God’s Word for You

Nahum 3:1-2 lurching chariots

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Monday, May 18, 2026

3:1 Woe to the city of blood, full of lies,
full of plunder, never without victims!

“Woe” is the theme for the chapter and therefore the rest of the book. This interjection is most commonly heard in Isaiah. It occurs 52 times in Scripture, mostly in Isaiah (twenty-two times), and Jeremiah (eleven times). This is the only occurrence in Nahum. It is almost always a prophetic threat, “May woe come to you” or “Woe upon you!”

“City of blood” is a way of saying that Nineveh is doomed and will be filled with the blood of its people. In Hebrew, “blood” is plural, to emphasize the terrible act of shedding blood and the guilt of the one who murders. God said, “For your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man” (Genesis 9:5-6).

But the readers of the time would also think of the atrocities that the Assyrians committed on their enemies. The Assyrians had a regular practice of cutting off hands, feet, and of course the heads of their vanquished enemies. They would also cut off noses, gouge out eyes, and bind people to tree trunks within cities, a sort of primitive forerunner to crucifixion. They burned victims, impaled them (see Ezra 6:11), flayed them, and otherwise inflicted many cruel, unusual, and brutal punishments, usually upon soldiers who had been forced to fight against them, or who had little choice. Burning was often an exceptionally severe judgment on the vanquished (Achan and his family were burned after they were stoned to death for Achan’s sins, Joshua 7:24-25).

“Full of lies” is a way of saying that you couldn’t trust anything that an Assyrian said. Here Paul’s words to Titus come to mind about the men of Crete, “liars, evils brutes.” Nineveh was, as one commentator put it, “a center of deception.” Recall the words of one of their messengers: “This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern” (2 Kings 18:31). He sounds just like the crooked shysters between the Great Wars who tried to sell gullible investors acres of lush green land in Florida that turned out to be nothing but swamps and marshes infested with alligators and poisonous snakes. The kings of Nineveh boasted so extravagantly that their own people knew that all of it was false. Their kings had a habit piling up lies and boasts so quickly that nobody could keep up with it all, and before any rational and reasonably honest man tried to check up on a tyrant’s boastful lies, there were a dozen new lies that made the old ones “yesterday’s news.” It was a savage, irresponsible, immature and hateful way to govern a country, and it set an entire empire up for a terrible downfall. A tyrant only dies once when he is overthrown, but his people die again and again, suffering innumerable little deaths on account of the lies of their selfish kings.

“Full of plunder, never without victims!” The first verse ends with the just accusation that Assyria’s wealth was all stolen and plundered; they didn’t make anything useful or valuable themselves. They may as well have used a skull and crossbones for a flag. It was a country with a practically ceaseless record of pillaging, murdering men, and committing sexual atrocities (especially rape) against women, girls, and boys.

2 The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels,
galloping horses and lurching chariots!

This verse takes the reader right inside a chariot as it bounces and lurches around. The “crack of whips” is from the drivers, the charioteers who steer and drive the horses ahead. Although whips are not uncommon in the Bible, only here and in Proverbs 26:3 are whips shown to be used on horses.

The clatter of wheels demonstrates the noisiness of chariots. In more ancient times, chariots were little more than smaller wagons used to transport officers from one part of a battle quickly to another, or for scouting purposes. But like the early airplanes of the First World War, the scouting function quickly turned into a fighting one. In ancient Egypt, in the time of Joseph, chariots were mostly used for quick transportation. But by the time of King Tut (shortly after the time of Moses), chariots were being used in battle. We can’t be certain whether the six hundred chariots that chased the Israelites to the Red Sea were battle-chariots or quick transportation chariots (Exodus 14:7-9, 23-28). In the end, it doesn’t matter which (or both).

“Galloping horses” is most likely to mean the animals pulling the chariots. Horses were not ridden in the ancient world until the time of Cyrus the Great of Persia; horseback riding was first perfected in his birth country of Anshan. Although Nineveh fell just before Cyrus’ time, I think that Nahum’s words were about horses pulling loads and not carrying riders, especially since this phrase is coupled with “lurching chariots.”

“Lurching” is a piel instance of a verb more commonly found in the ordinary qal (“the mountains skipped like rams” Psalm 114:4, 6; “wild goats will leap” Isaiah 13:21). The piel is therefore an instance of an unexpected or violent action, or perhaps the characteristic behavior of a fast-moving chariot, especially in view of the comment about the primitive suspension of the wheels (“clattering”).

The Holy Spirit has taken the usual language of Assyrian victory and has turned it all round, right back on the heads of the Assyrians. Here is one rare moment where the enemies of God were being singled out and punished. And in this case it was on account of the sin of rejecting the God who had been patient and faithful to them in the past. They had their chance when Jonah came and preached “Forty more days until Nineveh is overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4). The whole city had repented then, from the king on his thone to the donkey in her stall, from the dancing girls in the harem to the fishermen and their young sons casting nets on the Tigris. Everyone repented, and then everything fell apart (as we will see in verse 4).

God has used the Assyrians as whips and scourges on the backs of his people, to bring Israel to repentance. But when Assyria was given its chance, it tossed the gospel away in the dust, and now they were going to find out the punishment for violating God’s very first commandment.

We don’t know what the Assyrians had left of the preaching of Jonah by this time. Was there still some remnant; did the people still fast and put on sackcloth and dump ashes on their heads to remember the time when the prophet came to save them? Did they still try to keep one another from certain specific sins, like keeping away from unclean animals, or strangled blood, or Sabbath rules that were never meant for Gentiles like the Assyrians? None of that would matter if they didn’t believe in the true God anymore. Our country has the same problem today. Religious fanatics get themselves into politics and public office and they try to use a shoehorn to make heathens act like Christians, but no souls are being saved. Is God happier with our country if some of our Senators and Congressmen wear crosses but are caught in adultery and embezzlement and other crimes? Whether someone is a leader in the church or in the state, if they try to make people only seem Christian without using the gospel at all, then they are “stupid bunglers who think nothing of the Word and doctrine and do not understand or care about it.”

Luther said in his time: “Before all things we must make an effort to have the true and certain doctrine regarding God. Then a true reformation and establishment of churches can be instituted on this basis. When Ferdinand was preparing the defense against the incursions of the Turks, he proclaimed fasts, processions, and supplications to the saints. Of what use are these except that they provide sport for Satan? An effort should rather have been made that sincere faith and pure doctrine concerning the worship of God should be taught. But they invert the order and defend manifest errors in doctrine and establish the madness of idolatry. Later, they are eager to placate God’s wrath with external rites and supplications. So God is provoked and mocked twice” (LW 6:228).

Our goal is to keep our faith and our doctrine secure. “You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1) Paul said, and again, “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Timothy 4:16). How is this done? By reading the word of God, by studying it, by asking questions and finding the answers in the Scriptures, and by doing this again and again and again. Some of the very best soil for keeping our doctrine sound is the classroom where the Catechism is taught, when young people sometimes ask hard questions, or unusual questions, and sometimes their parents get involved in the asking as well. Having to answer many questions either in the classroom or at the dinner table is like sharpening a weapon; the edge stays clean and true.

Lord, keep us steadfast in your word.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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