Nahum 1:10

10. Nah_1:10 can hardly have been handed down in its original state. It may be rendered much as R.V.: for though (they be like) thorns tangled together and drenched as with their drink, they shall be consumed as stubble fully dry. The Ninevites are compared to a tangled thorn hedge soaked with moisture and thus inaccessible to fire, yet the fire of Jehovah shall consume them as suddenly and completely as if they were the driest stubble. For the sense of though, even to prep. ‘ad cf. Num_8:4; 1Sa_2:5; Hag_2:19; Job_25:5, and for the sense as with cf. Isa_1:25 &c. Of course the words might mean wet or wetted like their drink. It has been usually supposed that in the words “their drink” the prophet refers to the excess and debauchery of the Assyrian court. But a witticism of this sort is altogether improbable. The text is no doubt corrupt. For “drenched as with their drink” Sept. gives “like tangled yew,” or some such plant. The general sense of the text may be conjectured to have been, that though the Ninevites from their strong defences were as unassailable and able to inflict injury as a tangled thorn hedge, they would become the prey of the fire. See a similar comparison to a thorn hedge, Mic_7:4; and on the comparison of enemies or the wicked to thorns, 2Sa_23:6-7; Eze_2:6.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Nah 1:10 For while [they be] folden together [as] thorns, and while they are drunken [as] drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.

Ver. 10. For while they be folden together as thorns] And so can hardly be handled without hurt, God will burn them together in the same place, 2Sa 23:7, as a man puts thorns folden, and that cannot easily be sundered, all together into the fire, where they make a sudden blaze and are extinct. So will God deal with the Ninevites, notwithstanding their carnal combinations and confederacies.

And while they are drunken as drunkards] Who are very quarrelsome, bragging and braving; but may be easily dealt with, and pushed down with one finger.

As stubble fully dry] That hath long lain a sunning, and so is very combustible. The wicked are oft compared to stubble, because good for nothing but the fire; and when fully dry, when ripe for ruin, they shall be fully devoured, as some read the words. Ecquem vero mihi dabis rhetorem, &c., as one saith of another text. But what gallant rhetoric is here! well might God say, Hos 12:10, "I have spoken also by the prophets and used similitudes," &c. (see the note there); here we have three in a breath, and all little enough to work on the hearts of the wicked, who are loth to believe the truth and certainty of God’s threats; but rather bless themselves when God curseth, Deu 29:19.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Although the Assyrians think themselves like thorns that prick on all sides, yet the Lord will set fire on them, and as drunken men are not able to stand against any force, so they shall be nothing able to resist him.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

while they are folden together as thorns--literally, "to the same degree as thorns" (compare Ch1 4:27, Margin). As thorns, so folded together and entangled that they cannot be loosed asunder without trouble, are thrown by the husbandmen all in a mass into the fire, so the Assyrians shall all be given together to destruction. Compare Sa2 23:6-7, where also "thorns" are the image of the wicked. As this image represents the speediness of their destruction in a mass, so that of "drunkards," their rushing as it were of their own accord into it; for drunkards fall down without any one pushing them [KIMCHI]. CALVIN explains, Although ye be dangerous to touch as thorns (that is, full of rage and violence), yet the Lord can easily consume you. But "although" will hardly apply to the next clause. English Version and KIMCHI, therefore, are to be preferred. The comparison to drunkards is appropriate. For drunkards, though exulting and bold, are weak and easily thrown down by even a finger touching them. So the insolent self-confidence of the Assyrians shall precipitate their overthrow by God. The Hebrew is "soaked," or "drunken as with their own wine." Their drunken revelries are perhaps alluded to, during which the foe (according to DIODORUS SICULUS [2]) broke into their city, and Sardanapalus burned his palace; though the main and ultimate destruction of Nineveh referred to by Nahum was long subsequent to that under Sardanapalus.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 10. While they be folden together] However united their counsels may be, they shall be as drunken men-perplexed and unsteady in all their resolutions; and before God's judgments they shall be as dry thorns before a devouring fire.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

He goes on with this same subject, — that Gods when he pleases to exercise his power, can, with no difficulty, consume his enemies: for the similitude, which is here added, means this, — that nothing is safe from God’s vengeance; for by perplexed thorns he understands things difficult to be handled. When thorns are entangled, we dare not, with the ends of our fingers, to touch their extreme parts; for wherever we put our hands, thorns meet and prick us. As then pricking from entangled thorns make us afraid, so none of us dare to come nigh them. Hence the Prophet says, they who are as entangled thorns; that is “However thorny ye may be, however full of poison, full of fury, full of wickedness, full of frauds, full of cruelty, ye may be, still the Lord can with one fire consume you, and consume you without any difficulty.” They were then as entangled thorns.

And then, as drunken by their own drinking. If we read so, the meaning is, — God or God’s wrath will come upon you as on drunker men; who, though they exult in their own intemperance, are yet enervated, and are not fit for fighting, for they have weakened their strength by extreme drinking. There seems indeed to be much vigor in a drunken man, for he swaggers immoderately and foams out much rage; but yet he may be cast down by a finger; and even a child can easily overcome a drunken person. It is therefore an apt similitude, — that God would manage the Assyrians as the drunken are wont to be managed; for the more audacity there is in drunken men, the easier they are brought under; for as they perceive no danger, and are, as it were, stupefied, so they run headlong with greater impetuosity. “In like manners” he says, “extreme satiety will be the cause of your ruin, when I shall attack you. Ye are indeed very violent; but all this your fury is altogether drunkenness: Come, he says, to you shall the vengeance of God as to those drunken with their own drinking

Some render the last words, “To the drunken according to their drinking;” and this sense also is admissible; but as the Prophet’s meaning is still the same, I do not contend about words. Others indeed give to the Prophet’s words a different sense: but I doubt not but that he derides here that haughtiness by which the Assyrians were swollen, and compares it to drunkenness; as though he said, “Ye are indeed more than enough inflated and hence all tremble at your strength; but this your excess rather debilitates and weakens your powers. When God then shall undertake to destroy you as drunken men, your insolence will avail you nothing; but, on the contrary, it will be the cause of your ruin as ye offer yourselves of your own accord; and the Lord will easily cast you down, as when one, by pushing a drunken man, immediately throws him on the ground.”

And these comparisons ought to be carefully observed by us: for when there seems to be no probability of our enemies being destroyed, God can with one spark easily consume them. How so? for as fire consumes thorns entangled together, which no man dares to touch, so God can with one spark destroy all the wicked, however united together they may be. And the other comparison affords us also no small consolation; for when our enemies are insolent, and throw out high swelling words, and seem to frighten and to shake the whole world with their threatening, their excess is like drunkenness; there is no strength within; they are frantic but not strong, as is the case with all drunken men.

And he says, They shall be devoured as stubble of full dryness מלא, mela, means not only to be full, but also to be perfect or complete. Others render the words, “As stubble full of dryness,” but the sense is the same. He therefore intimates, that there would be nothing to prevent God from consuming the enemies of his Church; for he would make dry their whole vigor, so that they would differ nothing from stubble, and that very dry, which is in such a state, that it will easily take fire. It follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(10) For while.—Better, For they shall be even as bundles of thorn fagots, and even while steeped in their drink they shall be burnt up like stubble fully dry. Dry thorn cuttings were commonly used as fuel. (See Psa_58:9; Psa_118:12; Ecc_7:6.) The verse compares the victims of Jehovah’s wrath, first, to a compact bundle of thorn fagots; secondly, to a material equally combustible, the dry straw and stubble of the threshing-floor. With regard to the words “while steeped in their drink,” it may be remarked that in the final siege of Nineveh a great defeat of its forces was effected by a surprise while the king and his captains were sunk in revelry (Diod. Sic. ii. 26). Benhadad, king of Syria, and Belshazzar, king of Babylon, were overcome under similar circumstances (1Ki_1:16; Dan_5:1-30). Feasting and revelry may have gone on in Sennacherib’s camp at the moment when the sudden visitation of the “angel of the Lord” was impending; but on this point we have no information. The introduction of this detail adds to the metaphor a certain grim humour. Soaked in wine though the enemy be, he shall surely burn like driest fuel in the day of Jehovah’s fiery wrath. The opening clause of the verse is beset with difficulties, both grammatical and lexical. Kleinert renders “For in thorns they shall be entangled,” &c.; Ewald and Hitzig, “For even though they be compact as a wickerwork of thorns,” &c.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For while they be folden together as thorns,.... Like them, useless and unprofitable, harmful and pernicious, fit only for burning, and, being bundled together, are prepared for it; and which is not only expressive of the bad qualities of the Ninevites, and of the danger they were in, and what they deserved; but of the certainty of their ruin, no more being able to save themselves from it, than a bundle of thorns from the devouring fire:

and while they are drunken as drunkards; dead drunk, no more able to help themselves than a drunken man that is fallen; or who were as easily thrown down as a drunken man is with the least touch; though there is no need to have recourse to a figurative sense, since the Ninevites were actually drunk when they were attacked by their enemy, as the historian relates (i); that the king of Assyria being elated with his fortune, and thinking himself secure, feasted his army, and gave them large quantities of wine; and while the whole army were indulging themselves, the enemy, having notice of their negligence and drunkenness by deserters, fell upon them unawares in the night, when disordered and unprepared, and made a great slaughter among them, and forced the rest into the city, and in a little time took it:

they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry; as easily, and as inevitably and irrecoverably.

(i) Diodor. Sicul. l. 2. p. 112.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

For while they be leiden together as thorns - that is, as confused, intertwined, sharp, piercing, hard to be touched, rending and tearing whosoever would interfere with its tangled ways, and seemingly compact together and strong; “and while they are drunken as their drink” , not “drinkers” only but literally, “drunken,” swallowed up, as it were, by their drink which they had swallowed, mastered, overcome, powerless, “they shall be derogated as stubble fully dry” , rapidly, in an instant, with an empty crackling sound, unresisting, as having nothing in them which can resist. Historically, the great defeat of the Assyrians, before the capture of Nineveh, took place while its king, flushed with success, was giving himself to listlessness; and having distributed to his soldiers victims, and abundance of wine, and other necessaries for banqueting, the whole army was negligent and drunken.”

In like way Babylon was taken amid the feasting of Belshazzar Dan. 5:1-30; Benhadad was smitten, while “drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty and two kings that helped him” 1Ki 20:16. And so it may well be meant here too, that Sennacherib’s army, secure of their prey, were sunk in revelry, already swallowed up by wine, before they were swallowed up by the pestilence, on the night when the Angel of the Lord went out to smite them, and, from the sleep of revelry, they slept the sleep from which they shall not awake until the Judgment Day. God chooses the last moment of the triumph of the wicked, when he is flushed by his success, the last of the helplessness of the righteous, when his hope can be in the Lord alone, to exchange their lots. “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked comes in his stead” Pro 11:8. Spiritually , “the false fullness of the rich of this world, is real leanness; the greenness of such grass (for all flesh is grass) is real dryness. Marvelous words, “fully dry.” For what is dryness but emptiness?” They are perfected, but in dryness, and so perfectly prepared to be burned up. “The thorns had, as far as in them lay, choked the good seed, and hated the Seed-corn, and now are found, like stubble, void of all seed, fitted only to be burned with fire. For those who feast themselves “without fear is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” Jud 1:12-13.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Dry. The Assyrians, feasting in the hopes that they would speedily become masters of Jerusalem, were cut off in one night. (Worthington) --- God’s enemies cannot escape; as when a thorn bush has taken fire, all must perish, Psalm lvii. 10., and Isaias ix. 18. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

This gives us account how this desolation shall be effected.

While they be folded together as thorns; they should be like thorns easily burnt, and like thorns folden together, which burn together, and help to destroy each other, or are all together cast into the fire.

While they are drunken as drunkards; as men drunken, and unable to help themselves, are easily destroyed, so shall the Assyrians be; or, drunk with pleasures and pride, they shall be surprised, and ruined, and easily overthrown.

They shall be devoured as stubble fully dry: this fully expresseth the speedy, irresistible, and total destruction that the anger of God will bring upon them; as the fire burns up all the dried stubble, so shall the wrath of God destroy the enemies of Israel and of Israel’s God.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

While they be folden together as thorns. The clause is conditional: "Though they be interwined as thorns." Though the Assyrians present an impenetrable front, which seems to defy attack. (For the comparison of a hostile army to briers and thorns, see Isa_10:17 Isa_27:4; Henderson.) And while they are drunken as drunkards; and though they be drunken with their drink, regarding themselves as invincible, and drenched with wine, and given up to luxury and excess. There may be an allusion to the legend current concerning the destruction of Nineveh. Diodorus (Isa_2:2-6) relates that, after the enemy had been thrice repulsed, the King of Nineveh was so elated that he gave himself up to festivity, and allowed all his army to indulge in the utmost licence, and that it was while they were occupied in drunkenness and feasting they were surprised by the Medes under Cyaxares, and their city taken. An account of such a feast, accompanied with sketehes from the monuments, is given in Bonomi, "Nineveh and its Discoveries," p. 187, etc. We may compare the fate of Belshazzar. (Dan_5:1, etc.) They shall be devoured as stubble fully dry; like worthless refuse, fit only for burning. (Isa_5:24 Joe_2:5 Oba_1:18) The LXX renders this verse differently, "Because to its foundation it shall be dried up (cerswyhsetai : redigentur in vepres, Jerome), and as bind weed (smilax) intertwined it shall be devoured, and as stubble fully dry."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

As thorns - They shall be like thorns easily burnt, and like thorns folded together which burn together, and help to destroy each other. As drunkards - As men drunken, and unable to help themselves, so the Assyrians drunk with pleasure and pride, shall be surprised, and easily overthrown.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

For, while the thorns are entangled—I.e., their destruction will come upon them suddenly, and they will not descend from their honor gradually, but while the thorns and the briers are [yet] entangled; i.e., strongly rooted.

and the drunkards are drinking—While they are at their feasts and in their joy. Some interpret כִּי עַד סִירִים as an expression of הֲסָרָה, removal.

they are consumed like dry stubble, fully ripe—Whose ripening has become full and complete, and it has dried out.

fully ripe Heb. מָלֵא; asovir, to be filled, in O.F And so (Exod. 22:28): “Your ripe fruits (מְלֵאָתְךָ)”; (Deut. 22:9) “The ripe fruit (הַמְלֵאָה) of the seed.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.