There the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down and consume you like a young locust. Make yourself many like the young locust; make yourself many like the swarming locust!
Parallel translations
- WEB There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.
- KJV There 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.
- NKJV There the fire will devour you, The sword will cut you off; It will eat you up like a locust. Make yourself many—like the locust! Make yourself many— like the swarming locusts!
- NASB There fire will consume you, The sword will cut you down; It will consume you as the creeping locust consumes a crop. Multiply yourself like the creeping locust, Multiply yourself like the migratory locust.
- NLT But the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down. The enemy will consume you like locusts, devouring everything they see. There will be no escape, even if you multiply like swarming locusts.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Despite all preparations, fire and sword will devour Nineveh, consuming it as locusts strip a field. Multiplying its forces will not save it.
Overview
The locust imagery, introduced here, pictures both the devouring of the city and, ironically, its own swarming numbers that still cannot prevent ruin. Fire and sword complete the destruction that no defense can withstand. The verse begins a sustained comparison that exposes the emptiness of Nineveh's vast resources before God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Joel 1:4What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
- Nah 3:13Look at your troops—they are like your women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire consumes their bars.
- Nah 2:13“Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will send your chariots up in smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voices of your messengers will no longer be heard.”
- Zeph 2:13And He will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria; He will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as a desert.
- Exod 10:13–15So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and throughout that day and night the LORD sent an east wind across the land. By morning the east wind had brought the locusts.
- Joel 2:25I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The certain judgment on Nineveh and the comfort that 'the LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble' point to Christ, who is both the refuge of his people and the judge of their enemies.
How Nahum 3:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.