What Does Nahum 3:11 Mean in the King James?
Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.
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 word translated “strength” means a stronghold, so this verse shows a desperate search for shelter after impairment and hiding.
THE MEANING
When an enemy closes in, you can become dulled, hidden, and driven to seek a stronghold; the verse holds these responses in one sequence. The pressure shows that the strength being sought is shelter from danger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hiding itself makes you safe: the verse shows concealment followed by an urgent search for strength because the enemy remains.
THE ROOT
מָעוֹז
maʿoz
GROWS FROM
עזז
ʿazaz
To be strong; strength that becomes a fortified refuge.
The Hebrew noun translated “strength” names a refuge or fortress, not only an inner quality. The same noun is rendered “strong hold” in Nahum 1:7, joining this desperate search with a refuge that is present in trouble.
ALSO GROWS
ʿoz: Strength or might.
עֹז
The same root gives the idea of strength that underlies the stronghold sought here.
maʿoz: A fortified place or shelter.
מָעוֹז
This is the word in the verse: strength takes the concrete shape of somewhere to seek shelter.
נַעֲלָמָה
neʿelāmāh
GROWS FROM
עלם
ʿālam
To conceal or be out of sight.
“hid” in this verse is neʿelāmāh. The verse moves from intoxication to concealment, then to a search for refuge. The root makes hiding a state within that sequence, not an escape from the enemy.
ALSO GROWS
heʿlim: To hide or make something unseen.
הֶעְלִים
The active form shows concealment as something that can be done, while the verse describes the concealed state that follows.
neʿlam: Concealed or out of sight.
נֶעְלָם
This shares the root of the verse’s word for “hid,” reinforcing the passage’s movement into concealment.
תִּשְׁכְּרִי
tishkeri
GROWS FROM
שכר
shakar
To become drunk or intoxicated.
“drunken” in this verse is tishkeri. The root names both intoxication and the drink that causes it. Here the loss of clear awareness opens a sequence that ends in hiding and seeking refuge.
ALSO GROWS
shekhar: Strong drink.
שֵׁכָר
The root includes the drink as well as the state of intoxication named at the start of the verse.
shikkor: Someone overcome by drink.
שִׁכּוֹר
This branch shows the condition produced by the same root that describes the verse’s opening.
THE PATTERN
When danger presses, the search for strength reveals what is being treated as refuge.
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:THE THREAD
The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.The word rendered “strength” here and “strong hold” there is the same Hebrew noun, מָעוֹז (maʿoz, refuge or stronghold). Nahum places a desperate search for shelter beside a stronghold present in trouble.
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