18:1 The land of buzzing wings is as good as dead, 1
the one beyond the rivers of Cush,
46:9 Go ahead and 3 charge into battle, you horsemen!
Drive furiously, you charioteers!
Let the soldiers march out into battle,
those from Ethiopia and Libya who carry shields,
and those from Lydia 4 who are armed with the bow. 5
3:8 You are no more secure 6 than Thebes 7 –
she was located on the banks of the Nile;
the waters surrounded her,
her 8 rampart 9 was the sea,
the water 10 was her wall.
3:9 Cush 11 and Egypt had limitless strength; 12
Put and the Libyans 13 were among 14 her 15 allies. 16
1 tn Heb “Woe [to] the land of buzzing wings.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
2 tn Heb “lightly dressed and barefoot, and bare with respect to the buttocks, the nakedness of Egypt.”
3 tn The words “Go ahead and” are not in the text but are intended to suggest the ironical nature of the commands here. The
4 sn The peoples that are referred to here are all known to have been mercenaries in the army of Egypt (see Nah 3:9; Ezek 30:5). The place names in Hebrew are actually Cush, Put, and Lud. “Cush” has already been identified in Jer 13:23 as the region along the Nile south of Egypt most commonly referred to as Ethiopia. The identification of “Put” and “Lud” are both debated though it is generally felt that Put was a part of Libya and Lud is to be identified with Lydia in Asia Minor. For further discussion see M. J. Mellink, “Lud, Ludim” IDB 3:178, and T. O. Lambdin, “Put,” IDB 3:971.
5 tn Heb “who grasp and bend the bow.”
6 tn Heb “Are you better than Thebes?”
7 tn Heb “No-Amon.” The name is transliterated by NAB, NASB; many other English versions employ the equivalent “Thebes.”
8 tn The relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר (’asher) is functioning in a possessive sense: “whose” (Job 37:17; Ps 95:5; Isa 5:28; 49:23; Jer 31:32; see HALOT 98 s.v. 4).
9 tn The consonantal form חיל is vocalized in the MT as חֵיל (khel, “rampart”). The LXX translation ἡ ἀρξή (Jh arxh, “strength”) reflects confusion between the relatively rare חֵיל and the more common חַיִל (khayil, “strength”); see HALOT 310-12.
10 tn Heb “from (the) sea.” The form should be emended to מַיִם (mayim, “water”). This is a figurative description of the Nile River: It functioned like a fortress wall for Thebes.
11 sn Cush is the Hebrew name for the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia (also known as Nubia) along the Nile valley south of Aswan in Egypt. Many modern English versions render this “Ethiopia,” but this area is not to be confused with modern Ethiopia (i.e., Abyssinia).
12 tn Or “Cush was limitless and Egypt was strong.” The NIV treats the two nations (“Cush and Egypt”) as a hendiadys of the predicate and translates them as one clause. On the other hand, NJPS treats them separately and translates them in two different clauses.
13 tn Heb “Lubim.” Most modern English versions render this as “Libya” or “the Libyans.”
14 tn The preposition בְּ (bet) in בְּעֶזְרָתֵךְ (bÿ’ezratekh) should probably be taken as a bet of identity rather than in a locative sense (DCH 2:84 s.v. בְּ 7; HALOT 104 s.v. בְּ 3).
15 tc Although the LXX and Syriac read a 3 fs suffix, the 2 fs suffix on MT בְּעֶזְרָתֵךְ (bÿ’ezratekh, “your strength”) should be retained because of the support of 4QpNah, which reads בעזרתך. The MT is the more difficult reading and best explains the origin of the variants, which attempt to harmonize with the preceding 3 fs suffix.
16 tn The Hebrew noun עָזָר (’azar) has been understood in two ways: (1) In the light of the Ugaritic root gzr (“hero, valiant one, warrior”), several scholars posit the existence of the Hebrew root II עָזַר (“warrior”), and translate בְּעֶזְרָתֵךְ (bÿ’ezratekh) as “in your army” (M. Dahood, Psalms, 1:210; P. Miller, “Ugaritic GZR and Hebrew `ZR II,” UF 2 [1970]: 168). (2) It is better to relate the Hebrew עָזָר to Canaanite izirtu (“military help”) which appears several times in the El-Amarna correspondence: “Let him give you soldiers and chariots as help for you so that they may protect the city” (EA 87:13) and “I have provided help for Tyre” (EA 89:18); see K. J. Cathcart, “More Philological Studies in Nahum,” JNWSL 7 (1979): 11.