Nahum 2:8
What does Nahum 2:8 mean?
A plain-English look at Nahum 2:8 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Nahum 2:8 means
Nineveh, once like a great, settled reservoir drawing peoples and wealth to itself, now empties as its inhabitants flee. Repeated cries to stand and hold the line go unheeded; panic dissolves cohesion. The prophet pictures a stampede, not an orderly retreat. The empire that demanded other nations’ submission cannot command its own citizens in crisis. Years of intimidation evaporate in an hour. This is a moral unmasking as well as a military collapse: fear rules those who made others afraid. The pool that seemed deep is suddenly shallow and draining, proving that human power rests on fragile unity that God can scatter in a moment.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000But Nineveh hath been from of old like a pool of water: yet they flee away. Stand, stand, they cry; but none looketh back.
KJV
King James Version · 1611But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water: yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but none shall look back.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901But Nineveh hath been from of old like a pool of water: yet they flee away. Stand, stand, they cry; but none looketh back.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862And Nineveh <FI>is<Fi> as a pool of waters, From of old it <FI>is<Fi> --and they are fleeing! `Stand ye, stand;' and none is turning!
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752And as for Ninive, her waters are like a great pool: but the men flee away. They cry: Stand, stand, but there is none that will return back.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890Nineveh hath been like a pool of water, since the day she existed, yet they flee away. ...Stand! Stand! But none looketh back.
Context
After the humiliating decree and mourning in verse 7, verse 8 widens to the city’s mass flight. It prepares for verse 9’s command to plunder, showing why the stores are left unguarded. Then verse 10 will summarize the desolation and terror now universal in Nineveh. The flow underlines that leadership, morale, and population all fail, leaving the city exposed to total spoil.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Isaiah 13:14
And it shall come to pass, that as the chased roe, and as sheep that no man gathereth, they shall turn every man to his own people, and shall flee every man to his own land.
- Isaiah 48:20
Go ye forth from Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: say ye, Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob.
- Jeremiah 51:30
The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might hath failed; they are become as women: her dwelling-places are set on fire; her bars are broken.
- Jeremiah 46:5
Wherefore have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace, and look not back: terror is on every side, saith Jehovah.
- Nahum 3:17
Thy princes are as the locusts, and thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers, which encamp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
- Revelation 17:15
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
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