The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
All Commentaries on Nahum 1:3 Go To Nahum 1
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
Prey will not be taken in advance. Sound of whips, sound of rumbling wheels, pursuing horses, hurtling chariots, charging horsemen, flashing swords, gleaming weapons, numbers of wounded, heavy casualties. There was no respite for its nations; they will be weak in their bodies from the great degree of prostitution. Again the treatment is developed on the basis of what normally happens. Bird catchers, you see, envelop the densely compact bushes with nets, and in many cases catch those hidden under them by laying hold of them—no mean feat. He says that prey will not be taken in advance by them; in other words, some would not hunt as in the past, seizing others’ possessions for themselves, nor would there be a snare and trap for the weaker ones, since a different concern occupied them and a struggle for the ultimate hung over them with the sound of whips being heard there. I have the impression that once again the prophet describes clearly the tumult arising from war, as though before his eyes. He observes, for example, how the city rings to the sound of horses and is struck with the wheels of chariots, men in gleaming battle armor plundering it, the wreckers beyond counting, and its houses shaken down (he mentions heavy casualties, note). He is aghast at the fact that a vast number of nations are assembled in it, many faint-hearted, stricken with culpable weakness and a prey to deep fear. Immediately he supplies the reason, that they will be weak in their bodies from the great degree of prostitution; depraved and vicious in their habits, idolaters to boot, and wrongfully disposed to error, consequently they will duly be weak and timid, unable even to give a thought to resistance.
