Nahum 3:1
“Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →The prophet cries woe over Nineveh, the city of bloodshed, full of deceit and plunder, never empty of its victims.
What Does Nahum 3:1 Mean?
The final chapter opens with a cry of woe, the lament-warning the prophets raise over the doomed. Nineveh is named the bloody city, soaked in the violence that built it. It is full of lies and robbery, deceit in its dealings and theft in its conquests, and the prey never departs, for the plunder and captives keep streaming in. In a few words the prophet sums up the empire's whole character: bloodshed, falsehood, and ceaseless predation.
Woe is a heavy word, mingling grief with judgment; it mourns even as it condemns. The threefold indictment, blood, lies, robbery, names the sins that cry out to heaven, the abuse of the weak by the strong. God is not indifferent to such things; His justice rises precisely because His heart is grieved by cruelty. This is the necessary other side of His goodness: a God who loved the oppressed could not be silent before their oppressors. The woe over Nineveh assures every victim of violence that their suffering has reached the ears of One who will answer it.