[276] Keep watch, Wellhausen.

[277] This may be a military call to attention, the converse of “Stand at ease!”

[278] Heb. literally: brace up thy power exceedingly.

[279] Heb. singular.

[280] Rev. ix. 17. Purple or red was the favourite colour of the Medes. The Assyrians also loved red.

[281] Read כאשׁ for באשׁ.

[282] פלדות, the word omitted, is doubtful; it does not occur elsewhere. LXX. ἡνίαι; Vulg. habenæ. Some have thought that it means scythes—cf. the Arabic falad, “to cut”—but the earliest notice of chariots armed with scythes is at the battle of Cunaxa, and in Jewish literature they do not appear before 2 Macc. xiii. 2. Cf. Jeremias, op. cit., p. 97, where Billerbeck suggests that the words of Nahum are applicable to the covered siege-engines, pictured on the Assyrian monuments, from which the besiegers flung torches on the walls: cf. ibid., p. 167, n. ***. But from the parallelism of the verse it is more probable that ordinary chariots are meant. The leading chariots were covered with plates of metal (Billerbeck, p. 167).

[283] So LXX., reading פרשים for ברשים of Heb. text, that means fir-trees. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose with Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were meant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls by engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be the cavalry and chariots in the open that are here described.

[284] Or broad places or suburbs. See above, pp. [100] f.

[285] See above, p. 106, end of n. [282].