Nahum 2:5, commentary and pictures

He recounts his chief men and summons them to action, yet they stumble as they go and rush to the city wall while the covering for defense is made ready. The word foretells the siege and fall of Nineveh, the wicked capital of Assyria, when it was overcome by the combined and superior power of Media, Egypt and Babylonia. That overthrow ended Assyrian dominance as Assyria yielded to its former dependencies, and Babylon under Nabopolassar rose from vassalage to ascendancy. Its details belong to the destruction of Nineveh and do not require an interpretation about railroad cars or railways. Those who held the latter-day reading teach that the chariots with flaming torches in the day of preparation are modern railroad cars, steam chariots and express trains running like lightning with terrific velocity, and that recounting his worthies is the conductor counting passengers, their stumbling is passengers catching at seats and sides in moving cars, and their haste to the wall is reaching for the sides for support as a sign that the day of preparation before the second advent is present.

Nineveh's Siege Described

The verse pictures a leader recounting and summoning his chiefs, his chosen men, for action. They stumble as they move forward and make haste to the wall of the city under attack. While they hurry, a defence is readied, an assault-covering prepared for the attack.

The prophecy to which it belongs is chiefly concerned with Nineveh, the wicked capital of Assyria. That city serves as a type of later cities. Its details can be applied to the destruction of Nineveh itself. They do not require an interpretation about railroad cars or railways.

It is part of God's prediction of the fall of Nineveh, the ruling capital of Assyria. The prediction was fulfilled when Assyria was overcome by the combined and superior power of Media, Egypt, and Babylonia. Those conquerors were its former dependencies, to which Assyria yielded. Their victory ended Assyrian dominance when Nineveh fell. Babylon under Nabopolassar was then left to rise from vassalage to ascendancy.

Railways Signal Last Days

The verse belongs to the prophecy of chariots with flaming torches in the day of preparation, whose rushing and stumbling movement is likened to trains speeding along. Those chariots are modern railroad cars, steam chariots, and express trains, seen as a sign that the world is in God's preparation for the last days. The description of ancient war chariots also aptly pictures modern railway cars, for they move swiftly like lightning and their construction and operation resemble a railway train. The verse thus contributes to a picture of rapid, extraordinary movement, with railroad cars identified with the chariots and swift movement described as a sign of the approach of the day of the Lord.

The day of preparation is the present latter-day time before the end, judgment, second advent, and coming of Christ, when a people are to be made ready. It is the period in which the world is warned about the coming judgment and second advent by the three proclamations of Revelation 14, and it precedes the judgment. Its presence is proved by the railroad as a modern invention, with the first railroad in the United States constructed in 1833. This fulfillment is numbered among the signs that the end is near, showing there will be means of rapid locomotion from place to place before the end.

Recounting his worthies means a conductor counting or checking the passengers at each station. Stumbling in their walk means passengers stumbling as they try to walk through cars in motion and catching at seats or sides to keep from falling. Making haste to the wall means hurriedly reaching for the sides of the cars for support as they move through them. These features identify the chariots with modern railway cars and make them a sign of the Lord's day of preparation, understood as the last days and the approach of judgment, in a prophecy treated as reaching beyond Nineveh to people in the last days.

The trains run like lightning with terrific velocity on the iron track, appearing at night under full headway like flaming torches with fiery lights. The mighty engine rolls along its track with one great eye and many lesser lights forcing darkness from its path, shaking the earth beneath its tread and uniting all lands. The worthies running with flaming torches in that day, jostling one against the next as they rush onward like flashes of lightning, are locomotives speeding with bright headlights. They rage in the streets and jostle one against another in the broad ways with the clasp of the car coupling and the roar of wheels, meaning fast vehicles carrying people quickly from place to place.

The verse gives a special message for engineers and traffic men about lightning-like speed in the last period before Christ comes, when the iron horse runs like lightning and its cars jostle one against another. That speed is seen in the thunderbolt, eclipse, and lightning express. Swift chariots racing across the land represent railway travel, and people crossing the sea with similar speed represent rapid sea travel, as a picture of modern human power and invention. The picture of leaders summoning their chosen men, who stumble as they hurry to the wall while defenses are readied under attack, supplies language for the modern demand for faster transportation in rushing chariots.