Nahum Chapter 3 verse 15 Holy Bible
There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall devour thee like the canker-worm: make thyself many as the canker-worm; make thyself many as the locust.
read chapter 3 in ASV
There the fire will make you waste; you will be cut off by the sword: make yourself as great in number as the worms, as great in number as the locusts.
read chapter 3 in BBE
There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall devour thee like the cankerworm. Make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locust.
read chapter 3 in DARBY
There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.
read chapter 3 in KJV
read chapter 3 in WBT
There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.
read chapter 3 in WEB
There consume thee doth a fire, Cut thee off doth a sword, It doth consume thee as a cankerworm! Make thyself heavy as the cankerworm, Make thyself heavy as the locust.
read chapter 3 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 15. - There. In the very place where thou hast taken all these precautions. Shall the fire devour thee. That fire played a great part in the destruction of Nineveh is asserted by historians and proved by the remains of the city discovered in modern times (see note on ver. 13: also Herod., 1:106; Diod. Sic., 2:25-28; Athen., 12:529). The fate of the last king, who burnt himself and his palace, is a well known story (see Justin, 'Hist.,' 1:3; Eusebius, 'Chronicles,' 1:9; 14:3; 15:7; Syncell., 'Chronicles,' 1:396, edit. Dind.) (Kuabenbauer). The sword shall cut thee off. While fire destroys the buildings, the sword shall devour the inhabitants of the city. The cankerworm; literally, the licker (Joel 1:4). The locust in its earlier stage is thus described (see ver. 16). The figure implies that the destruction of Nineveh should be sudden and complete, as that wrought on vegetation by an inroad of locusts. Make thyself many. Collect thine armies, gather hosts as innumerable as the locusts, it will be all in vain. The "cankerworm" represented the enemy; the "locusts" represent the Assyrians themselves.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15, 16) The diversion of metaphor here is somewhat repugnant to modern taste. The sword, like the locust, shall devour Nineveh. Yet Nineveh is immediately afterwards compared in its numbers, destructive influence, and sudden disappearance to the locust. It is a transition like St. Paul's "going off at a word." The comparison of the locust suggests the thought that Nineveh herself has been a locust-pest to the world, and the direction of the metaphor is thereupon suddenly changed. A paraphrase will best bring out the meaning. (15) "Hostile swords devour thee, as a locust swarm devours. Vainly clusters together thy dense population, itself another locust-swarm. (16) Yea, as the stars of heaven for number have been thy merchants, as a pest of locusts which plunders one day and is gone the next."
