Nahum 3:14
New International Version
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your defenses! Work the clay, tread the mortar, repair the brickwork!

New Living Translation
Get ready for the siege! Store up water! Strengthen the defenses! Go into the pits to trample clay, and pack it into molds, making bricks to repair the walls.

English Standard Version
Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold!

Berean Standard Bible
Draw your water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Work the clay and tread the mortar; repair the brick kiln!

King James Bible
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.

New King James Version
Draw your water for the siege! Fortify your strongholds! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Make strong the brick kiln!

New American Standard Bible
Draw for yourself water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!

NASB 1995
Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!

NASB 1977
Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!

Legacy Standard Bible
Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!

Amplified Bible
Draw water for a [long, continued] siege! Strengthen your fortresses! Go down to the clay pits, trample the mortar! Prepare the brick kiln [to burn bricks for the rampart]!

Christian Standard Bible
Draw water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Step into the clay and tread the mortar; take hold of the brick-mold!

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Draw water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Step into the clay and tread the mortar; take hold of the brick-mold!

American Standard Version
Draw thee water for the siege; strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar; make strong the brickkiln.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Draw for yourself water in the siege and strengthen your fortified cities; bring in mud and tread in clay and strengthen counsel

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Draw thee water for a siege, and well secure thy strong-holds: enter into the clay, and be thou trodden in the chaff, make the fortifications stronger than brick.

Contemporary English Version
Your city is under attack. Haul in extra water! Strengthen your defenses! Start making bricks! Stir the mortar!

Douay-Rheims Bible
Draw thee water for the siege, build up thy bulwarks: go into the clay, and tread, work it and make brick.

English Revised Version
Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses: go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brickkiln.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Store water for the siege! Strengthen your defenses! Step into the claypits and trample the clay! Grab the brick mold!

Good News Translation
Draw water to prepare for a siege, and strengthen your fortresses! Trample the clay to make bricks, and get the brick molds ready!

International Standard Version
"Draw water, because a siege is coming! Strengthen your fortresses! Make the clay good and strong! Mix the mortar! Go get your brick molds!

JPS Tanakh 1917
Draw thee water for the siege, Strengthen thy fortresses; Go into the clay, and tread the mortar, Lay hold of the brickmould.

Literal Standard Version
Waters of a siege draw for yourself, | Strengthen your fortresses, | Enter into mire, and tread on clay, | Make strong a brick-kiln.

Majority Standard Bible
Draw your water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Work the clay and tread the mortar; repair the brick kiln!

New American Bible
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your fortresses; Go down into the mud and tread the clay, take hold of the brick mold!

NET Bible
Draw yourselves water for a siege! Strengthen your fortifications! Trample the mud and tread the clay! Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!

New Revised Standard Version
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; trample the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!

New Heart English Bible
Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.

Webster's Bible Translation
Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.

World English Bible
Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.

Young's Literal Translation
Waters of a siege draw for thyself, Strengthen thy fortresses, Enter into mire, and tread on clay, Make strong a brick-kiln.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Judgment Against Nineveh
13Look at your troops—they are like your women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire consumes their bars. 14Draw your water for the siege; strengthen your fortresses. Work the clay and tread the mortar; repair the brick kiln! 15There the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you down and consume you like a young locust. Make yourself many like the young locust; make yourself many like the swarming locust!…

Cross References
2 Chronicles 32:3
he consulted with his leaders and commanders about stopping up the waters of the springs outside the city, and they helped him carry it out.

2 Chronicles 32:4
Many people assembled and stopped up all the springs and the stream that flowed through the land. "Why should the kings of Assyria come and find plenty of water?" they said.

Jeremiah 46:3
"Deploy your shields, small and large; advance for battle!

Nahum 2:1
One who scatters advances against you, O Nineveh. Guard the fortress! Watch the road! Brace yourselves! Summon all your strength!


Treasury of Scripture

Draw you waters for the siege, fortify your strong holds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick kiln.

Draw.

2 Chronicles 32:3,4,11
He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him…

Isaiah 22:9-11
Ye have seen also the breaches of the city of David, that they are many: and ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool…

Isaiah 37:25
I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.

fortify.

Nahum 2:1
He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face: keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily.

Isaiah 8:9
Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces.

Jeremiah 46:3,4,9
Order ye the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle…

Jump to Previous
Brick Brickkiln Brick-Kiln Clay Defenses Draw Earth Feet Fortifications Fortify Fortresses Forts Hold Holds Kiln Lay Mortar Morter Potter's Repair Shut Siege Stamping Strengthen Strong Time Towns Tread Water Waters Work
Jump to Next
Brick Brickkiln Brick-Kiln Clay Defenses Draw Earth Feet Fortifications Fortify Fortresses Forts Hold Holds Kiln Lay Mortar Morter Potter's Repair Shut Siege Stamping Strengthen Strong Time Towns Tread Water Waters Work
Nahum 3
1. The destruction of Nineveh.














(14) Draw thee waters.--In this desperate plight Nineveh is scoffingly advised to protract her resistance. The outer walls are broken down; let her hold out in the citadel. Nay, let her begin anew her preparations for defence. Let her lay in water and provision, and build new buttresses of brick. What shall it avail her? In the midst of her preparations, fire and sword shall again surprise her. The account of this last struggle for existence is minute. Nahum goes back to the repair of the brick-kiln, just as Isaiah, in his description of idol-worship, goes back to the smith working with the tongs, and the carpenter measuring with his rule (Isaiah 44:12, seq.). In both cases the irony gains force by a minute and elaborate description of operations destined to be futile.

Verses 14-19. - § 3. In spite of all its efforts and all its resources, Nineveh shall meet with a terrible end. Verse 14. - Nahum ironically bids the Ninevites prepare for the siege they were about to sustain. Draw thee waters for the siege. The drinking water necessary for a long siege is meant. This injunction is not particularly applicable to Nineveh, which from its situation was abundantly supplied with water, unless there was danger that the enemy would divert the courses of the rivers. But the warning would come home with peculiar force to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, among whom Nahum prophesied (2 Kings 20:20; Isaiah 22:11; Isaiah 30:20). Fortify thy strong holds; strengthen thy fortresses. Repair all defects in thy defences (2 Chronicles 11:11). The mode of doing this in the Assyrian fashion is then denoted. Go into clay, and tread the mortar. The soil round Nineveh was of a tenacious quality; and when moistened with water and kneaded either with feet or hands, with the addition usually of a little chopped straw, was easily formed into bricks. These, even without the aid of fire, became dry and hard in the course of a few days. But it is plain from the investigations of ruins that the Assyrians used both kiln-baked and sun-dried bricks, though the mass of the walls was usually composed of the latter, the more durable material being employed merely as an accessory (see Bouomi, 'Nineveh and its Palaces,' p. 9; Layard, 'Nineveh,' 2:252). Xenophon, 'Anab.,' 3:4. 11, speaks of the brick wall (πλίνθινον τεῖχος) of a town he calls Mespila. Make strong the brick kiln. There is an uncertainty about the meaning of the last word (malben), which occurs only in two other places (2 Samuel 12:31 and Jeremiah 43:9). In the latter passage it may possibly mean "a square" or "open quadrangle." Jerome has, tene laterem; the LXX., κατακράτησον ὑπερ πλίνθον "make them strong above (equivalent to 'stronger than') brick," connecting it with the following verse. Some translate it, "brick mould." If the Anglican Version is correct, the prophet bids them repair their kilns, unused in the days of prosperity, when they had no need to look to the security of their walls. Virtually the same sense is elicited by rendering, "lay hold of the brick mould."

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Draw
שַֽׁאֲבִי־ (ša·’ă·ḇî-)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 7579: To bale up water

your
לָ֔ךְ (lāḵ)
Preposition | second person feminine singular
Strong's Hebrew

water
מֵ֤י (mê)
Noun - masculine plural construct
Strong's 4325: Water, juice, urine, semen

for the siege;
מָצוֹר֙ (mā·ṣō·wr)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 4692: Something hemming in, a mound, a siege, distress, a fastness

strengthen
חַזְּקִ֖י (ḥaz·zə·qî)
Verb - Piel - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 2388: To fasten upon, to seize, be strong, obstinate, to bind, restrain, conquer

your fortresses.
מִבְצָרָ֑יִךְ (miḇ·ṣā·rā·yiḵ)
Noun - masculine plural construct | second person feminine singular
Strong's 4013: A fortification, castle, fortified city, a defender

Work
בֹּ֧אִי (bō·’î)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 935: To come in, come, go in, go

the clay
בַטִּ֛יט (ḇaṭ·ṭîṭ)
Preposition-b, Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2916: Mud, clay, calamity

and tread
וְרִמְסִ֥י (wə·rim·sî)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 7429: To tread upon

the mortar;
בַחֹ֖מֶר (ḇa·ḥō·mer)
Preposition-b, Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 2563: A bubbling up, of water, a wave, of earth, mire, clay, a heap, a chomer, dry measure

repair
הַחֲזִ֥יקִי (ha·ḥă·zî·qî)
Verb - Hifil - Imperative - feminine singular
Strong's 2388: To fasten upon, to seize, be strong, obstinate, to bind, restrain, conquer

the brick [kiln]!
מַלְבֵּֽן׃ (mal·bên)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 4404: A brick mold, quadrangle


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OT Prophets: Nahum 3:14 Draw water for the siege (Nah. Na)
Nahum 3:13
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