Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Nahum 3:14
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln.
14. All the defences of the country up to the capital are fallen before the enemy. Nineveh must prepare for the siege.
fortify thy strong holds ] i.e. make strong thy defence works. The “strongholds” here are the fortified places, whether outworks or wall towers, of the city itself.
make strong the brick-kiln ] Rather: take hold of the brick mould. The words explain the previous phrases “go into the clay” &c. The exhortation is to prepare bricks to strengthen the walls, make new works, or repair the breaches. The great double outer rampart on the east of the city appears to have been partly of brick and partly of earth; the walls of the city itself were formed partly at least of blocks of limestone (mussel chalk). Comp. Layard, Nineveh, II. p. 275.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds – This is not mere mockery at mans weakness, when he would resist God. It foretells that they shall toil, and that, heavily. Toil is added upon toil. Nineveh did undergo a two years siege. Water stands for all provisions within. He bids them, as before Nah 2:1, strengthen what was already strong; strongholds, which seemed to cut off all approach. These he bids them strengthen, not repairing decays only but making them exceeding strong 2Ch 11:12. Go into clay. We seem to see all the inhabitants, like ants on their nest, all poured out, every one busy, every one making preparation for the defense. Why had there been no need of it? What needed she of towers and fortifications, whose armies were carrying war into distant lands, before whom all which was near was hushed? Now, all had to be renewed. As Isaiah in his mockery of the idol-makers begins with the forging of the axe, the planting and rearing of the trees, which were at length to become the idol (Isa 44:12, following), Nahum goes back to the beginning. The neglected brick-kiln, useless in their prosperity, was to be repaired; the clay, which abounded in the valley of the Tigris , was to be collected, mixed and kneaded by treading, as still represented in the Egyptian monuments. The conquering nation was to do the work of slaves, as Asiatic captives are represented, under their taskmasters , on the monuments of Egypt, a prelude of their future. Xenophon still saw the massive brick wall, on the stone foundation .
Yet, though stored within and fenced without, it shall not stand (see Isa 27:10-11).
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 14. Draw thee waters for the siege] The Tigris ran near to Nineveh, and here they are exhorted to lay in plenty of fresh water, lest the siege should last long, and lest the enemy should cut off this supply.
Go into clay, and tread the mortar] This refers to the manner of forming bricks anciently in those countries; they digged up the clay, kneaded it properly by treading, mixed it with straw or coarse grass, moulded the bricks, and dried them in the sun. I have now some of the identical bricks, that were brought from this country, lying before me, and they show all these appearances. They are compact and very hard, but wholly soluble in water. There were however others without straw, that seem to have been burnt in a kiln as ours are. I have also some fragments or bats of these from Babylon.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Draw thee waters, fill all thy cisterns, and make more that thou want not for drink, yea, draw the waters into the ditches about every fort,
for the siege, which thine enemies will lay against thee.
Fortify; repair all decays, and strengthen all that is weak.
Go into clay, and tread the mortar; set thy brick-makers on work to prepare store of strongest bricks.
Make strong the brick-kiln, that the materials for thy fortifications may be firm and good. All this is spoken with an irony, or derision of their fruitless labour.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. Ironical exhortation toNineveh to defend herself.
Draw . . . watersso asnot to be without water for drinking, in the event of being cut offby the besiegers from the fountains.
make strong the brick-kilnor”repair” [MAURER];so as to have a supply of bricks formed of kiln-burnt clay, to repairbreaches in the ramparts, or to build new fortifications inside whenthe outer ones are taken by the foe.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Draw thee waters for the siege,…. Before the siege is begun, fetch water from the river, wells, or fountains without the city, and fill cisterns, and such like receptacles of water, with them; that there may be sufficiency of it to hold out, which is often wanting in long sieges; the want of which gives great distress to the besieged: this is put for all necessary provisions, which should be made when a city is in danger of being blocked up: this, and what follows, are said ironically; signifying, let them do what they would or could for their support and security, it would be all in vain:
fortify thy strong holds; repair the old fortifications, and add new ones to them; fill them with soldiers, arms, and ammunition:
go into clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brick kiln; repair the brick kilns, keep them in good order; employ men in digging clay, and treading it, and making it into bricks, and burning them in the kiln, that there be no want of bricks to repair the fortifications, or such breaches as might be made by the enemy. Bricks were much used instead of stone in those countries; but when they had done their utmost, they would not be able to secure themselves, and keep out the enemy.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In conclusion, the prophet takes away from the city so heavily laden with guilt the last prop to its hope, – namely, reliance upon its fortifications, and the numerical strength of its population. – Nah 3:14. “Draw thyself water for the siege! Make thy castles strong! tread in the mire, and stamp in the clay! prepare the brick-kiln! Nah 3:15. There will the fire devour thee, the sword destroy thee, devour thee like the lickers. Be in great multitude like the lickers, be in great multitude like the locusts? Nah 3:16. Thou hast made thy merchants more than the star so heaven; the licker enters to plunder, and flies away. Nah 3:17. Thy levied ones are like the locusts, and thy men like an army of grasshoppers which encamp in the hedges in the day of frost; if the sun rises, they are off, and men know not their place: where are they?” Water of the siege is the drinking water necessary for a long-continued siege. Nineveh is to provide itself with this, because the siege will last a long while. It is also to improve the fortifications ( chizzeq as in 2Ki 12:8, 2Ki 12:13). This is then depicted still more fully. Tt and chomer are used synonymously here, as in Isa 41:25. Tt , lit., dirt, slime, then clay and potter’s clay (Isaiah l.c.). Chomer , clay or mortar (Gen 11:3), also dirt of the streets (Isa 10:6, compared with Mic 7:10). , to make firm, or strong, applied to the restoration of buildings in Neh 5:16 and Eze 27:9, Eze 27:27; here to restore, or to put in order, the brick-kiln ( malben , a denom. from l e bhenah , a brick), for the purpose of burning bricks. The Assyrians built with bricks sometimes burnt, sometimes unburnt, and merely dried in the sun. Both kinds are met with on the Assyrian monuments (see Layard, vol. ii. p. 36ff.). This appeal, however, is simply a rhetorical turn for the thought that a severe and tedious siege is awaiting Nineveh. This siege will end in the destruction of the great and populous city. , there, sc. in these fortifications of thine, will fire consume thee; fire will destroy the city with its buildings, and the sword destroy the inhabitants. The destruction of Nineveh by fire is related by ancient writers (Herod. 1:106, 185; Diod. Sic. 2:25-28; Athen. xii. p. 529), and also confirmed by the ruins (cf. Str. ad h. l.). It devours thee like the locust. The subject is not fire or sword, either one or the other, but rather both embraced in one. , like the licker; yeleq , a poetical epithet applied to the locust (see at Joe 1:4), is the nominative, no the accusative, as Calvin, Grotius, Ewald, and Hitzig suppose. For the locusts are not devoured by the fire or the sword, but it is they who devour the vegetables and green of the fields, so that they are everywhere used as a symbol of devastation and destruction. It is true that in the following sentences the locusts are used figuratively for the Assyrians, or the inhabitants of Nineveh; but it is also by no means a rare thing for prophets to give a new turn and application to a figure or simile. The thought is this: fire and sword will devour Nineveh and its inhabitants like the all-consuming locusts, even though the city itself, with its mass of houses and people, should resemble an enormous swarm of locusts. may be either an inf. abs. used instead of the imperative, or the imperative itself. The latter seems the more simple; and the use of the masculine may be explained on the assumption that the prophet had the people floating before his mind, whereas in he was thinking of the city. Hithkahbbed , to show itself heavy by virtue of the large multitude; similar to in Nah 2:10 (cf. in Gen 13:2; Exo 8:20, etc.).
The comparison to a swarm of locusts is carried still further in Nah 3:16 and Nah 3:17, and that so that Nah 3:16 explains the in Nah 3:15. Nineveh has multiplied its traders or merchants, even more than the stars of heaven, i.e., to an innumerable multitude. The yeleq , i.e., the army of the enemy, bursts in and plunders. That Nineveh was a very rich commercial city may be inferred from its position, – namely, just at the point where, according to oriental notions, the east and west meet together, and where the Tigris becomes navigable, so that it was very easy to sail from thence into the Persian Gulf; just as afterwards Mosul, which was situated opposite, became great and powerful through its widely-extended trade (see Tuch, l.c. p. 31ff., and Strauss, in loc.).
(Note: “The point,” says O. Strauss ( Nineveh and the Word of God, Berl 1855, p. 19), “at which Nineveh was situated was certainly the culminating point of the three quarters of the globe – Europe, Asia, and Africa; and from the very earliest times it was just at the crossing of the Tigris by Nineveh that the great military and commercial roads met, which led into the heart of all the leading known lands.”)
The meaning of this verse has been differently interpreted, according to the explanation given to the verb pashat . Many, following the and expansus est of the lxx and Jerome, give it the meaning, to spread out the wing; whilst Credner (on Joel, p. 295), Maurer, Ewald, and Hitzig take it in the sense of undressing one’s self, and understand it as relating to the shedding of the horny wing-sheaths of the young locusts. But neither the one nor the other of these explanations can be grammatically sustained. Pashat never means anything else then to plunder, or to invade with plundering; not even in such passages as Hos 7:1; 1Ch 14:9 and 1Ch 14:13, which Gesenius and Dietrich quote in support of the meaning, to spread; and the meaning forced upon it by Credner, of the shedding of the wing-sheaths by locusts, is perfectly visionary, and has merely been invented by him for the purpose of establishing his false interpretation of the different names given to the locusts in Joe 1:4. In the passage before us we cannot understand by the yeleq , which “plunders and flies away” ( pashat vayyaoph ), the innumerable multitude of the merchants of Nineveh, because they were not able to fly away in crowds out of the besieged city. Moreover, the flying away of the merchants would be quite contrary to the meaning of the whole description, which does not promise deliverance from danger by flight, but threatens destruction. The yeleq is rather the innumerable army of the enemy, which plunders everything, and hurries away with its booty. In Nah 3:17 the last two clauses of Nah 3:15 are explained, and the warriors of Nineveh compared to an army of locusts. There is some difficulty caused by the two words and , the first of which only occurs here, and the second only once more, viz., in Jer 51:27, where we meet with it in the singular. That they both denote warlike companies appears to be tolerably certain; but the real meaning cannot be exactly determined. with dagesh dir., as for example in in Exo 15:17, is probably derived from nazar , to separate, and not directly from nezer , a diadem, or nazr , the crowned person, from which the lexicons, following Kimchi’s example, have derived the meaning princes, or persons ornamented with crowns; whereas the true meaning is those levied, selected (for war), analogous to bachur , the picked or selected one, applied to the soldiery. The meaning princes or captains is at variance with the comparison to ‘arbeh , the multitude of locusts, since the number of the commanders in an army, or of the war-staff, is always a comparatively small one. And the same objection may be offered to the rendering war-chiefs or captains, which has been given to taphsar , and which derives only an extremely weak support from the Neo-Persian tawsr , although the word might be applied to a commander-in-chief in Jer 51:27, and does signify an angel in the Targum-Jonathan on Deu 28:12. The different derivations are all untenable (see Ges. Thes. p. 554); and the attempt of Bttcher ( N. Krit. Aehrenl. ii. pp. 209-10) to trace it to the Aramaean verb , obedivit , with the inflection for , in the sense of clientes , vassals, is precluded by the fact that ar does not occur as a syllable of inflection. The word is probably Assyrian, and a technical term for soldiers of a special kind, though hitherto it has not been explained. , locusts upon locusts, i.e., an innumerable swarm of locusts. On , see at Amo 7:1; and on the repetition of the same word to express the idea of the superlative, see the comm. on 2Ki 19:23 (and Ges. 108, 4). Yom qarah , day (or time) of cold, is either the night, which is generally very cold in the East, or the winter-time. To the latter explanation it may be objected, that locusts do not take refuge in walls or hedges during the winter; whilst the expression yom , day, for night, may be pleaded against the former. We must therefore take the word as relating to certain cold days, on which the sky is covered with clouds, so that the sun cannot break through, and zarach as denoting not the rising of the sun, but its shining or breaking through. The wings of locusts become stiffened in the cold; but as soon as the warm rays of the sun break through the clouds, they recover their animation and fly away. Nodad , ( poal), has flown away, viz., the Assyrian army, which is compared to a swarm of locusts, so that its place is known no more (cf. Psa 103:16), i.e., has perished without leaving a trace behind. contracted from . These words depict in the most striking manner the complete annihilation of the army on which Nineveh relied.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
The Prophet goes on with the same subject, — that the Ninevites would labor in vain, while striving anxiously and with every effort to defend themselves against their enemies. The meaning then is, “That though thou remittest no diligence, yet thou shalt lose all thy labor; for thou wilt not be able to resist the vengeance of God; and thou deceives thyself if thou thinkest that by the usual means thou canst aid thyself; for it is God who attacks thee by the Babylonians. How much soever then thou mayest accumulate of those things which are usually employed to fortify cities, all this will be useless.” Draw for thyself, he says, waters for the siege; that is, lay up provisions for thyself, as it is usually done, and have water laid up in cisterns; strengthen thy fortresses, that is, renew them; enter into the clay for the sake of treading the mortar: fortify, or cement, or join together; the brick-kiln (for what some think that חזק, chezek, means, here is to hold, or to lay hold, is wholly foreign to the Prophet’s meaning:) to fortify then the brick- kiln, that is, the bricks which come forth from the kiln, nothing else than to construct and join them together, that there might be a solid building: for we know that buildings often fall, or are overturned, because they are not well joined together: and he refers to the mode of building which historians say was in use among the Assyrians. For as that country had no abundance of stones, they supplied the defect by bricks. We now then understand the intention of the Prophet.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Nah. 3:14. Draw] for a long-continued siege, improve fortifications, put the kiln in order for burning bricks.
Nah. 3:15. Make] Multiply thyself, like the largest and most formidable locusts.
Nah. 3:16.] Traders and merchants increased innumerable as the stars, but fire and sword would devour all.
Nah. 3:17. Crowned] rulers or vassal princes which encamp in the cold and flee away in the sun. The wings of locusts become stiffened in the cold; but as soon as the warm rays of the sun break through the clouds, they recover animation and fly away.
Nah. 3:18. Shepherds] Princes and great men, royal counsellors and deputies upon whom the government devolved. Sleep] in death. People] The flock scattered and perished (cf. Num. 27:17; 1Ki. 22:17).
THE LAST HOPE DESTROYED.Nah. 3:14-18
The city is laden with guilt, but relies still upon its fortifications and numerical strength of population. The last prop is cut down. There is no hope left. Though provisioned within and strongly defended without, Nineveh must fall, and great will be the fall.
I. Inward provisions will waste away. Draw the waters for the siege, go into clay, and tread the mortar, &c. Water, necessary for siege and the support of life, must be procured. She must furnish herself with all manner of provisions to keep her from surrender or starvation. Clay must be prepared, and the kilns made ready for repairing and building strongholds. The conquering nation were to toil and do the work of slaves. But all would be in vain. The fire would devour her bulwarks, and the sword her population. Swift will be the ruin of all who number houses and fortify walls, but have not looked to the maker thereof, nor have not respected him that fashioned them (Isa. 22:10-11).
II. Outward defences will be destroyed. There shall the fire devour thee. There, in the very centre of their toil and vast preparations, where the greatest security was relied upon, was the devouring fire. What was considered strongest was destroyed with ease, like locusts eating up the tender grass. Singly, and as a whole, the judgments of God will find men out. Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.
III. Immense numbers will fall away. Make thyself many as the cankerworm. Make thyself numerous and oppressive as locusts, gather from all quarters men to help, and seek to become mighty in multitudes, yet the foe will consume like creatures which lick up all before them.
1. Wealthy merchants will not defend. Though multiplied above the stars of heaven, and trafficking in despotism, they cannot lay up in store against the wrath of God. Money is the sinews of war, but will not shelter from the consequences of sin. Prosperity suddenly changes into adversity. The cankerworm spoileth and fleeth away.
2. Warlike soldiers will not defend. The captains, confederates, and commanders of the army, will melt away, perish like dew before the rising sun. They are but grasshoppers, mighty as they are. All flesh is grass.
3. Ruling princes will not defend. Thy crowned heads are as the locusts, &c. They subside into quietness in the calamity of the night, and continue their flight in the morning. They are torpid in the cold and fly in the heat. Officers of state and subordinate chiefs will be completely annihilated. Their place is not known where they are.
4. Great counsellors will not defend. The shepherds slumber in listlessness and excess; sink into torpor and stupidity. The nobles and greatest politicians were benighted and bereft of wisdom. At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep. Valiant men would dwell in the dust, and be buried in silence. God can soon strip a nation of its great ones, and lay its honour in the dust. Where are they when he deals with them? Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish for ever: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away, as a dream, and shall not be found: neither shall his place any more behold him.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Nah. 3:14. Clay. Mankind still, with mire and clay, build themselves Babels. They go into clay, and become themselves earthly like the mire they steep themselves in. They make themselves strong, as though they thought that their houses would continue for ever. Gods wrath descends, and eats up like a cankerworm [Pusey].
Nah. 3:14-15.
1. Man by his endeavours cannot avert the judgments of God. Nineveh prepared and provisioned herself, but fell after all.
2. Man may presume upon carnal means until he is ruined. Lawful means are necessary, but we must not rely upon them for security. If God be against us no other help can relieve. Running into God is the only best way to escape him. As to close and get in with him that would strike you doth avoid the blow [Trapp].
Nah. 3:15. The prophet gives in three words the whole history of Nineveh, its beginning and its end. He had before foretold its destruction, though it should be oppressive as the locust: he had spoken of its commercial wealth; he adds to this, that other source of its wealth, its despoiling warfares and their issue. The heathen conqueror rehearsed his victory, I came, saw, conquered. The prophet goes farther, as the issue of all human conquest, I disappeared [Pusey].
Nah. 3:15-16.
1. The mightiest of earth are as locusts before him (cf. Isa. 40:22).
2. The more obstinately they resist, the more irresistible is the judgment.
3. The larger and more numerous they are, the more utterly will they be destroyed [Lange].
Nah. 3:17. Cowardly rulers.
1. Sheltering for advantage. In the cold day, camping in the hedges, but fleeing away in sunshine.
2. Living only to eat. They are wasters merely, like locusts devouring everything before them.
3. Deserting when they should help, an emblem this of the worlds friendship. Men get what they can out of others, and then bid them farewell in distress. Treacherous friendships abound everywhere.
Dust. All flesh perishes, but the word of God endures for ever [Lange].
HOMILETICS
SLUMBERING SHEPHERDS AND SCATTERED FLOCKS.Nah. 3:18
I. Shepherds unworthy in their character. They are destitute of counsel; base and idle; careful only for their own profit and safety, and not for the interests of the flock. Efficiency depends upon character in the ministry. Good shepherds care for the sheep, feed and defend them. The hireling fleeth because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
II. Shepherds negligent in their duty. They sleep and consult their own ease, instead of defending their city and country. Indolence, self-indulgence, and fickleness doth eat like a canker into the ministry of some. Our duties demand entire devotedness of mind and heart. Ministers desecrate their high calling, when they enter it for ease or commercial advantage. Diligence is required in study, visitation, and preaching. Woe to the idol-shepherd (one wishing to be his own idol and the idol of his flock) that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye.
III. Shepherds cursed in their efforts. The flock is exposed and scattered, like sheep upon the mountains. They have none to care for them, consequently get lost. They are lost for ever. No man gathereth them. Terrible ruin! Fearful responsibility somewhere!
I am shepherd to another man,
And do not sheer the fleece that I graze [Shakspeare].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Nah. 3:11-19. Nahums prophecy of the future destruction of Nineveh was fulfilled by the Medes and Babylonians (cf. ch. Nah. 2:1); and according to his prediction, the vast power of Nineveh completely vanished, and its glory was utterly eclipsed, so that in the year B. C. 401, Xenophon passed by the site without learning its name (Xen. Anab. iii. 47). Four hundred years afterwards a small fortress was standing on the site, to guard the passsage of the river Tigris (Tacitus, Ann. xii. 13), and opposite to it, on the west bank of the Tigris, has arisen the city of Mosul. In the year 1776, Niebuhr visited the spot, and supposed that what were the heaps of ruins of Nineveh, were natural undulations in the soil (See Rawlinson, i. 326). In more modern times it has been explored by Botta, the French Consul (in 1842), and more recently by Layard and others, who have brought to light those gigantic remains of palaces, statues, and other monuments which testify to the ancient grandeur of Nineveh, and those annalistic inscriptions which confirm the veracity of the prophecies of Nahum and of Isaiah, and of the historical narrative of Holy Scripture: and bear witness to the Divine foreknowledge of the Holy Ghost who speaks in it; to whom with the Father and the Son, Three Persons and one God, be honour and glory now and for evermore. Amen [Wordsworth].
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(14) Draw thee waters.In this desperate plight Nineveh is scoffingly advised to protract her resistance. The outer walls are broken down; let her hold out in the citadel. Nay, let her begin anew her preparations for defence. Let her lay in water and provision, and build new buttresses of brick. What shall it avail her? In the midst of her preparations, fire and sword shall again surprise her. The account of this last struggle for existence is minute. Nahum goes back to the repair of the brick-kiln, just as Isaiah, in his description of idol-worship, goes back to the smith working with the tongs, and the carpenter measuring with his rule (Isa. 44:12, seq.). In both cases the irony gains force by a minute and elaborate description of operations destined to be futile.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Nah 3:14 Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.
Ver. 14. Draw thee waters for the siege, &c. ] A most bitter and biting taunt, or mock ( sarcasmus ), whereby the prophet laugheth to scorn the fortifications of the Ninevites and their diligence and providence in defending themselves, which shall nothing avail them, because God will curse their enterprises, Psa 127:1-2 : see the like sarcasm Nah 2:1 . In those eastern countries there was a great scarcity of water. Draw thee good store, for the better holding out the siege; for if water fail thee thou must needs yield.
Fortify thy strong holds
Go into clay, and tread the morter
Make strong the brickkiln
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Draw thee = Draw for thyself.
go . . . tread, &c. : i.e. make plenty of bricks [for the strongholds].
the brickkiln = the brick-work [ = fortifications, or walls] built with bricks. Hebrew. malben. See notes on 2Sa 12:31. Jer 43:9; and App-87.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Draw: 2Ch 32:3, 2Ch 32:4, 2Ch 32:11, Isa 22:9-11, Isa 37:25
fortify: Nah 2:1, Isa 8:9, Jer 46:3, Jer 46:4, Jer 46:9, Joe 3:9-11
Reciprocal: Gen 11:3 – brick Exo 1:14 – in mortar Jer 43:9 – in the brickkiln Jer 51:12 – the standard
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Nah 3:14. The actions detailed are those of a city preparing to resist a siege, and the verse Is a prediction that Nineveh will need all the preparation she can make.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Nah 3:14-15. Draw thee waters for the siege Fill all thy cisterns, and draw the waters into the ditches. Go into the clay, &c. Set thy brickmakers on work to prepare store of materials for thy fortifications. There shall the fire devour thee After all that thou canst do, the fire of the enemy shall reach even thy inmost works, and their darts shall drive off the defenders of them. The sword shall cut thee off The Hebrew word, which we render here sword, properly signifies any kind of dart; and this seems to be spoken of the fire, and missile weapons which the enemy should throw, in order to burn their inner works, or drive them from off them. It shall eat thee up like the canker-worm The sword of the enemy shall destroy thee, as the canker-worm eats up the fruits of the earth. Or, as some interpret the expression, Thou shalt be devoured as the cankerworm is eaten up; because the Assyrians were wont to eat these kinds of worms, which were a species of locusts, which are still eaten in the eastern countries. Make thyself many as the canker-worm Though thou multiply thine armies like locusts, or caterpillars, yet the enemy shall destroy them.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
In irony (cf. Nah 2:1) Nahum urged the Ninevites to draw plenty of water so they would have enough to drink and so they could extinguish the fires that would burn their gates and city. They should strengthen their fortifications and make more bricks to build their walls and battlements higher and stronger and to fill in the holes the enemy would punch in them.
"Nineveh’s ruins include traces of a counter-wall built by the inhabitants to defend the city near places where the enemy had broken down some of the city’s defenses." [Note: Johnson, p. 1503.]