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3. Woe to Nineveh

¹ Woe to the city of blood,
   full of lies,
full of plunder,
   never without victims!
² The crack of whips,
   the clatter of wheels,
galloping horses
   and jolting chariots!
³ Charging cavalry,
   flashing swords
   and glittering spears!
Many casualties,
   piles of dead,
bodies without number,
   people stumbling over the corpses—
⁴ all because of the wanton lust of a prostitute,
   alluring, the mistress of sorceries,
who enslaved nations by her prostitution
   and peoples by her witchcraft.

    ⁵ “I am against you,” declares the LORD Almighty.
   “I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness
   and the kingdoms your shame.
⁶ I will pelt you with filth,
   I will treat you with contempt
   and make you a spectacle.
⁷ All who see you will flee from you and say,
   ‘Nineveh is in ruins—who will mourn for her?’
   Where can I find anyone to comfort you?”

    ⁸ Are you better than Thebes,
   situated on the Nile,
   with water around her?
The river was her defense,
   the waters her wall.
⁹ Cush That is, the upper Nile region and Egypt were her boundless strength;
   Put and Libya were among her allies.
¹⁰ Yet she was taken captive
   and went into exile.
Her infants were dashed to pieces
   at every street corner.
Lots were cast for her nobles,
   and all her great men were put in chains.
¹¹ You too will become drunk;
   you will go into hiding
   and seek refuge from the enemy.

    ¹² All your fortresses are like fig trees
   with their first ripe fruit;
when they are shaken,
   the figs fall into the mouth of the eater.
¹³ Look at your troops—
   they are all weaklings.
The gates of your land
   are wide open to your enemies;
   fire has consumed the bars of your gates.

    ¹⁴ Draw water for the siege,
   strengthen your defenses!
Work the clay,
   tread the mortar,
   repair the brickwork!
¹⁵ There the fire will consume you;
   the sword will cut you down—
   they will devour you like a swarm of locusts.
Multiply like grasshoppers,
   multiply like locusts!
¹⁶ You have increased the number of your merchants
   till they are more numerous than the stars in the sky,
but like locusts they strip the land
   and then fly away.
¹⁷ Your guards are like locusts,
   your officials like swarms of locusts
   that settle in the walls on a cold day—
but when the sun appears they fly away,
   and no one knows where.

    ¹⁸ King of Assyria, your shepherds That is, rulers slumber;
   your nobles lie down to rest.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
   with no one to gather them.
¹⁹ Nothing can heal you;
   your wound is fatal.
All who hear the news about you
   clap their hands at your fall,
for who has not felt
   your endless cruelty?

When he says, כל-ראיך, cal-raik, ‘whosoever sees thee,’ we hence learn again that רואי, ruai, at the end of the last verse, is to be taken for example or spectacle; for the Prophet proceeds with the same subject: I will make thee, he says, an example, or a spectacle. — For what purpose? that whosoever sees thee may depart from thee ²⁴²²⁴² Literally, “Every one of thy seers shall hasten from thee.” — Ed. And it was an evidence of horror, though some think it to have been a reward for her cruelty, that no one came to Nineveh, but that she was forsaken by all friends in her desolation. And they take in the same sense what follows, Who will condole with her? and whence shall I seek comforters for thee? For they think that the Ninevites are here reproached for their cruelty, because they made themselves so hated by all that they were unworthy of sympathy; for they spared none, they allowed themselves full liberty in injuring others, they had gained the hatred of all the world. Hence some think that what is here intimated is, that the Ninevites were justly detested by and so that no one condoled with them in so great a calamity, inasmuch as they had been injurious to all: “It shall then happen, that whosoever sees thee shall go far away from thee and shall say, Wasted is Nineveh; who will condole with her? Whence shall I call comforters to her?”

But I know not whether this refined meaning came into the Prophet’s mind. We may explain the words more simply, that all would flee far away as a proof of their horrors and that the calamity would be such, that no lamentation would correspond with it. Who will be able to console with her? that is, were the greatness of her calamity duly weighed, though all were to weep and utter their meanings, it would not yet be sufficient: all lamentations would be far unequal to so great a calamity. The Prophet seems rather to mean this. Who then shall condole with her? and whence shall I seek comforters, as though he said, “The ruin of so splendid a city will not be of an ordinary kind, but what cannot be equaled by any lamentations.” It then follows —