Keil & Delitzsch on Nahum 3:1

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

The city of blood will have the shame, which it has inflicted upon the nations, repaid to it by a terrible massacre. The prophet announces this with the woe which opens the last section of this threatening prophecy. Nah 3:1. "Woe to the city of blood! She all full of deceit and murder; the prey departs not." ‛Ir dâmı̄m, city of drops of blood, i.e., of blood shed, or of murders. This predicate is explained in the following clauses: she all full of lying and murder. Cachash and pereq are asyndeton, and accusatives dependent upon מלאה. Cachash, lying and deceit: this is correctly explained by Abarbanel and Strauss as referring to the fact that "she deceived the nations with vain promises of help and protection." Pereq, tearing in pieces for murder, - a figure taken from the lion, which tears its prey in pieces ( Psa 7:3). לא ימישׁ, the prey does not depart, never fails. Mūsh: in the hiphil here, used intransitively, "to depart," as in Exo 13:22; Psa 55:12, and not in a transitive sense, "to cause to depart," to let go; for if ‛ı̄r (the city) were the subject, we should have tâmı̄sh. Nahum 3:2

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