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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.

And thy princes are as locusts: this refers to the wicked doings, by which they laid waste almost the whole earth. As then the locusts and chafers, wherever they come, consume every kind of food, devour all the fields, leave nothing, and the whole land becomes a waste; so also have been thy princes; they have been as locusts and thy leaders as the locusts of locusts, that is, as very great locusts; for this form, we know, expresses the superlative degree in Hebrew. Their leaders were then like the most voracious locusts for the whole land was made barren by them, as nothing was capable of satisfying their avarice and voracity.

The Prophet then adds, They are locusts, who dwell in the mounds during the time of cold; but when the sun rises, not known any more is their place He now shows, that it would not be perpetual, that the Ninevites would thus devour the whole earth, and that all countries would be exposed to their voracity; for as the locusts, he says, hide themselves in caverns, and afterwards fly away, so it shall happen to thy princes. But this passage may be taken to mean, — that the Ninevites concealed themselves in their hiding-places during the winter, and that when the suitable time for plundering came, they retook themselves in different directions, and took possession of various regions, and brought home plunder from the remotest parts. This meaning may be elicited from the words of the Prophet; and the different clauses would thus fitly coalesce together, that when the Ninevites left their nests, they dispersed and migrated in all directions. I do not at the same time disapprove of the former meaning: they are then like locusts, who lodge in mounds during the time of cold; but when the sun rises, — that is, when the season invites them, (for he speaks not of the winter sun,) but when the heat of the sun prevails and temperate the air, — then, he says, the locusts go forth and fly away, and known no more is their place He means, in short, that the Ninevites plundered, and that they did so after the manner of locusts; and that a similar end also was nigh them; for the Lord would destroy them, yea, suddenly consume them, so that no trace of them could be found. It follows —