a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
midst
בְּקִרְבֵּ֔ךְbe.kir.Bekh
H7130
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
women
נָשִׁים֙na.Shim
H802
a woman · noun, common masculine plural absolute
gates
שַׁעֲרֵ֣יsha.'a.Rei
H8179
an opening · noun, common masculine plural construct
land
אַרְצֵ֑ךְ'ar.Tzekh
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
wide
פָּת֥וֹחַpa.To.ach
H6605
to open wide (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal infinitive absolute
open
נִפְתְּח֖וּnif.te.Chu
H6605
to open wide (literally or figuratively) · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
enemies
לְאֹ֣יְבַ֔יִךְle.'O.ye.Va.yikh
H341
hating · preposition + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
fire
אֵ֖שׁ'esh
H784
fire (literally or figuratively) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
devour
אָכְלָ֥ה'a.khe.Lah
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular
bars
בְּרִיחָֽיִךbe.ri.Cha.yikh
H1280
a bolt · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 51:30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have…
Isaiah 19:16 In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which h…
Jeremiah 50:37 A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become a…
Nahum 2:6 The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.
Isaiah 45:1-2 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of k…
Psalms 107:16 For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.
Psalms 147:13 For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Nahum 3:8–end
Nineveh has been told that God is against her, and then none can be for her, to stand her in any stead; yet she sets God himself at defiance, and his power and justice, and says, I shall have peace. Threatened folks live long; therefore here the prophet largely shows how vain her confidences would prove and insufficient to ward off the judgment of God. To convince them of this,
I. He shows them that other places, which had been as strong and as secure as they, could not keep their ground against the judgments of God. Nineveh shall fall unpitied and uncomforted (for miserable comforters will those prove who speak peace to those on whom God will fasten trouble), and she shall not be able to he…
thy people--thy soldiers.
women--unable to fight for thee (Isa 19:16; Jer 50:37; Jer 51:30).
gates on thy land--the fortified passes or entrances to the region of Nineveh (compare Jer 15:7). Northeast of Nineveh there were hills affording a natural barrier against an invader; the guarded passes through these are probably "the gates of the land" meant.
fire shall devour thy bars--the "bars" of the fortresses at the passes into Assyria. So in Assyrian remains the Assyrians themselves are represented as setting fire to the gates of a city [BONOMI, Nineveh, pp. 194, 197].
Adam Clarke on Nahum 3:13
Thy people - are women - They lost all courage, and made no resistance. O vere Phrygiae, neque enim Phryges: "Verily, ye are Phrygian women, not Phrygian men." So said Numanus to the Trojans. Virg., Aen. ix.
John Gill on Nahum 3:13
Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women,.... Or like women, weak and feeble, fearful and timorous; frightened at the first approach of the enemy; run away, and run up and down in the utmost consternation and distress, having neither skill nor courage to oppose them; some regard may be had to the effeminacy of their king; see Nahum 2:7. The sense is, they should be at once dispirited, and lose all strength of mind and body, and have neither heads nor hearts to form schemes, and execute them in their own defence; and thus should they be, even in the midst of the city, upon their own ground, where, any where, it might be thought they would exert themselves, and play the man, since the…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 13 onwards) Behold, your people, women in your midst: the gates of your land will be opened wide to your enemies: fire will devour your bars. Draw water for the siege: build your fortifications, go into the mud, and trample: force the brick. There the fire will consume you; you will perish by the sword, you will be devoured like the chigoe: gather therefore like the chigoe: multiply like the locust. You have made more deals than there are stars in the sky: the chigoe has spread out and flown away. Your guards are like locusts, and your little ones are like the grasshoppers of locusts, which settle in the hedges in the cold weather. The sun rises, and they have flown away, and the place where they were will not be known. LXX: Behold, your people are like women in you, opening the gates of your land to your enemies: fire devours your bars. Draw water for the siege, strengthen your fortifications: go into the mud and trample in the straw, strengthen it upon the brick. There the fire will devour you, the sword will scatter you; it will devour you like a locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust, multiply your trades like the stars of heaven. Yet even now, in Nineveh, it is said: 'Your strong men are like the ripe figs, which when shaken fall into the mouth of the eater. Your people have become effeminate and unable to resist.' Your gates will be opened wide, and the city will be exposed to the enemy. The strongest bars that secured the gates will be consumed by fire. So, gather water and make sure there is no shortage of drink for the besieged garrison: make bricks, so that you can build up the interrupted walls, for the siege is close at hand. And when you have done all these things, just as the earth is devoured by drought, so shall you be devoured by the sword. But even when you have multiplied like the drought and gathered together like locusts, and gathered together your riches like the stars of the sky, like locusts and drought, and the small offspring of locusts, which are called attelabi (Al. adtelebi), flying away when the sun grows hot, they are not found: thus you will disperse and flee. For it is the nature of locusts that they become sluggish in the cold and fly in the heat. Furthermore, the attelabus, which the eagle interprets as a more significant devourer, is a small locust between the locust and the cankerworm, crawling with small…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Bar — Used to denote the means by which a door is bolted (Neh. 3:3); a rock in the sea (Jonah 2:6); the shore of the sea (Job 38:10); strong fortifications and powerful impediments, etc. (Isa. 45:2; Amos…
Media — Heb. Madai, which is rendered in the Authorized Version (1) “Madai,” Gen. 10:2; (2) “Medes,” 2 Kings 17:6; 18:11; (3) “Media,” Esther 1:3; 10:2; Isa. 21:2; Dan. 8:20; (4) “Mede,” only in Dan. 11:1.…
Nineveh — First mentioned in Gen. 10:11, which is rendered in the Revised Version, “He [i.e., Nimrod] went forth into Assyria and builded Nineveh.” It is not again noticed till the days of Jonah, when it is…
Nineveh · Predictions respecting: Feebleness of its people — Predictions respecting: Feebleness of its people
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Nahum 3:13
13. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.
13. Ecce populus tuus mulieres in medio tui; inimicis tuis aperiendo aperientur portae terrae tuae; vorabit ignis vectes tuos.
The Prophet declares here, that the hearts of them all would become soft and effeminate when God would proceed to destroy Nineveh. We have said before that the hearts of men are so in the hand of God, that he melts whatever courage there may be in them, whenever he pleases: and God prepares men for ruin, when he debilitates their hearts, that they cannot bear the sight of their enemies. God indeed can le…
The same, or rather a worse fate than No-amon suffered, is now awaiting Nineveh. Nah 3:11. "Thou also wilt be drunken, shalt be hidden; thou also wilt seek for a refuge from the enemy. Nah 3:12. All thy citadels are fig-trees with early figs; if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater. Nah 3:13. Behold thy people, women in the midst of thee; the gates of thy land are thrown quite open to thine enemies; fire consumes thy bolts." גּם־אתּ corresponds to גּם־היא in Nah 3:10 : as she, so also thou. "The fate of No-amon is a prophecy of thine own" (Hitzig). תּשׁכּרי, thou wilt be drunken, viz., from the goblet of divine wrath, as at Oba 1:16. תּהי נעלמה might mean, "thou wilt be hid…
All your fortresses—It shall be easy to conquer all your fortified cities and to ravage all that is in their midst, like the fig trees when they are with their first ripe fruits; when the tree is shaken, the first ripe fruits fall into the mouth of the eaters.
fig trees Heb. תְּאֵנִים, fig trees.
they be shaken—which, if they be shaken hard by a man.
