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it was not yet completely broken, so long as there was a possibility that Assyria might rise again with new power, as in fact it did in the reign of Manasseh, when Assyrian generals invaded Judah and carried off this king to Babylon (2Ch 33:11). It was only broken when the Assyrian power was overthrown through the conquest and destruction of Nineveh. This view, which is required by the futures ‘eshbōr and ‘ănattēq, is confirmed by Nah 1:14, for there the utter extermination of Assyria is clearly expressed. Vetsivvâh is not a perfect with Vav rel.; but the Vav is a simple copula: “and (= for) Jehovah has commanded.” The perfect refers to the divine purpose, which has already been formed, even though its execution is still in the future. This purpose runs thus: “Of thy seed shall no more be sown, i.e., thou wilt have no more descendants” (“the people and name are to become extinct,” Strauss; cf. Isa 14:20). It is not the king of Assyria who is here addressed, but the Assyrian power personified as a single man, as we may see from what follows, according to which the idols are to be rooted out along with the seed from the house of God, i.e., out of the idol temples (cf. Isa 37:38; Isa 44:13). Pesel and massēkhâh are combined, as in Deu 27:15, to denote every kind of idolatrous image. For the idolatry of Assyria, see Layard's Nineveh and its Remains, ii. p. 439ff. אשׂים קברך cannot mean, “I make the temple of thy god into a grave,” although this meaning has already been expressed in the Chaldee and Syriac; and the Masoretic accentuation, which connects the words with what precedes, is also founded upon this view. If an object had to be supplied to אשׂים from the context, it must be pesel ūmassēkhâh; but there would be no sense in “I make thine idol into a grave.” There is no other course left, therefore, than to take קברך as the nearest and only object to אשׂים, “I lay, i.e., prepare thy grave,” כּי קלּות, because, when weighed according to thy moral worth (Job 31:6), thou hast been found light (cf. Dan 5:27). Hence the widespread opinion, that the murder of Sennacherib (Isa 37:38; 2Ki 19:37) is predicted here, must be rejected as erroneous and irreconcilable with the words, and not even so far correct as that Nahum makes any allusion to that event. He simply announces the utter destruction of the Assyrian power, together with its idolatry, upon which that power rested.