What Does Nahum 2:13 Mean?
Look, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts. I will burn her chariots in smoke, and the sword will eat your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.THE KEY
The predator’s fall reaches beyond its force: the verse cuts off the prey that lets predation continue.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now as a declaration against a power that takes: its chariots burn, its young lions are devoured, its prey is cut off, and its messengers go unheard. Its force is stripped in sequence, transport, predation, gain, voice, until it can no longer project itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that power remains secure as long as it can seize prey and keep its commands heard.
THE ROOT
וְהִכְרַתִּי
ve-hikhratti
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut, sever, or cut down.
The verb translated “cut off” comes from the same root used in the Hebrew phrase for making a covenant. Here the severing reaches the source of predation itself: the prey is removed from the earth.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut or sever.
כָּרַת
This is the root verb behind the verse’s declaration that the prey will be cut off.
karat berit: Literally, to cut a covenant; translated “made a covenant.”
כָּרַת בְּרִית
Genesis 15:18 uses this same verb for making a covenant, showing how one root can name both severing and binding.
טַרְפֵּךְ
ṭarpēḵ
GROWS FROM
טרף
To tear or seize as prey.
The Hebrew word for prey carries the action of tearing inside it. What the city holds as spoils is named by the violence that takes it.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāraph: To tear or rend.
טָרַף
This is the action contained in the word for prey: the thing seized is defined by the tearing.
ṭeref: Prey or food torn away.
טֶרֶף
This related form makes the verse’s target concrete: not an abstract resource, but what has been seized for consumption.
THE PATTERN
When predatory power is judged, its means of force and its public voice are stripped away together.
He halts wars to the edge of the earth; he breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in two; he burns the wagons in the fire.I will stop the roar of your songs, and the sound of your harps will not be heard again.And the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in you; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in you; for your traders were the great ones of the earth; for by your potions all nations were made to wander.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.Nahum’s “cut off” comes from כרת (karat), the same verb in Genesis 15:18 for “made a covenant,” literally “cut a covenant.” One root names both severing and covenant-making; here it ends the prey that sustains predation.
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