[286] Heb. They stumble in their goings. Davidson holds this is more probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the besiegers. See next note.
[287] הסֹּכֵךְ. Partic. of the verb to cover, hence covering thing: whether mantlet (on the side of the besiegers) or bulwark (on the side of the besieged: cf. מָסָךְ, Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain. Billerbeck says, if it be an article of defence, we can read ver. 5 as illustrating the vanity of the hurried defence, when the elements themselves break in vv. 6 and 7 (p. 101: cf. p. 176, n. *).
[288] Sluices (Jeremias) or bridge-gates (Wellhausen)?
[289] Or breaks into motion, i.e. flight.
[290] הֻצּב, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of נצב and has been taken to mean it is determined, she (Niniveh) is taken captive. Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: it is settled. LXX. ὑπόστασις = מצב. Vulg. miles (as if some form of צבא?). Hitzig points it הַצָּב, the lizard, Wellhausen the toad. But this noun is masculine (Lev. xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other הַצָּב, fem., the litter or palanquin (Isa. lxvi. 20): “in lieu of anything better one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the woman or lady, just as in Arab. ḍḥa’inah means a woman’s litter and then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of הַצְּבי, the beauty. The Targ. has מלכתא, the queen. From as early as at least 1527 (Latina Interpretatio Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of scholars as a proper name, Huṣṣab. So Ewald and others. It may be an Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is corrupt.
Mr. Paul Ruben (Academy, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead of העלתה, is brought forth, to read העתלה, and to translate it by analogy of the Assyrian “etellu,” fem. “etellitu” = great or exalted, The Lady. The line would then run Huṣṣab, the lady, is stripped. (With העתלה Cheyne, Academy, June 21st, 1896, compares עתליה, which, he suggests, is “Yahwe is great” or “is lord.”)
[291] Heb. מֵימֵי הִיא for מימי אשר היא, from days she was. A.V. is of old. R.V. hath been of old, and Marg. from the days that she hath been. LXX. her waters, מֵימֶיהָ. On waters fleeing, cf. Ps. civ. 7.
[292] Buḳah, umebuḳah, umebullāḳah. Ewald: desert and desolation and devastation. The adj. are feminine.
[293] Literally: and the faces of all them gather lividness.
[294] For מרעה Wellhausen reads מערה, cave or hold.