The Pulpit Commentary — Nahum — Section 45

8 pubUo exBmple,'' which recalls MRtt. i. rlistl\nce or some forty miles hetwMn Erment 19. Bnrl Qobt.. Here, for the first time since Ver. 7.-Bhall llee from thee. Aseu object quitting the NubiBn desert, does the Nile of disgust, or feBring to be in.volverl in thy enter upon a wide 11.nd ample spa.Ge. On ruin (Rev. xviii. 10, 15). Who will bemoa.n either side the hills recede, o.nrl a broad her T No one will pity her for her well- green plain, an alluvium of the riohest de- deserved ehe.stisement (Jer. xv. 5). Whenoe scription, spree.de itself out on both banks of 11hall I !eek, eto.? Truly, nowhere in e.11 the stream, dotted with dom and date palms, the worlrl (comp. Im. Ii. 19). sometimes growing singly, sometimes ool- Yers. 8-13.-§ 2. TIM ruin of Nineveh leeted into clumps or groves. Here, too, there open out on either side, to the east ean be GfJertsd no more than was that of and to tlrn west, lines of route offering grellt No-Amon. lldva.ntages for trade, on the one hcmd with 'Ver. 8.-.&.rt thou better than populon■ the Lesser Oasis and so with the tribes of No! "Better" probably mee.ns here more the African interior, on the other witli. the prosperous, " Popnlous No" ought to be western coast of the Red See. and the spice rendered, No-Am.on, i.e. No of the sole.r region of the opposite shore. In the rnlley god Amon. This is the celebrat.ed Thebes, of Hamme.mi.t, down which pe.ssed the in Upper Egypt, called in Egyptia.n Pa- ancient route to the coast, are abundant Amun, "the House of Amnn," end in the supplies of brecoio, verde and of other valuable inscriptions Ni, which is the same word as and rare kinds of stone, while at no· great No. The name Amon is atte.ched because distance to the right and left of the route lie that god was particularly worshipped there. min~s of gold, silver, and lead, anciently The LXX. has. µepllia. 'Aµµ.lw (" a portion of prolific, though exhausted now for 'many or for Ammon"), translating the word "No.'' ages. Somewhat more_ remote,· yet readily St. Jerome, misled by his Hebrew teacher, accessible by e. frequented route, was·• the renders, " Alexandria populorum," as if emerald region of Gebel Zabe.ra, where the Thebes stood on the site of the much later mines a.re still worked" (Rawlinson;' Ancient city of Aiexandria; whereas we see from Egypt,' ii. 124, eto.). Thebes was situateil A.."llurbauipe.l's annals that be was forty on both banks of the Nile, the principal days marching from Memphis, where he de- portion lying on the east: the Necropolis feated Rude.mmon, to Thebes (see G. Smith, and Memnonia. were on the west. It seems • Assurbanipe.l,' p. 55). On the grandeur Q,D.d never to ho.ve been surrounded with e. we.11 magnificence of this city, Denon (quoted by (notwithstanding its "hundred gates"), the Ruwlino0n, • Ancient Monarchies,' i 309, river and cane.ls forming e. sufficient defence. note 7), writes, "On est fatigue d'ecrire, on At the present time the ruins a.re some est fatigue de lire, on est epouvante de le. twenty-se\"en miles in circuit, including pensee d'nne telle conception: on ne pent Lw::or and the remains of the gree.t temple croire, meme apres l'a.voir vu, e. le. realite de e.t Ka.ma.k. The see.. The Nile formed its )'existence de ta.nt de constructions reunies rampart. Great rivers a.re ea.lied seo.H in the snr un meme point, a lenrs dimensions, e. le. poetice.l books. Thus Isa. xix. 5; xxvii. constanre -obstinee q u'e. exigee lenr fabrica- I; Jer. Ii 36. B:er wall was from the sea·; tion, uw:: depenses ince.lcul&bles de tant de or, of the sea. The see. was her we.II. Sep- sowptuosite" (' Egypte,' ii 226). "In the tuagint, f!B"'P .-a .-.CX'I ..~..iis, "water her long and rich va.Uey of the Lower Nile, which walls.'' extends above five hundred miles from Syene Ver. 9.-Ethiopia and Egypt were her to Memphis, almost any situation might strength, Urdo.maneh, or Rudammon, in furnish a site for e. great city, since, except whose time this capture of No-Amon took at Silsilis and at the Gebelein, the valley place, was son e.nd su~.cessor of '.l'irhn.kah, is never less than two miles wide, the soil is who ia called expressly King of Ethiopia. e.lway~ fertile, good qURrries are always at (2 Kings xix. 9; Isa. xuvii. 9). Egypt hand, anrl lavish N e.tnre is so bounteous with The Egyptians proper, combined with the her gifts that abundant susteua.nce can at Ethiopians, formed the kingdom of Egypt nny poillt be obtained for a large population. under the twenty-fifth, the Ethiopian, But in this wee.Ith of eligible sites, there dynasty. And it we.a infinite. The power are still degrees of eligibiiity-spots which of Egypt was boundless, its forces in- Nature has distinguished by specie.I favour, numerable (see 2 Chron. xii. 3). Pusey e.ud, a.,; it were, marked out for greatness and notes e. remark of Ca.to (in Steph. Byze.nt. celebrity. Such a position is that which e.p. Boch., iv. 27) that the Egyptians con~ the traveller reaches when, passing through nected with 'fhebes a.mounted to seven the gorge of the Gehelein, he emerges upon millioca. In Isa. xviii.-xx. Ethiopia and the magnificent pie.in, at least ten miles in Egypt are represented as combined age.inst width, through which the river !lows with Assyria, and conquered by it (Wordsworth). a coune from south-west to north-east for a Septuagint, 0/11, foTr, · wlpus -rijs qwyiis, CH. Ill. 1-19.] THE IlOOK OF NA HUM.