The Pulpit Commentary — Nahum — Section 55

and dark-blue clonks, embroidery, brocades, and these conveyed in chests of cedar; her metallurgy was on principles recognized now; iu one practical point of combining beaut~· "·ith strength she has ever been copied" (Pusey on 'Nahum,' p. 394). 2. Vast military resources. (Ver. 17,) "Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy c:tptains as the great p:rasshoppers." By the term here rendered "crowned" 8ome have understood E<ub,,rdin,i.te princes (see Sennacherib's boa.~t, Isa.. x. 8), and by "captains" military officers; but it has been urged with force that snch interpretations hardly agree with the comparison to locusts, the number of vassal princes and military officers being comparatively small; and that probably the terms a.re technical for certain classes of the soldiery (Keil and Delitzsch, in Zoe.). The comparison of these to the locusts and grasshoppers indicates the vast hosts of warriors Assyria could command in her expeditions. S. Influential, rounsellors and rommanders. (Ver. 18.) The" shepherds" and "nobles" were the king's counsellors, and the commanders of his armies, the government of the kingdom devolving upon the former, and its defence upon the latter. ln all that constitutes the material strength of a people Assyria was great. Notice- II. THE INSTABILITY OF MATERIAL GBEATNEss. The prophet, looking on to the future, declared that these material tokens of greatness would all fail in the da.y of trial which was inevitably before them. .All these outward indications of prosperity and power would then fade away. The merchants, like the cankerworms in the fields, would remain whilst they could secure any gains, but would seek some safe retreat in the time of nat:onal calamity (ver. 16). Their military forces should then perish and be no more, even as the locusts with the shining of the sun depart, leaving no trace behind (ver. 17). Their counsellors, too, should sleep the sleep of death (ver. 18), a.nd their commanders lie beneath the dust of the earth (ver. 18). And even so everything that is connected with material glory is unenduring. Seneca related how that one known to him was raised above the inordinate love of the world by the sight of e. Roman triumphal procession. When the scene ended he said, "I have seen all tl:.is pomp and magnificence put in such order and passing slowly along; yet it is all gone: why should I esteem that which is so momentary?" • For e.11 that in. this world is great e.nd gay Doth as a ve.pour vanish and dece.y." Ill. TB3 BOPELEBSNESB OF THOSE WHO BA VE THIS AB THEm SOLE DEPENDENCE, "Thy people is scattered upon the moun.tains, and no man gathereth them." Nothing remains in such a case but irretrievable ruin. They only are safe whose repose 1s placed in the higher and heavenly Source of help. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man," etc. (Ps. cx.lvi. 3-6).-8. D. H. Ver.19.-Hopelessness. "There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous." Nothing can be more distressing than the consciousness of powerlessness in the presence of the deepest human need ; to witness from the seashore the wreck, and to be utterly unable to save the shipwrecked mariners; to be sure that some one is in the burning edifice, and yet for it to be impossible to reach him and to bring him out; to stand before an audience alarmed by some needless cry, and to see the rush towards the doors, and t.o be u:c.equa.l to checking it ; or even to be by the bedside of one in life's youth er manhood's prime, and to hear that disease has, humanly speaking, prematurely seized its victim, and that medical help cannot cure, but only, a.nd that for a time, alleviate. This position is occupied by many an earnest-hearted worker for God and the good of souls, in relation t.o the moral salvation of men. Nahum sustained it in reference to the Ninevites. He saw in them a people wrecked through the adverse winds and tempests of evil, consumed by the fires of unholy passion, on the mad rush to ruin and death, diseased through and through so that recovery was impossible; and hence, unable to hea~ he_ cried i-:; the sadness of hi~ heart, "There _is no bee.ling of thy bruise; thy wound 1s gnevoue (ver. 19), So Isaiah said, "Ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick," etc. (i. 5, 6). So still. Note- I. 'l'ms STATE OF ¥ORAL HOPELESSNESS IS NOT BEACHED ALJ, AT ONCE, BUT 18 8ROUGHT ABOUT BY DEGREE~ 11. J-r lB NOT BROUGHT TO P.A88 THBOO'GH DIVINE HELP A.Nll MTRBNGTH BEU'l'G ONA VAIL ABLE, OJI, Ill, 1-19.] THE BOOK OF NARUM. 53