She Is Empty, Void, and Waste
6 The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved. 7 It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her servants moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts. 8 But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one looks back. 9 Take the plunder of silver. Take the plunder of gold, for there is no end of treasure, an abundance of every precious thing. 10 She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
The river gates open, the plunder is carted off, and three hammering words leave the richest city on earth with nothing.
The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace dissolves. Nineveh stood where the Khosr met the Tigris, and verse 8 recalls that the city had been like a pool of water from of old. The same waters undo it — the flood of Nahum 1:8 arriving in literal form.
What follows is a city emptying: uncovered, carried away, her servants moaning like doves. Verse 9 hands the reader to the looters — take the silver, take the gold — and that abundance is Assyria's own tribute, gathered from every nation it stripped. Verse 10 lands three Hebrew words built on beating repeated sounds, which English can only approximate: empty, void, waste. Then hearts melting and knees knocking, a whole city described in the vocabulary of one person's terror.
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