The Battle Vision Moves from Flashing Assault to Empty Terror

The vision flashes from red shields to a palace that melts

The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet, chariots rage with flaming torches in the streets and run like the lightnings. The 'fir trees' terribly shaken may be spear shafts, not a forest in panic. He recalls his worthies; they stumble in their walk as they hasten to the wall. The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.

This is crafted battle poetry, not a complete chronicle of Nineveh's last days. River gates may be literal water, metaphor for invasion, or both. They do not prove that a flood alone took the city. 'Huzzab' in older English is not securely a queen's name; the line more likely says that something is decreed, or that a feminine figure is led away while attendants mourn.

Nineveh drains like a pool, and terror has a body

Nineveh is of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry, but none shall look back. Then the conquerors are told to take the spoil of silver and gold, for there is none end of the store. The last snapshot is not treasure. She is empty, and void, and waste: heart melted, knees smiting together, much pain in all loins, faces gathering blackness.

The poem invites Judah to watch an unassailable capital fail. It also will not let the reader treat the scene as entertainment. Flight, mourning, and bodily panic belong to people. Graphic siege poetry is not a spectacle to enjoy, and it is not a warrant to wish displacement and terror on present civilians.