The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible Nahum 2:13
Behold, I [am] against thee, saith the Lord of hosts…
Against Nineveh, and the whole Assyrian empire, for such rapine,
violence, and oppression, their kings had been guilty of; and if he,
who is the Lord of hosts, of all the armies of heaven and earth, was
against them, nothing but ruin must inevitably ensue: or, "I come unto
thee" F19; or will shortly come unto thee, and reckon with thee for all
this; will visit thee in a way of wrath and vengeance. The Targum is,
``behold, I will send my fury upon thee:''
and I will burn her chariots in the smoke;
either those in which
the inhabitants of Nineveh rode in great splendour about the city; or
those which were used in war with their enemies; and this he would do
"in the smoke"; or, "unto smoke", as the Vulgate Latin version; or,
"into smoke", as the Syriac F20; easily, quickly, at once, suddenly, so
that they should evaporate into smoke, and be no more; or, with fire,
as the Targum; that is, as Kimchi interprets it, with a great fire,
whose smoke is seen afar off; and may be figuratively understood of the
smoke of divine wrath, as Aben Ezra explains it:
and the sword shall devour thy young lions;
the swords of the Medes
and Chaldeans shall destroy the princes, the sons of their king. The
Targum interprets this of towns or villages destroyed thereby:
and I will cut thy prey from the earth;
cut them off that they should no
more prey upon their neighbours; and what they had got should be taken
away from them, and be of no use to them:
and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard;
in foreign
courts, demanding homage and subjection; exacting and collecting
tribute; blaspheming the God of heaven, and menacing his people, as
Rabshakeh, a messenger of one of these kings, did; and which is
mentioned by most of the Jewish commentators as being then a recent
thing. Some render it, "the voice", or "noise of thy jaw teeth" F21;
alluding to the lion's breaking the bones of its prey, which is done
with a great noise; signifying that such cruelty and oppression the
Assyrians had been guilty of should be used no more; or rather, as R.
Judah ben Balaam observes, as it signifies the noise of the teeth
devouring the prey, it is as if it was said, I will cut off thy prey
from the earth; and Ben Melech says that, in the Persian language,
grinding stones are expressed by this word, and teeth are called
grinders; see (Ecclesiastes 12:3) .
FOOTNOTES:
F19 (Kyla ynnh) "ad te venturus sum", Vatablus; "ego ad te venio",
Drusius.
F20 (Nveb) "in fumum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
F21 (hkkalm lwq) "vox dentium molarium", Calvin.
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Copyright Statement
The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible Modernised and adapted for the computer by Larry Pierce of Online Bible. All Rightes Reserved, Larry Pierce, Winterbourne, Ontario.
A printed copy of this work can be ordered from: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1 Iron Oaks Dr, Paris, AR, 72855
Bibliography Information
Gill, John. "Commentary on Nahum 2:13". "The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible". <http://www.studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?book=na&chapter=002&verse=013>. 1999.
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