Nahum 3:16
What does Nahum 3:16 mean?
A plain-English look at Nahum 3:16 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Nahum 3:16 means
Nineveh has multiplied her merchants beyond counting, gaining wealth like stars fill the sky. Yet the canker-worm ravages and then flies away. The picture suggests that in crisis these traders—once the city’s pride—will strip resources and depart, or simply scatter, leaving the city empty-handed. Prosperity without righteousness cannot buy security. Commerce that once seemed to guarantee stability becomes ephemeral, like a swarm that descends, consumes, and is gone. The economic engine stalls when God judges a nation. Riches and global connections, however dazzling, dissolve at the first hard heat, proving unable to shield from calamity.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker-worm ravageth, and fleeth away.
KJV
King James Version · 1611Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and flieth away.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker-worm ravageth, and fleeth away.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949Let your traders be increased more than the stars of heaven:
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862Multiply thy merchants above the stars of the heavens, The cankerworm hath stripped off, and doth flee away.
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752Thou hast multiplied thy merchandises above the stars of heaven: the bruchus hath spread himself and flown away.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890Thou hast multiplied thy merchants more than the stars of the heavens; the cankerworm spreadeth himself out and flieth away.
Context
Building on verse 15’s insect imagery, verse 16 turns to the economic sphere. Nineveh’s vast commercial network will not remain loyal in the day of trouble. Verse 17 will extend the analogy to political and military leaders who also vanish when danger rises. The sequence shows a comprehensive failure—money, merchants, princes—all behave like swarms that cannot be grasped. This prepares for the final address to the king and the nation’s scattered people in verses 18–19.
v.15There 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.
v.16This passage
v.17Thy 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.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Jeremiah 33:22
As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured; so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.
- Genesis 15:5
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and number the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
- Genesis 22:17
that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
- Nehemiah 9:23
Their children also multipliedst thou as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land concerning which thou didst say to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.
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