So LXX., reading מַיִם for Heb. מִיָּם.
[304] So LXX.; Heb. _thee_.
[305] Heb. _be drunken_.
[306] I.e. _against_, _because of_.
[307] Jer. l. 37, li. 30.
[308] Heb. and LXX. add _devour thee like the locust_, probably a gloss.
[309] Cf. Jer. ix. 33. Some take it of the locusts stripping the skin
which confines their wings: Davidson.
[310] מנזריך. A.V. _thy crowned ones_; but perhaps like its
neighbour an Assyrian word, meaning we know not what. Wellhausen reads
ממזרך, LXX. ὁ συμμικτός σοῦ (applied in Deut. xxiii. 3 and Zech. ix. 6
to the offspring of a mixed marriage between an Israelite and a
Gentile), deine Mischlinge: a term of contempt for the floating foreign
or semi-foreign population which filled Niniveh and was ready to fly at
sight of danger. Similarly Wellhausen takes the second term, טפסר.
This, which occurs also in Jer. li. 27, appears to be some kind of
official. In Assyrian _dupsar_ is scribe, which may, like Heb. שׁטר,
have been applied to any high official. See Schrader, _K.A.T._, Eng.
Tr., I. 141, II. 118. See also Fried. Delitzsch, _Wo lag Parad._, p.
142. The name and office were ancient. Such Babylonian officials are
mentioned in the Tell el Amarna letters as present at the Egyptian
court.
[311] Heb. _day of cold_.
[312] ישכנו, _dwell_, is the Heb. reading. But LXX. ישנו,
ἐκοίμισεν. Sleep must be taken in the sense of death: cf. Jer. li. 39,
57; Isa. xiv. 18.
_HABAKKUK_
_Upon my watch-tower will I stand,
And take up my post on the rampart.
I will watch to see what He will say to me,
And what answer I get back to my plea._
* * * * *
_The righteous shall live by his faithfulness._
“The beginning of speculation in Israel.”