Nahum 1-3
Complete Jewish Bible
1 This is a prophecy about Ninveh, the book of the vision of Nachum the Elkoshi:
2 Adonai is a jealous and vengeful God.
Adonai avenges; he knows how to be angry.
Adonai takes vengeance on his foes
and stores up wrath for his enemies.
3 Adonai is slow to anger, but great in power;
and he does not leave the guilty unpunished.
Adonai’s path is in the whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and leaves it dry,
he dries up all the rivers.
Bashan and the Karmel languish;
the flower of the L’vanon withers.
5 The mountains quake before him,
and the hills dissolve;
the earth collapses in his presence,
the world and everyone living in it.
6 Who can withstand his fury?
Who can endure his fierce anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
the rocks broken to pieces before him.
7 Adonai is good,
a stronghold in time of trouble;
he takes care of those
who take refuge in him.
8 But with an overwhelming flood
he will make an end of [Ninveh’s] place,
and darkness will pursue his enemies.
9 What are you planning against Adonai?
He is making an end [of it];
trouble will not arise a second time.
10 For like men drunk with liquor,
they will be burned up like tangled thorns,
like straw completely dry.
11 Out of you, [Ninveh,] he came,
one who plots evil against Adonai,
who counsels wickedness.
12 Here is what Adonai says:
“Though they be many and strong,
they will be cut down, they will pass;
and though I have made you suffer,
I will make you suffer no more.
13 Now I will break his yoke from your necks
and snap the chains that bind you.
14 Adonai gave this order concerning you:
you will have no descendants to bear your name;
from the house of your god I will cut off
carved image and cast metal image;
I will prepare your grave,
because you are worthless.”
2 (1:15) Look! On the mountains are the feet
of him who brings good news, proclaiming shalom.
Keep your festivals, Y’hudah, fulfill your vows;
for B’liya‘al will never pass through you again;
he has been completely destroyed.
2 (1) A destroyer has risen in front of your face;
guard the ramparts, keep watch on the road,
brace yourselves, marshall all your strength.
3 (2) For Adonai is restoring the pride of Ya‘akov,
along with the pride of Isra’el;
because plunderers have plundered them
and ravaged their vines.
4 (3) The shields of [Ninveh’s] warriors are [dyed] red;
the soldiers are wearing scarlet.
The steel of the chariots flashes like fire
as they prepare for battle.
The cypress [spears] are poisoned.
5 (4) The chariots rush madly about in the streets,
jostling each other in the open places;
their appearance is like torches,
they run here and there like lightning.
6 (5) [The king of Ninveh] assigns his officers;
they stumble as they march;
they hurry to its wall and set up shields
to protect the battering ram.
7 (6) The gates of the rivers are opened,
and the palace melts away.
8 (7) Its mistress is stripped and carried away;
her handmaids moan, they sound like doves,
as they beat their breasts.
9 (8) Ninveh is like a pool whose water ebbs away.
“Stop! Stop!” But none of it goes back.
10 (9) Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!
There is no end to the treasure,
weighed down with precious things.
11 (10) She is void, vacant; she is made bare.
Hearts are melting, knees are knocking;
every stomach is churning,
every face is drained of color.
12 (11) What has become of the lion’s den,
the cave where the young lions fed,
where lion and lioness walked with their cubs,
and no one made them afraid?
13 (12) The lion would tear up food for his cubs
and strangle prey for his lionesses;
he used to fill his caves with prey,
his lairs with torn flesh.
14 (13) “I am against you,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
“Her chariots I will send up in smoke,
the sword will consume your lion cubs,
I will destroy your prey from the earth,
and your envoys’ voices will be heard no more.”
3 Woe to the city of blood, steeped in lies,
full of prey, with no end to the plunder!
2 The crack of the whip! The rattle of wheels!
Galloping horses, jolting chariots,
3 cavalry charging, swords flashing,
spears glittering —
and hosts of slain, heaps of bodies;
there is no end to the corpses;
they stumble over their corpses.
4 “Because of the continual whoring of this whore,
this alluring mistress of sorcery,
who sells nations with her whoring
and families with her sorcery;
5 I am against you,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
“I will uncover your skirts on your face;
I will show the nations your private parts
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will pelt you with disgusting filth,
disgrace you and make a spectacle of you.
7 Then all who see you will recoil from you;
they will say, ‘Ninveh is destroyed!’
Who will mourn for her?
Where can I find people to comfort you?”
8 Are you any better than No-Amon,
located among the streams of the Nile,
with water all around her,
the flood her wall of defense?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt gave her boundless strength,
Put and Luvim were there to help you.
10 Still she went captive into exile,
her infants torn to pieces at every streetcorner.
Lots were drawn for her nobles,
and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You too, [Ninveh,] will be drunk;
your senses completely overcome.
You too will seek a refuge
from the enemy.
12 All your fortifications will be
like fig trees with early ripening figs;
the moment they are shaken, they fall
into the mouth of the eater.
13 Look at your troops! They behave like women!
Your country’s gates are wide open to your foes;
fire has consumed their bars.
14 Draw water for the siege!
Strengthen your fortifications!
Go down in the clay, tread the mortar,
Take hold of the mold for bricks!
15 There the fire will burn you up;
and the sword will cut you down;
it will devour you like grasshoppers.
Make yourselves as many as grasshoppers,
Make yourselves as many as locusts!
16 You had more merchants than stars in the sky.
The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
17 Your guards are like grasshoppers,
your marshals like swarms of locusts,
which settle on the walls on a cold day,
but when the sun rises they fly away;
they vanish to no one knows where.
18 Your shepherds are slumbering, king of Ashur.
Your leaders are asleep.
Your people are scattered all over the mountains,
with no one to round them up.
19 Your wound cannot be healed.
Your injury is fatal.
Everyone hearing the news about you
claps his hands in joy over you.
For who has not been overwhelmed
by your relentless cruelty?
Nachum 1-3
Orthodox Jewish Bible
1 The burden concerning Nineveh. The sefer chazon (book of the vision) of Nachum of Elkosh.
2 A jealous G-d and taking vengeance is Hashem; an avenger is Hashem, Ba’al Chemah (L-rd of Wrathful Fury); Hashem will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies.
3 Hashem is slow to anger, and great in ko’ach, and will not at all leave the guilty unpunished; Hashem hath His way in the whirlwind and in the tempest, and the anan (clouds) are the dust of His feet.
4 Hashem rebuketh the yam, and drieth it up, and maketh all the neharot (rivers) run dry; Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of the Levanon fadeth.
5 The mountains quake before Hashem, and the hills melt away, and ha’aretz heaveth at His presence, yea, tevel (the world), and all that dwell therein.
6 Who can stand before Hashem’s fury? And who can endure His charon af (burning anger, see Ro 1:18)? His chemah (wrath) is poured out like eish (fire) and the tzurim (rocks) are rent in pieces before Him.
7 Hashem is tov, a maoz (stronghold) in the Yom Tzarah; and Hashem knoweth them that take refuge in Him.
8 But with an overwhelming flood He will make an utter end of her [Nineveh’s] site, and Hashem shall pursue His enemies into choshech.
9 Whatever plot ye against Hashem, Hashem will make an utter end of anyone doing it; tzarah (affliction) will not arise a second time.
10 For while they be twisted together as sirim (thorns), and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.
11 There is one come out of thee [see 1:1], that imagineth evil against Hashem, a yo’etz Beliya’al (a counselor of Beliya’al [i.e., Sennacherib]).
12 Thus saith Hashem: Though they are strong, and likewise rabbim, yet shall they thus be cut down, and he [the Assyrian] shall pass away. Though I have afflicted thee [O Yehudah], I will afflict thee no more.
13 For now will I break his motah (yoke) from off thee, and will break thy fetters in pieces.
14 And Hashem hath given a command concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown [i.e., to perpetuate his name]; out of the bais of thy g-ds will I cut off the pesel (graven image) and the molten image; I prepare thy kever (grave); for thou art vile.
15 (2:1) Hinei, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth Besorah (Good News), that publisheth Shalom! O Yehudah, keep thy chagim, fulfill thy nedarim; for the Beliya’al shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.
2 (2:2) A shatterer [Nineveh’s overpowering enemy] is come up before thy face, [O Nineveh]; guard thy fortress, watch the derech, fortify thy loins, marshal all thy koach (power).
2 (2:3) For Hashem is about to restore the eminence of Ya’akov, like the eminence of Yisroel; for plunderers have plundered them, and made their vine branches as shachat.
3 (2:4) The mogen (shield) of his gibborim is made red, the anshei chayil (valiant men) are in scarlet; the chariot shall flash like fire in the day of its array, and the spears shall be brandished.
4 (2:5) The chariot shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the rechovot, they shall seem like flaming torches, they shall dart about like the lightnings.
5 (2:6) He [the Assyrian king] shall remember his mighty ones; they stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to the chomah (wall) of it [Nineveh], and the defense shall be prepared.
6 (2:7) The sha’arei haneharot (the gates of the rivers) shall be thrown open, and the heikhal (palace) reels.
7 (2:8) Her [Nineveh’s] golus (exile) is decreed, she shall be carried away, her slave girls moaning like the kol yonim (voice of doves), beating their breasts.
8 (2:9) But Nineveh is like a pool of mayim; and her mayim is draining away. Stop, stop, shall they cry; but no one turns back.
9 (2:10) Take ye the plunder of kesef, take the plunder of zahav; for there is no end of the treasures, heaps of kol keli chemdah (every delightful vessel).
10 (2:11) She is empty, and void, and stripped; and the lev melteth, and the knees give way, bodies tremble, and the faces of them all grow pale.
11 (2:12) Where is the ma’on arayot (den of lions), and the feeding place of the young lions, where the aryeh, even the lioness, walked with their cubs, and none made them afraid?
12 (2:13) The aryeh did tear in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his lairs with prey, and his dens with torn flesh.
13 (2:14) Hineni, I am against thee [O Nineveh], saith Hashem Tzva’os, and I will burn your chariots in the smoke, and the cherev shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy prey from ha’aretz, and the voice of thy malachim (messengers) shall no more be heard.
3 Hoy (woe) to the ir damim (bloody city)! It is all full of lies and booty; no end to the plunder;
2 The crack of the shot (whip), and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing susim, and of the jolting merkavah (chariot);
3 The parash (horsemen, cavalry) charging, the flash of the cherev and the glittering spear; and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of dead bodies; and there is no end of their geviyot (corpses); they stumble over their geviyot;
4 Because of the multitude of the harlotries of the alluring zonah, the ba’alat keshafim (the mistress of sorceries), that enslaveth Goyim through her prostitutions, and mishpochot through her keshafim;
5 Hineni, I am against thee, saith Hashem Tzva’os; and I will lift thy skirts over thy faces, and I will show the Goyim thy nakedness, and the mamlachot thy shame.
6 And I (Hashem) will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee contemptibly vile, and will make thee a spectacle.
7 And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is in ruins; who will bemoan her? From where shall I seek menachamim (comforters) for thee?
8 Art thou better than No Amon (Thebes), that was situated on the Nile, that had the mayim round about it, whose rampart was the yam, and her waters were her chomah?
9 Ethiopia and Mitzrayim were her strength, and it was boundless; Put and Luvim (Libya) were her allies.
10 Yet she went into golus, she went into captivity; her olalim also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets; and they cast goral (lots) for her honorable men, and all her gedolim were bound in chains.
11 Thou also shalt be drunken, thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek maoz from the enemy.
12 All thy strongholds shall be like te’enim (fig trees) with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the peh (mouth) of the ochel (eater).
13 Hinei, thy troops in the midst of thee are nashim (women); the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies; the eish shall devour thy (gate) bars.
14 Draw thee water for the matzor (siege), fortify thy strongholds, go unto clay, and tread the mortar, repair the brickwork.
15 There shall the eish devour thee, the cherev shall consume thee, it shall eat thee up like the grasshopper. Make thyself many as the grasshopper, make thyself many as the arbeh (locust).
16 Thou hast multiplied thy merchants more than the kokhavim of HaShomayim; but, like the locust, they strip the land, then fly away.
17 Thy commanders are as the swarming locusts, and thy officials as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges on a cold day, but when the shemesh ariseth they flee away, and their place is whereabouts unknown.
18 Thy ro’im (shepherds) slumber, O melech of Asshur (Assyria); thy nobles shall dwell in the dust; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.
19 There is no healing of thy shever (fracture, injury); thy wound is grievous; all that hear the news of thee shall clap their hands over thy fall; for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed tamid (continually)?
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2011 by Artists for Israel International