There is no healing for your injury; your wound is severe. All who hear the news of you applaud your downfall, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty?
Parallel translations
- WEB There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you; for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?
- KJV There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?
- NKJV Your injury has no healing, Your wound is severe. All who hear news of you Will clap their hands over you, For upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually?
- NASB There is no relief for your collapse, Your wound is incurable. All who hear about you Will clap their hands over you, For upon whom has your evil not come continually?
- NLT There is no healing for your wound; your injury is fatal. All who hear of your destruction will clap their hands for joy. Where can anyone be found who has not suffered from your continual cruelty?
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
Nineveh's wound is fatal and incurable, and all who hear of its fall will clap their hands in relief at the end of its endless cruelty. The book closes with the just and final ruin of the oppressor.
Overview
The incurable injury signals that this judgment is final and irreversible, unlike earlier reprieves. The clapping of all who hear shows how universally Assyria's cruelty was felt and how welcome its end becomes. The closing rhetorical question vindicates God's justice and points forward to the day when every oppressor falls and the Lord's righteous and saving reign through Christ is fully established.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Mic 1:9For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.
- Lam 2:15All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”
- Job 27:23It claps its hands at him and hisses him out of his place.
- Isa 37:18Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands.
- Jer 46:11Go up to Gilead for balm, O Virgin Daughter of Egypt! In vain you try many remedies, but for you there is no healing.
- Rev 13:7Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.
- Jer 30:13–15There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sores, no recovery for you.
- Ezek 30:21–22“Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. See, it has not been bound up for healing, or splinted for strength to hold the sword.
- Nah 2:11–12Where is the lions’ lair or the feeding ground of the young lions, where the lion and lioness prowled with their cubs, with nothing to frighten them away?
- Rev 18:20Rejoice over her, O heaven, O saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced for you His judgment against her.
- Zeph 2:13–15And He will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria; He will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as a desert.
- Jer 10:22Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. The cities of Judah will be made a desolation, a haunt for jackals.
- Isa 14:8–21Even the cypresses and cedars of Lebanon exult over you: “Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes against us.”
- Rev 18:2–3And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.
- Isa 10:6–14I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
- Rev 17:2The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and those who dwell on the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her immorality.”
- Ezek 25:6For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Because you clapped your hands and stomped your feet and rejoiced over the land of Israel with a heart full of contempt,
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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 3:19 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
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