Nahum — Chapter 3

Vae civitati sanguinum

'Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies, full of rapine.' À Lapide's commentary on the three charges—blood, lies, rapine—is essentially a treatise on the three structural sins of imperial power. He draws parallels with Rome's treatment of Christians in the persecutions and warns that any state that builds itself on these foundations faces the same judgment as Nineveh.

Propter multitudinem fornicationum meretricis

'Because of the multitude of the fornications of the harlot—fair and agreeable—a mistress of sorceries.' À Lapide reads the harlot-image of Nineveh as the figure of Babylon in the Apocalypse (Rev. 17-18), following Victorinus of Pettau and Tyconius. The city that seduces nations with wealth and pleasure is the type of every anti-Christian civilisation in history.

Dormierunt pastores tui rex Assur

'Thy shepherds have slumbered, O king of Assyria; thy princes shall be buried.' The sleeping shepherds of Assyria figure rulers who fail their peoples through negligence or complicity in injustice. À Lapide applies this directly to bad bishops and negligent pastors—a characteristic application of prophetic imagery to the clergy of his own time. The scattered flock without shepherd is both the literal Assyrian population and, typologically, souls abandoned by their spiritual fathers.