Nahum 3:15
What does Nahum 3:15 mean?
A plain-English look at Nahum 3:15 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Nahum 3:15 means
Despite all efforts, destruction will consume Nineveh—fire devouring and sword cutting down. The comparison to the canker-worm (a devouring larva) shows a relentless, eating judgment. Even if Nineveh multiplies her defenders like swarming locusts, it will not matter; numbers cannot save. The image can also imply that the enemy will eat through the city as insects strip a field. Either way, the point is clear: the ruin will be thorough and unstoppable. God sometimes allows a society to expand its resources to the limit precisely to demonstrate that no scale of human response can countermand His declared sentence.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall devour thee like the canker-worm: make thyself many as the canker-worm; make thyself many as the locust.
KJV
King James Version · 1611There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall devour thee like the canker-worm: make thyself many as the canker-worm; make thyself many as the locust.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949There the fire will make you waste; you will be cut off by the sword: make yourself as great in number as the worms, as great in number as the locusts.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862There consume thee doth a fire, Cut thee off doth a sword, It doth consume thee as a cankerworm! Make thyself heavy as the cankerworm, Make thyself heavy as the locust.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752There shall the fire devour thee: thou shalt perish by the sword, it shall devour thee like the bruchus: assemble together like the bruchus, make thyself many like the locust.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall devour thee like the cankerworm. Make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locust.
Context
This verse answers the ironic call of verse 14 with the final word: consumption is certain. Verses 16–17 will pick up the locust imagery, applying it to Nineveh’s merchants and officials who multiply and then vanish. The structure is deliberate. What Nineveh thinks is strength—numbers, commerce, cadre—will prove transient, behaving like insects that appear in swarms and disappear at a change of weather.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Nahum 2:13
Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.
- Joel 2:25
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you.
- Zephaniah 2:13
And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like the wilderness.
- Exodus 10:13
And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and Jehovah brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all the night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.
- Nahum 3:13
Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire hath devoured thy bars.
- Joel 1:4
That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
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