What Does Nahum 2:3 Mean in the King James?
The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse makes the coming violence visible before impact: the shields redden, the chariots blaze, and even the trees tremble.
THE MEANING
You are shown violence gathering in plain sight: red shields, scarlet-clad men, flaming chariots, and fir trees shaken by their approach. The scene stays physical, showing force not only in its fighters and weapons but in the disturbance it brings to the landscape.
THE ROOT
מְאָדָּם
me’oddam
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
The root means to be red; its related word-family includes אָדָם (ʾādām, human) and אֲדָמָה (ʾădāmāh, ground or soil).
“made red” in this verse is me’oddam. English gives the shields a color, while the Hebrew consonants also echo in words for the human and the ground. The color remains part of the battle scene, with a sound-link that English does not preserve.
ALSO GROWS
ʾādām: human, person
אָדָם
It shares the root-family behind the verse’s word for red, bringing the human close to the color in the Hebrew sound.
ʾădāmāh: ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
It shares the same consonants, linking the red of the scene with the ground beneath it.
ʾĔdôm: Edom, a name associated with red
אֱדוֹם
Genesis uses the same red word-family when Esau’s red pottage gives rise to the name Edom.
הֲכִינוֹ
hakino
GROWS FROM
כון
k-w-n
The root means to be firm or set in place; in causative forms it means to establish, arrange, or prepare.
The preparation is a setting of things in position before the force advances. Beside the shaking trees, the verse holds deliberate readiness against a landscape thrown into motion.
ALSO GROWS
hēkîn: prepare, make ready
הֵכִין
This causative form shows preparation as setting something up for what follows.
nāḵôn: established, ready
נָכוֹן
It carries the root’s sense of being set in place, illuminating the army’s readiness in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture renders approaching force through visible motion, fire, and the upheaval it brings.
Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.THE THREAD
And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.Nahum’s “made red” and Genesis’s “red pottage” share the Hebrew root אָדַם (ʾ-d-m), the word-family associated with red and the name Edom. The connection lets Nahum’s battle color echo the naming in Genesis through a Hebrew link English renders only as “red.”
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