The metal of the invader’s chariots would flash in the sun as they rushed
back and forth through the streets. Nahum compared the chariots to flaming
torches darting about like lightning. Nahum foresaw the spears being made
ready to do battle. The invading army was in the streets of Nineveh, moving
with tremendous speed. Nothing would stop the destruction of Nineveh.
As this fearful army moved about the city, Nineveh was called to defend
herself. Her leader summoned the elite of the army to rush to the wall and
defend it against the charging enemy. Nineveh was depicted as so panicked
by this attack, however, that as her troops rushed to the wall, they stumbled
on the way. The army of Nineveh was no match for its enemy.
Nahum prophesied that the river gate would be thrown open. Nineveh was
by a series of rivers. The waters of these rivers acted as a barrier for
Nineveh’s enemies. There was an ancient prophecy in Nineveh that stated
that the city would not be overtaken until the river itself overtook it. History
recounts that the Scythians tried unsuccessfully to overtake the city. After
two years of unsuccessful attempts, on the third year one of those rivers
swollen up with heavy rains, took out part of the wall surrounding the city.
Adam Clarke in his commentary on this passage quotes from an ancient
account given by Diodorus Siculus:
“There was a prophecy received from their forefathers that
Nineveh should not be taken till the river first became an enemy
to the city. It happened in the third year of the siege, that the
Euphrates (query, Tigris) being swollen with continued rains,
overflowed part of the city, and threw down twenty stadia of the
wall. The king then imagining that the oracle was
accomplished, and that the river was now manifestly become an
enemy to the city, casting aside all hope of safety, and lest he
should fall into the hands of the enemy, built a large funeral
pyre in the palace, and having collected all his gold and silver
and royal vestments, together with his concubines and eunuchs,
placed himself with them in a little apartment built in the pyre;
burnt them, himself and the palace together. When the death of
the king (Sardanapalus) was announced by certain deserters,
the enemy entered in by the breach with the waters had made,