Nahum 3:14
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln. Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.
Nahum 3:14 belongs to the prophecy directed against Nineveh, the bloody city. The rare Hebrew term rendered brickkiln means brickwork or a paved area, not a kiln for firing bricks, the same term used for the paved area at a royal palace in Jeremiah 43:9. The expression for passing through means passing by or before, and the word for under when used with tools means with or by means of them. The language describes captives passing before a ruler seated on a paved area to be assigned suitable kinds of labor, rather than being tortured or killed.
The prophecy in Nahum chapters 2 and 3 foretold the fall of Nineveh and was fulfilled when Assyria yielded to the united and superior power of Media, Egypt and Babylonia, its former dependencies, and Nineveh fell. That overthrow ended Assyrian dominance and opened the way for Babylon under Nabopolassar to rise from vassalage to Nineveh and return to ascendancy. Nineveh is a type of latter-day conditions.