Nahum 2:9
What does Nahum 2:9 mean?
A plain-English look at Nahum 2:9 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Nahum 2:9 means
With defenders gone, the invaders are urged to seize silver and gold. Nahum highlights Nineveh’s vast wealth—seemingly endless stores, splendid furnishings, and treasures gathered from many conquests. Yet all of it proves unable to deliver the city. What was amassed through years of oppression is dispersed in a single day. The prophet shows how God empties what oppressors hoarded. Riches kept for self-exaltation become a prize for others, and then vanish into history. The verse warns that glory rooted in plunder cannot last. The judgment fits the crime: the emptiers are emptied. God’s retribution is not petty; it is precise, turning Assyria’s boast into a witness of its fall.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.
KJV
King James Version · 1611Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold: for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for there is no end of the store, the glory of all goodly furniture.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949Take silver, take gold; for there is no end to the store; take for yourselves a weight of things to be desired.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862Seize ye silver, seize ye gold, And there is no end to the prepared things, <FI>To<Fi> the abundance of all desirable vessels.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Take ye the spoil of the silver, take the spoil of the gold: for there is no end of the riches of all the precious furniture.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890Plunder the silver, plunder the gold; for there is no end of the splendid store of all precious vessels.
Context
This verse follows the image of flight in verse 8 and explains the ease and completeness of the spoil. It sets up verse 10’s triple description of desolation and the terror that accompanies such total loss. The narrative has moved from breach to humiliation to dispersion and now to the stripping of wealth—the comprehensive unmaking of Nineveh’s might.
v.8But Nineveh hath been from of old like a pool of water: yet they flee away. Stand, stand, they cry; but none looketh back.
v.9This passage
v.10She is empty, and void, and waste; and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and anguish is in all loins, and the faces of them all are waxed pale.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Jeremiah 25:34
Wail, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow in ashes, ye principal of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are fully come, and ye shall fall like a goodly vessel.
- Daniel 11:8
And also their gods, with their molten images, and with their goodly vessels of silver and of gold, shall he carry captive into Egypt; and he shall refrain some years from the king of the north.
- 2 Chronicles 36:10
And at the return of the year king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of Jehovah, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.
- Ezekiel 26:12
And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the waters.
- Nahum 2:12
The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with prey, and his dens with ravin.
- Isaiah 33:1
Woe to thee that destroyest, and thou wast not destroyed; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou hast ceased to destroy, thou shalt be destroyed; and when thou hast made an end of dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
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