Verse 11
The same fate would befall Nineveh. It too would lose its powers of self-defense and self-control. This would happen through excessive wine drinking (cf. Nahum 1:10) but also in a metaphorical way because the Ninevites would imbibe a cup of wrath from Yahweh. They would vanish from the world.
"The disappearance of the Assyrian people will always remain an unique and striking phenomenon in ancient history. Other, similar, kingdoms and empires have indeed passed away, but the people have lived on. Recent discoveries have, it is true, shown that poverty-stricken communities perpetuated the old Assyrian names and various places, for instance on the ruined site of Ashur, for many centuries, but the essential truth remains the same. A nation which had existed two thousand years and had ruled a wide area, lost its independent character." [Note: J. B. Bury, et al., eds., The Cambridge Ancient History, 3:130.]
As noted above, the ancients could not find Nineveh after its destruction, and modern archaeologists, the Frenchman Botta and the Englishman Layard, first found physical evidence of Nineveh’s existence in 1842. In the past many people had sought to hide from the invading Assyrians, but when Nineveh fell, the Ninevites would try to hide.
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