[270] ii. 2 goes with the previous chapter. See above, pp. 94 f.
[271] ii. 13, iii. 5.
[272] See above, Vol. I., Chap. IV., especially pp. 54 ff.
[273] ii. 8.
[274] _Isaiah xl.—lxvi._ (Expositor’s Bible), pp. 197 ff.
[275] Read מַפֵּץ with Wellhausen (cf. Siegfried-Stade’s _Wörterbuch_, sub פּוּץ) for מֵפִיץ, _Breaker in pieces_. In Jer. li. 20 Babylon is also called by Jehovah His מַפֵּץ, _Hammer_ or _Maul_.
[276] _Keep watch_, Wellhausen.
[277] This may be a military call to attention, the converse of “Stand at ease!”
[278] Heb. literally: _brace up thy power exceedingly_.
[279] Heb. singular.
[280] Rev. ix. 17. Purple or red was the favourite colour of the Medes. The Assyrians also loved red.
[281] Read כאשׁ for באשׁ.
[282] פלדות, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur elsewhere. LXX. ἡνίαι; Vulg. _habenæ_. Some have thought that it means _scythes_—cf. the Arabic _falad_, “to cut”—but the earliest notice of chariots armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish literature they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias, _op. cit._, p. 97, where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum are applicable to the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian monuments, from which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf. _ibid._, p. 167, n. ***. But from the parallelism of the verse it is more probable that ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots were covered with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p. 167).
[283] So LXX., reading פרשים for ברשים of Heb. text, that means _fir-trees_. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose with Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were meant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls by engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be the cavalry and chariots in the open that are here described.
[284] Or _broad places_ or _suburbs_. See above, pp. 100 f.
[285] See above, p. 106, end of n. 282.
[286] Heb. _They stumble in their goings._ Davidson holds this is more probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the besiegers. See next note.
[287] הסֹּכֵךְ. Partic. of the verb _to cover_, hence covering thing: whether _mantlet_ (on the side of the besiegers) or _bulwark_ (on the side of the besieged: cf. מָסָךְ, Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain. Billerbeck says, if it be an article of defence, we can read ver. 5 as illustrating the vanity of the hurried defence, when the elements themselves break in vv. 6 and 7 (p. 101: cf. p. 176, n. *).
[288] _Sluices_ (Jeremias) or _bridge-gates_ (Wellhausen)?
[289] Or _breaks into motion_, i.e. _flight_.
[290] הֻצּב, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of נצב and has been taken to mean _it is determined, she_ (Niniveh) _is taken captive_. Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: _it is settled_. LXX. ὑπόστασις = מצב. Vulg. _miles_ (as if some form of צבא?). Hitzig points it הַצָּב, _the lizard_, Wellhausen _the toad_. But this noun is masculine (Lev. xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other הַצָּב, fem., the _litter_ or _palanquin_ (Isa. lxvi. 20): “in lieu of anything better one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the woman or lady, just as in Arab. ḍḥa’inah means a woman’s litter and then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of הַצְּבי, _the beauty_. The Targ. has מלכתא, _the queen_. From as early as at least 1527 (_Latina Interpretatio_ Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of scholars as a proper name, Huṣṣab. So Ewald and others. It may be an Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is corrupt.