Nahum 2:8
But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water: yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but none shall look back. But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water: yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry; but none shall look back.
Nineveh of old had long been full and crowded with people like a pool filled with water, yet its inhabitants flee away in panic, and though they are cried to to stand and hold their ground, none looks back. The saying belongs to Nahum's prophecy chiefly concerning Nineveh, the wicked capital of Assyria, once the ruling power of the Orient. It foretells the fall, destruction, flight and desolation of Nineveh.
The fall was fulfilled when Assyria yielded to the united and superior power of Media, Egypt and Babylonia, its former dependencies, and with proud Nineveh fallen, Babylon long in vassalage to Nineveh rose again to ascendancy under Nabopolassar. The ruins of Nineveh stand as a striking object-lesson of fulfilled prophecy alongside Laodicea, Babylon, Tyre, Capernaum, Samaria, Memphis, Rome, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Nineveh is a type of many later cities, proving that God's word against proud cities comes to pass and warning that all the pomp of modern Tyres and Nophs and Babylons will likewise become one with Nineveh and Tyre.
On another view held by some, Nineveh of old here is an example of the final destruction of the nations in the still-future great day of the Lord, rather than a prophecy of ancient Nineveh's destruction. Nahum 2 identifies a day of God's preparation, marked by chariots that seem like torches and run like lightning, which is a preparation for the second advent and the day of God when the world is to receive the warning about the coming judgment. The imagery of flight and speed describes rapid travel by chariots and ships in the modern age, illustrating the unprecedented increase of human knowledge and speed, including lightning brought down from heaven and sent across the land as a messenger.