Bible Strands
Nahum 3:4
because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the seductive mistress of sorcery, who betrays nations by her prostitution and clans by her witchcraft.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet conveys the LORD’s judgment against a metaphorical harlot immediately after describing a field of corpses and directly before announcing a divine threat to expose her shame.
The words — זְנוּנֵי (ze.nu.Nei) = prostitution(s), and כְּשָׁפִים (ke.sha.Fim) = sorceries, both term the means by which the figure corrupts nations and clans.
The thread — The coupling of political seduction with occult practice runs through Isaiah 47:9, 12 and Ezekiel 16:25, where reliance on spells and street shrines meets ruin and degradation.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to see that power secured through manipulation and witchcraft does not preserve stability but guarantees public exposure and judicial reversal.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 47:9 These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.
- Isaiah 47:12 So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror!
- Ezekiel 16:25 At the head of every street you built your lofty shrines and degraded your beauty. With increasing promiscuity, you spread your legs to all who passed by.
- Revelation 17:1 Then one of the seven angels with the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters.
- Revelation 18:2 And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.
- Revelation 18:9 Then the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her.
- Revelation 18:23 The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a bride and bridegroom will never call out in you again. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”
- Isaiah 23:15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years—the span of a king’s life. But at the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot: