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LXX Nahum

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 3

1 City of blood, wholly false, full of unrighteousness; the prey shall not be handled. 2 The noise of whips, and the noise of the rumbling of wheels, and of the pursuing horse, and of the bounding chariot, 3 and of the mounting rider, and of the glittering sword, and of the gleaming arms, and of a multitude of people killed, and of heavy falling: and there was no end to her nations, but they shall be weak in their bodies 4 because of the abundance of fornication: she is a fair harlot, and well-favored, skilled in sorcery, that sells the nations by her fornication, and peoples by her sorceries. 5 Look, I am against you, says the Lord God Almighty, and I will uncover your skirts in your presence, and I will show the nations your shame, and the kingdoms your disgrace. 6 And I will cast abominable filth upon you according to your unclean ways, and will make you a public example. 7 And it shall be that every one that sees you shall go down from you, and shall say, Wretched Nineveh! who shall lament for her? from where shall I seek comfort for her? 8 Prepare a portion, tune the chord, prepare a portion for Ammon: she that dwells among the rivers, water is all around her, whose dominion is the sea, and whose walls are water. 9 And Ethiopia is her strength, and Egypt; and there was no limit of the flight; and the Libyans became her helpers. 10 Yet she shall go as a prisoner into captivity, and they shall dash her infants against the ground at the top of all her ways: and they shall cast lots upon all her glorious possessions, and all her nobles shall be bound in chains. 11 And you shall be drunk, and shall be overlooked; and you shall seek for yourself strength because of your enemies. 12 All your strongholds are as fig-trees having watchers: if they are shaken, they shall fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Look, your people within you are as women: the gates of your land shall surely be opened to your enemies: the fire shall devour your bars. 14 Draw water for a siege, and well secure your strongholds: enter into the clay, and be trodden in the chaff, make the fortifications stronger than brick. 15 There the fire shall devour you; the sword shall utterly destroy you, it shall devour you as the locust, and you shall be pressed down as a palmerworm. 16 You have multiplied your merchandise beyond the stars of heaven: the palmerworm has attacked it, and has flown away. 17 Your mixed multitude has leaped out as the grasshopper,⁠ as the locust perched on a hedge in a frosty day; the sun arises, and it flies off, and does not know its place: woe to them! 18 Your shepherds have slumbered, the Assyrian king has laid low your mighty men: your people departed to the mountains, and there was none to receive them. 19 There is no healing for your bruise; your wound has rankled: all that hear the report of you shall clap their hands against you; for upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually?

Texts in conversation

Compare Nahum 3:17 and LXX Nahum 3:17

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

The Hebrew version of Nahum mocks Assyria’s officials as locusts that settle on the walls then fly off at sunrise, abandoning the city. The Greek translation interpreted this as a mixed foreign army swarming to attack, turning deserters into invaders.

Passages

Nahum 3:17

Hebrew Bible
16 Increase your merchants more than the stars of heaven! They are like the young locust that sheds its skin and flies away. 17 Your courtiers are like locusts, your officials are like a swarm of locusts! They encamp in the walls on a cold day, yet when the sun rises, they fly away, and no one knows where they are. 18 Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria. Your officers are slumbering! Your people are scattered like sheep on the mountains, and there is no one to regather them.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Nahum

LXX Nahum 3:17

Septuagint
16 You have multiplied your merchandise beyond the stars of heaven: the palmerworm has attacked it, and has flown away. 17 Your mixed multitude has leaped out as the grasshopper, as the locust perched on a hedge in a frosty day; the sun arises, and it flies off, and does not know its place: woe to them! 18 Your shepherds have slumbered, the Assyrian king has laid low your mighty men: your people departed to the mountains, and there was none to receive them.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Nahum

References

... In the Septuagint it is found as a substantive often designating an army made up of several nationalities (Judith 1:16; Jeremiah 32:20). The combination of ἐξάλλομαι (a term possibly implying an attack) and σύμμικτος shows that the translator had probably understood this verse to refer to an attacking multinational army which was compared to a locust—a sense not obvious in the Masoretic Text. This image of the locust created by the Septuagint translator is not very different from the image portrayed in the Septuagint of Amos 7:1. ...
Myrto Theocharous, Lexical Dependence and Intertextual Allusion in the Septuagint of the Twelve Prophets: Studies in Hosea, Amos and Micah (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 239.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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