Nahum 3:6

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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כְּרֹֽאִי

rŏʼîy

H7210

“like/as · appearance”

Preposition + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 5× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 16:13

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H7200

TWOT: 2095f

looking, appearance, seeing, sight - seeing - appearance - sight, spectacle

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is כְּרֹֽאִי appearance H7210 — appearing just 5 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

כְּרֹֽאִי appearance H7210 occurs in 5 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
2 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וְהִשְׁלַכְתִּ֥י Hiphil · Perfect
וְנִבַּלְתִּ֑יךְ Piel · Perfect
וְשַׂמְתִּ֖יךְ Qal · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 17 words from the Hebrew and 20 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Nahum 3:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Malachi 2:9 "Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.
Job 9:31 Yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes shall abhor me.
Psalms 38:5–7 My wounds are loathsome and corrupt, Because of my foolishness.
Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.
Job 30:8 They are children of fools, yes, children of base men. They were flogged out of the land.
Nahum 1:14 Yahweh has commanded concerning you: "No more descendants will bear your name. Out of the house of your gods, will I cut off the engraved image and the molten image. I will make your grave, for you are vile."
1 Corinthians 4:9 For, I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.
Hebrews 10:33 partly, being exposed to both reproaches and oppressions; and partly, becoming partakers with those who were treated so.

1 Kings 9:7–8 then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have made holy for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.
Job 30:19 He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes.
Isaiah 14:16–19 Those who see you shall gaze at you, they shall consider you, [saying], "Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms;
Lamentations 3:16 He has also broken my teeth with gravel stones; he has covered me with ashes.
Zephaniah 2:15 This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, "I am, and there is none besides me." How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.
Malachi 2:2 If you will not listen, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name," says Yahweh of Hosts, "then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart.
1 Corinthians 4:13 Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.
Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, having, in the same way as these, given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Nahum 3:6 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְהִשְׁלַכְתִּ֥י עָלַ֛יִךְ שִׁקֻּצִ֖ים וְנִבַּלְתִּ֑יךְ וְשַׂמְתִּ֖יךְ כְּרֹֽאִי

I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Nahum 3:6 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἐπιῥίπτω ἐπί σύ βδελυγμός κατά ὁ ἀκαθαρσία σύ καί τίθημι σύ εἰς παράδειγμα

And I will cast abominable filth upon you according to your unclean ways, and will make you a public example.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, Trapp's Complete Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וְאֶרְמֵי עֲלָךְ שִׁקוּצִין וַאֲנַבְּלִינֵיךְ וַאֲשַׁוִינֵיךְ מְכַעֲרָא לְעֵינֵי כָל חָזָךְ:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Nahum 3:6 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Nah 3:6 And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.

Ver. 6. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee] As they do chamber pots and worse upon harlots that are carted. I have read of a heathen people that put the adulterers’ and adulteresses’ heads into the paunch of a beast, where all the filth lieth, and so stifled them to death.

And make thee vile] Conspurcabo, deturpabo te, I will bespattle thee and make thee stink above ground, as loathsome carrion doth: so the word signifieth. It was long since complained of by one of her own sons, that the stench of the Church of Rome was gone up to heaven. And by another, that of gold she was become silver, of silver iron, of iron earth, superesse ut in stercus abiret, and now there remained no more, but that she should be looked upon as dung. Accordingly it followeth:

And I will set thee as a gazingstock] The Septuagint render it, for an example (εις παραδειγμα), others, a lookingglass, but Calvin (after R. Salomon and Aben Ezra), ponam te quasi stercus, I will set thee as dung, which men gladly look beside. Luther rendereth it Ponam te in terriculamentum, I will make thee a bugbear. All this was done to Nineveh, that great city, and all was done by God, not by fate or fortune, or any necessity of nature, that states and kingdoms must have their times and their turns, their rise and their ruin, as politicians dote.

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.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

cast abominable filth upon thee--as infamous harlots used to be treated.

gazing stock--exposed to public ignominy as a warning to others (Eze 28:17).

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

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 6. I will cast abominable filth upon thee] I will set thee as a gazing-stock. This was a punishment precisely like our pillory. They put such women in the pillory as a gazing-stock; and then, children and others threw mud, dirt, and filth of all kinds at them.

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

John Calvin's Commentaries

He afterwards adds, I will besprinkle thee with filth, or defilements. The Prophet still alludes to the similitude of a harlot, who is well and sumptuously adorned, and by her charms captivates the eyes of all: but when any one takes mire and filth from the middle of the road, and bespatters her with it, there is then no one who will not turn away his eyes from so filthy an object. But we have already explained the import of this. God is indeed said to besprinkle kingdoms with defilements, when he casts them down; for they all begin freely to express their opinion: and those who before pretended great admiration, now rise up and bring forth many reproachful things. Then it is, that the Lord is said to besprinkle great kingdoms with filth and defilements.

He then adds, I will disgrace thee נבל, nubel, is to fall, and it is applied to dead bodies; but it means also to disgrace, as it is to be taken here. I will make thee as the dung Some think רואי, ruai, to be dung, or something fetid: but as it comes from ראה, rae, to see, and is in many parts of Scripture taken for vision or view, they are more correct, in my judgment, who render it thus, I will make thee an example; so Jerome renders it; as though he said, “Thou shalt be a spectacle to all nations.” And Nineveh is said to be made an example, because its ruin was more memorable than that of any other which had previously happened. Thou shalt then be a spectacle; that is, the calamity which I now denounce shall attract the observation of all. It afterwards 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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

6. make thee vile] Jer_14:21 disgrace not the throne of thy glory! Deu_32:15; Mic_7:6. The idea that the word originally meant to cast corpses upon, seems baseless.

a gazing-stock] Eze_28:17-18; Mat_1:19; 1Co_4:9.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

And I will cast abominable filth upon thee,.... As dirt and dung, or any or everything that is abominable and filthy; and which is thrown at harlots publicly disgraced, and as used to be at persons when carted. The meaning is, that this city and its inhabitants should be stripped of everything that was great and glorious in them, and should be reduced to the utmost shame and ignominy:

and make thee vile: mean, abject, contemptible, the offscouring of all things; rejected and disesteemed of all; had in no manner of repute or account, but in the utmost abhorrence:

and I will set thee as a gazingstock; to be looked and laughed at: or, "for an example" (e); to others, that they may shun the evils and abominations Nineveh had been guilty of, or expect the same disgrace and punishment. Kimchi interprets it "as dung" (f); to be no more reckoned of than that, or to be made a dunghill of; and so many others interpret it; or, "for a looking glass" (g); that others may look into, and take warning, and avoid the sins that have brought on such calamities.

(e) , Sept.; "in exemplum", Drusius, Tarnovius; "sicut spectacalum", Burkius. (f) "Tanquam stercus", Munster, Montanus, Vatablus, Calvin, Cocceius. (g) "Ut speculum", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Quistorpius.

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

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And I will cast abominable filth upon thee - Alb.: “like a weight, that what thou wouldest not take heed to as sin, thou mayest feel in punishment.” “Abominable things had God seen” Jer 13:27 in her doings; with abominable things would he punish her. Man would fain sin, and forget it as a thing past. “God maketh him to possess the iniquities of his youth” Job 13:26, and binds them around him, so that they make him to appear what they are, “vile” (compare Wisd. 4:18), “These things hast thou done and I kept silence; - I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes. And will set thee as a gazing-stock” Psa 50:21, that all, while they gaze at thee, take warning from thee (compare 2Ch 7:20). “I will cast thee to the ground; before kings will I give thee, for them to gaze upon thee” Eze 28:17. : “Whoever does not amend on occasion of others, others shall be amended on occasion of him.”

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

I will cast, by the Chaldean and Medish army, which God will stir up against the Assyrian monarchy,

abominable filth upon thee; as is done to lewd women.

Make thee vile: Nineveh had made herself morally evil and vile by sinning; now she shall be made penally rite.

And will set thee, O Nineveh, as a gazingstock; at which they shall wonder and be astonished, some shall take warning too: so Sennacherib’s tomb was a standing monument to put men in mind that God is to be feared, and that men looking on it may reflect on their insolence, and decline it. So Sennacherib’s tomb-stone with his statue, of which Nah 1:14.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

The metaphor is continued. Nineveh shall be like a vile woman exposed to the insults and ill treatment of the rabble. (comp. Eze_16:37, etc.) A gazing-stock. That all may see thee and take warning. LXX, eiv paradeigma , "for a public example," which recalls Mat_1:19.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

detestable things—Filthy garments, which make you detestable. Scripture speaks according to the topic, for he [Nahum] compared her [Nineveh] to a harlot.

like dung Heb. כְּרֹאִי. Like dung, an expression like (Lev. 1:16) “And he shall remove its crop (מֻרְאָתוֹ) with its intestines.”

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.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Nahum, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is rŏʼîy (“appearance”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word rŏʼîy carries the sense “appearance.” How does it shape the verse?
Genesis 16:13 shares the word «appearance» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «וְהִשְׁלַכְתִּ֥י» is Hiphil Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Jamieson, Fausset & Brown read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.