[283] So LXX., reading פרשים for ברשים of Heb. text, that means _fir-trees_. If the latter be correct, then we should need to suppose with Billerbeck that either the long lances of the Aryan Medes were meant, or the great, heavy spears which were thrust against the walls by engines. We are not, however, among these yet; it appears to be the cavalry and chariots in the open that are here described. [284] Or _broad places_ or _suburbs_. See above, pp. 100 f. [285] See above, p. 106, end of n. 282. [286] Heb. _They stumble in their goings._ Davidson holds this is more probably of the defenders. Wellhausen takes the verse as of the besiegers. See next note. [287]‎ הסֹּכֵךְ. Partic. of the verb _to cover_, hence covering thing: whether _mantlet_ (on the side of the besiegers) or _bulwark_ (on the side of the besieged: cf. מָסָךְ, Isa. xxii. 8) is uncertain. Billerbeck says, if it be an article of defence, we can read ver. 5 as illustrating the vanity of the hurried defence, when the elements themselves break in vv. 6 and 7 (p. 101: cf. p. 176, n. *). [288] _Sluices_ (Jeremias) or _bridge-gates_ (Wellhausen)? [289] Or _breaks into motion_, i.e. _flight_. [290]‎ הֻצּב, if a Hebrew word, might be Hophal of נצב and has been taken to mean _it is determined, she_ (Niniveh) _is taken captive_. Volck (in Herzog), Kleinert, Orelli: _it is settled_. LXX. ὑπόστασις = מצב. Vulg. _miles_ (as if some form of צבא?). Hitzig points it הַצָּב, _the lizard_, Wellhausen _the toad_. But this noun is masculine (Lev. xi. 29) and the verbs feminine. Davidson suggests the other הַצָּב, fem., the _litter_ or _palanquin_ (Isa. lxvi. 20): “in lieu of anything better one might be tempted to think that the litter might mean the woman or lady, just as in Arab. ḍḥa’inah means a woman’s litter and then a woman.” One is also tempted to think of הַצְּבי, _the beauty_. The Targ. has מלכתא, _the queen_. From as early as at least 1527 (_Latina Interpretatio_ Xantis Pagnini Lucensis revised and edited for the Plantin Bible, 1615) the word has been taken by a series of scholars as a proper name, Huṣṣab. So Ewald and others. It may be an Assyrian word, like some others in Nahum. Perhaps, again, the text is corrupt. Mr. Paul Ruben (_Academy_, March 7th, 1896) has proposed instead of העלתה, _is brought forth_, to read העתלה, and to translate it by analogy of the Assyrian “etellu,” fem. “etellitu” = great or exalted, _The Lady_. The line would then run _Huṣṣab, the lady, is stripped_. (With העתלה Cheyne, _Academy_, June 21st, 1896, compares עתליה, which, he suggests, is “Yahwe is great” or “is lord.”) [291] Heb. מֵימֵי הִיא for מימי אשר היא, _from days she was_. A.V. _is of old_. R.V. _hath been of old_, and Marg. _from the days that she hath been_. LXX. _her waters_, מֵימֶיהָ. On waters fleeing, cf. Ps. civ. 7. [292] Buḳah, umebuḳah, umebullāḳah. Ewald: _desert and desolation and devastation_. The adj. are feminine. [293] Literally: _and the faces of all them gather lividness_.