Nahum 3:14
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Draw you waters for the siege, fortify your strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick kiln.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Draw you waters for the siege, fortify your strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick kiln.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Draw thee water for the siege; strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brickkiln.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Get water for the time when you are shut in, make strong your towns: go into the potter's earth, stamping it down with your feet, make strong the brickworks.
Webster's Revision
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.
World English Bible
Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses: go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln.
Clarke's Nahum 3:14 Bible Commentary
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.
Barnes's Nahum 3:14 Bible Commentary
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strongholds - This is not mere mockery at man's 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 Nahum 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 2 Chronicles 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 (Isaiah 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 Isaiah 27:10-11).
Wesley's Nahum 3:14 Bible Commentary
3:14 Draw thee waters - Fill all thy cisterns, and draw the waters into the ditches. Tread the mortar - Set thy brick - makers on work to prepare store of materials for thy fortifications.