Verse 6
The Tigris River flowed close to the walls of Nineveh, and two of its tributaries, the Khosr and the Tebiltu, passed through the city. Virtually all of Nineveh’s 15 gates also contained passages for the waters from one of these tributaries or its canals. They were called "gates of the river." [Note: Armerding, p. 476.]
Sennacherib had built a double dam and reservoir system to the north of the city to control the amount of water that entered it and to prevent flooding. [Note: Maier, p. 253.] Nahum may have seen the invader opening these dam gates and flooding the city. However, ancient historians wrote that flooding from heavy rains also played a role in Nineveh’s fall.
"Diodorus wrote that in the third year of the siege heavy rains caused a nearby river to flood part of the city and break part of the walls (Bibliotheca Historica 2. 26. 9; 2. 27. 13). Xenophon referred to terrifying thunder (presumably with a storm) associated with the city’s capture (Anabasis, 3. 4. 12). Also the Khosr River, entering the city from the northwest at the Ninlil Gate and running through the city in a southwesterly direction, may have flooded because of heavy rains, or the enemy may have destroyed its sluice gate." [Note: Johnson, p. 1495.]
Other possibilities are that Nahum saw fortified bridges, the city gates that lay below the nearby Tigris River, sluice gates that emptied water into moats, other breaches in Nineveh’s walls made by water, or floodgates that controlled the Khosr within the city. [Note: Ibid., p. 1500.]
The palace the prophet saw washed away was perhaps that of Ashurbanipal, which stood in the north part of Nineveh. [Note: Ibid., p. 1501.] However, Nineveh contained many palaces and temples, and the Hebrew word hekal, used here, describes both types of structures. Assyria had ruined many enemy cities, palaces, and temples, but now this fate would befall Nineveh.
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