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1 The pronouncement concerning Neenvæh. The book of the vision of Naɦ̣ūm the ’Elqoshee. 2 Gŏd |
| 3 | 3 Yăhwēh is slow to anger, and great in power, and an acquittal, Yăhwēh will not acquit. In the gale and the storm is his way, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. |
| 4 | 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; and all the rivers he will have dried up; Bashan and Carmel will have been withered; and the bloom of Lev̱anon will have been withered. |
| 5 | 5 The mountains will have quaked because of him, and the hills will have melted themselves, and the earth will rise up at his face, and the world and all dwelling in it. |
| 6 | 6 At the face of his indignation, who will stand? And who can rise up at the burning of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken down because of him. |
| 7 | 7 Yăhwēh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those seeking refuge in him. 8 But with a flood passing over he will make a complete end of her¹ place, and darkness will pursue his enemies. |
| 9 | 9 What do you devise against Yăhwēh? He will have made¹ a complete end. You will not raise up a recurrence of trouble. |
| 10 |
10 For yet |
| 11 | 11 From you will have come one plotting evil¹ against Yăhwēh, a worthless counselor. |
| 12 | 12 Thus has said Yăhwēh, “When being at peace, and therefore great, likewise they will be cut off, and will have passed away, and I will have answered you. I will not cause you to be afflicted again. 13 And now I will break his yoke from off you, and your chains I will tear away.” |
| 14 | 14 And Yăhwēh will have commanded concerning you, “Nothing will be sown in your name again. From the house of your gods, I will have cut off idol and image. I appoint you a grave, because you have become accursed.” |
| 15 | 15 (Behold, on the mountains are the feet of one bringing good news, one giving the message of peace! Keep your feasts, O Yehudah; complete your vows, for never again is worthlessness to pass through you; all of it will have been cut off.)¹ |
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1 The scatterer has come up against your¹ face. Guard the ramparts; watch the road; tighten the belt;² strenghthen |
| 3 | 3 The shields of his mightiest men are reddened. The men of war are clad in scarlet, in fire. The reins¹ of the chariots, on that day have been attached, and the horsemen ² have been reeling about. |
| 4 | 4 The chariots race madly in the streets; they rush to and fro in the plazas; their gleam like torches; they run fast like lightning. |
| 5 | 5 He remembers his officers; they stumble in their going, they hasten to the wall; and the siege tower has been set up. 6 The river gates have been opened; and the palace has collapsed; 7 And it has been determined: she will have been exiled; she will have been made to go up, but her maids are moaning like the sound of doves, beating on their hearts. |
| 8 | 8 And Neenvæh was as a pool of waters in her day, but they are fleeing; “Stop!, Stop!”, but none turns back. |
| 9 | 9 Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! And there is no end of the supply store, the weight of all the precious articles. |
| 10 | 10 She is emptied! And she is made to be empty! And she is made to be wasted! And hearts are melting and knees buckling; and agony is in everyone’s sides; and all of their faces have grown flushed. |
| 11 | 11 Where is the den of lions, and the feeding place, that is for the young lions, where the lion has gone? the lioness is there; a cub of a lion; and no one is causing a fright. |
| 12 | 12 The lion has torn enough for his cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses; thus, he filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh. |
| 13 | 13 “Behold, I am against you,” by declaration of Yăhwēh of hosts, “And I will have burned her chariots in smoke. And the sword shall eat your young lions. And I will have cut off your prey from the earth. And the voice of your messengers will not be heard again.” |
| 1 | 1 Woe, city of bloodshed. All of her is a lie. Plunder has¹ filled her. The prey will never leave. |
| 2 | 2 Sounds¹ the whip, and sounds a rumbling wheel, and a racing horse, and a bouncing chariot, horsemen going up, 3 and the flash of a sword, and lightning of a spear. And a multitude have¹ been pierced, and have made a heavy pile² of corpses. And there is no end to dead bodies. They will³ stumble over their bodies. |
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4 |
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5 Behold, I am against you, |
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8 Are you not better than No’ ’Amon¹ sitting by the Great² River, |
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9 Cūsh was her¹ strength, also Egypt; even without limit. Pūt and Lūv̱iym had been among her allies. 10 Even she was |
| 11 | 11 Even you¹ will be made to be drunk.² You will be hiding, even you. You will seek refuge from the enemy. 12 All your fortresses are fig trees with the first ripe fruit. If they are shaken, then they will have fallen into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, your people are women in your midst! Unto your enemies opening they are opening the gates of your land. Fire will have eaten your bars. 14 Draw yourself water for the siege! Strenghthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread in the mortar! Seize the brick mold. |
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15 There fire will eat you. The sword will cut you down. It will eat you like the locust. They¹ will have made themselves heavy like the locust. Make yourself heavy like the desert cricket. 16 You have multiplied your tradings more than the stars of the heavens.¹ The locust will have stripped |
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17 Your crowned ones are like the desert cricket. And plunder accountants¹ as a swarm of swarms camping on the walls on a cool day. |
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18 Your shepherds have become drowsy O king of ’Ashūr. Your nobles are resting. Your people have been scattered on the mountains, and no one is gathering |
1:2 ^ Two times Yăhwēh is the object of the verb “avenge”; The object of the verb is often the person to be avenged, and not the person to take vengeance on. See 2Kings 9:7: “and I will have avenged the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yăhwēh from the hand of ’Eezavel.” In Jer. 5:9 appears the words: לֹא תִתְנַקֵּם נַפְשִׁי = “my soul will avenge itself”; In Jer. 51:36 it says: וְנִקַּמְתִּי אֶת־נִקְמָתֵךְ = “And I will have avenged your vengeance.”
The traditional translation is based on taking the Hebrew like this: “God [is] jealous; and avenging [is] Yahweh; avenging [is] Yahweh; and Master of wrath; avenging [is] Yahweh to his adversaries.” In every case Yahweh is the subject placed after the participle. What happens is that the same words are repeated twice in a row, “avenging [is] Yahweh; avenging [is] Yahweh.” This version is not impossible, but I say it is less natural. What tips the balance is the spirit of prophecy which is the testimony of Yeshua. Yahweh does avenge Yahweh. We see it in Gen. 19:24, Psalm 2, Psalm 110:1. If Yahweh avenges Yahweh then the Son is Almighty along with the Father.
1:8 ^ Nineveh
1:9 ^ Take the verb as perfect: עָשָׂה.
1:10 ^ Take the verb perfect: אָכְלוּ.
²Treat the word מָלֵא as an adverb.
1:11 ^ This could refer to the man of sin, meaning he will rise up in Assyria in the end of days.
1:15¹ ^ The prophet puts in a brief encouragement to Israel, set off here by parentheses, and then he returns to the subject of Nineveh.
2:1 ^ Nineveh.
²Literally,“make to be strong the hips”; The nearest English idiom was selected.
³Literally, “make to be very strong power.”
2:3 ^ The meaning of the Hebrew פְּלָדוֹת is uncertain. The LXX supplies “reins” (ἡνίαι). Also the LXX reads the Hebrew text differently, and more sensibly: פָּרָשִׁים = horsemen = ἱππεῖς = charioteers (LSJ), instead of cypresses, בְּרֹשִׁים, which makes no sense. The verb הֲכִינוֹ I read הִכְוִֽינוּ, and הָרְעָלוּ I read: הִרְעִֽילוּ, with a short spelling. The reins might perhaps mean “harness.”
3:1 ^ Read: מְלֵאָהּ.
3:2 ^ Take the word קוֹל as the biconsonant infinitive: קוּל, and translate as a verb.
3:3 ^ Read: חֻלַּל.
²also: כִּבֵּד.
³I see little reason for the perfect Qere over the Kethib here, so I have ignored it. But the Qere reads, “And they will have stumbled on their dead bodies.”
3:4 ^ Or “mastress”, “a master of.”
²The sense “into” also works here. She sold nations using her wiles and profits into slavery. She also corrupted them into harlotry and sorcery also.
3:7 ^ “flee...lament” form a poetic assonance: יִדּוֹד and יָנוּד = yidod...yanood.
3:8 ^ נֹא אָמוֹן = city of (god) Amon = Thebes.
3:8² יְאֹרִים: intensive plural for the Nile.
3:9¹ ^ The prophet continues talking about Thebes’ downfall in vss. 9-10 as a warning to Nineveh of the downfall that awaits them.
3:10 ^ The text refers to the famous sacking of Thebes in 664 B.C. by Ashurbanipal. Nineveh was destroyed in 612 B.C., so these limits place the timing of this prophecy in the years between.
3:10² וְעַל־נִכְבַּדֶּיהָ = and over weighted ones of her. These were the persons who were valuable for any reason, for skilled slaves, laborers, or any purpose. The translations have missed the sense by using terms like honored men or nobles, e.g. ESV, JPS, NAS, NIV, YLT, etc.
3:11¹ ^ The prophet leaves off the interlude of talking about Thebes from vs. 10 and begins to talk about Nineveh here again.
3:11² ^ Read Pual: תְּשֻׁכְּרִי.
3:15 ^ The MT imperative הִתְכַּבֵּד is addressed to a masculine entity. Sword is feminine, and the city is addressed as feminine. The enemy in vs. 13 is masculine. It seems better to take the verb as 3ms perfect: הִתְכַּבֵּד, and refer it to the enemy, or 3cp and refer it to the sword and the enemies or just the enemies: הִתְכַּבְּדֻ.
3:16 ^ Thus this idiom strictly means more than the stars visible with the naked eye. Also the participle רוֹכְלִים compounded as רֹכְלַיִךְ is “your tradings” and not “your traders.” The tradings are stripped away, i.e. plundered, and carried off by the enemy locust.
3:17 ^ The term טִפְסָר from וְטַפְסְרַיִךְ, appears to mean a scribe whose duty it is to catalogue the plunder and administrate its distribution. The word for “prey” (טֶרֶף) appears to be contracted and compounded with the word for scribe, by removing the middle letter of each root.
3:17² מְקוֹמוֹ אַיָּם = place of it where of them = their whereabouts.