Nahum 3:6-8

The Voice

⁶    I’ll throw all your own filth on you.
        I’ll treat you with contempt and make a humiliating public display of you.
⁷    Then the whole world will turn its back on you and flee, saying,
        “Poor, pitiful Nineveh—you are totally ruined.”
    Is there anyone who will sympathize with you?
        Where will I find anyone to comfort you?

Nahum expresses God’s sentiment against Nineveh, and it is not attractive! The prophet uses graphic images to show how angry God truly is. If showing the nakedness of the Assyrian people to the nations is not demoralizing enough, then the shame of God throwing excrement at His enemies is unmistakable. The indignity of being stripped naked and covered in filth is the fullest expression of God’s rejection. While these images are disturbing, they are also typical of how powerful enemies, such as the armies of Nineveh, have treated their victims. Now the table is turned; the victor is now the victim. There is no one to comfort the Assyrian people: they are without a prophet; they are without a poet; they are without hope.

⁸Are you any stronger than the city of Thebes^[a] in its glory days?
Sitting at the edge of the Nile, its waters created a moat of protection on one side of her.
The Red Sea was a perfect defense against her eastern enemies,
As good as the protection of a wall.