Bible Strands
Nahum 3:6
I will pelt you with filth and treat you with contempt; I will make a spectacle of you.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The LORD of Hosts speaks directly to Nineveh, pronouncing judgment immediately after declaring He will lift her skirts and expose her nakedness to the nations. This declaration occurs at the climax of the oracle against the Assyrian capital.
The words — The Hebrew verb הִשְׁלַכְתִּי (hish.lakh.Ti) literally means "I will throw," paired with שִׁקּוּצִים (shi.ku.Tzim), meaning "detestable things." The phrase נִבַּלְתִּיךְ (ni.bal.Ti.kh) conveys the active treatment of contempt, culminating in making her כְּרֹאִי (ke.'Ro.i), "like a spectacle."
The thread — The motif of public humiliation and being made despised appears in Malachi 2:9, where God states He has made a people despised and humiliated before all. The imagery of foulness and exposure also echoes the physical and spiritual degradation described in Job 9:31 and Psalms 38:5.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that divine judgment operates through public exposure and the stripping away of dignity. It requires the reader to acknowledge that shame and loss of status are the direct consequences of the stated rebellion, leaving no room for comfort or recovery.
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
And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.
Cross-references
- Malachi 2:9 “So I in turn have made you despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not kept My ways, but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”
- Job 9:31 then You would plunge me into the pit, and even my own clothes would despise me.
- Psalms 38:5 My wounds are foul and festering because of my sinful folly.
- Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.
- Job 30:8 A senseless and nameless brood, they were driven off the land.
- Nahum 1:14 The LORD has issued a command concerning you, O Nineveh: “There will be no descendants to carry on your name. I will cut off the carved image and cast idol from the house of your gods; I will prepare your grave, for you are contemptible.”
- 1 Corinthians 4:9 For it seems to me that God has displayed us apostles at the end of the procession, like prisoners appointed for death. We have become a spectacle to the whole world, to angels as well as to men.
- Hebrews 10:33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to ridicule and persecution; at other times you were partners with those who were so treated.
- 1 Kings 9:7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.
- Job 30:19 He throws me into the mud, and I have become like dust and ashes.