I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt: Good News Translation reverses the order of the first two lines as found in the Hebrew and in Revised Standard Version. The reason for this is probably to explain the general meaning of the action stated, before describing what the specific action was. Thus in Good News Translation “I will treat you with contempt” comes before “and cover you with filth.” Here filth probably refers to all sorts of household rubbish. It may be that the treatment spoken of here is that given at the time to women who were known to have committed adultery. Not only were they stripped in public (verse 5), but they were also mocked by having rubbish thrown at them. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt may be expressed in some languages as “I will show you how much I despise you by throwing rubbish (or, filth) at you.” Some translators may wish to follow Revised Standard Version‘s ordering of these clauses and say “I will throw rubbish at you to show how much I despise you.”

The last line, I will … make you a gazingstock, means that Nineveh will be made an object of public ridicule and scorn. Jerusalem Bible has “I am going to … make you a public show.” Good News Translation “in horror” is not quite the right meaning; “in scorn” would be more accurate.

Some scholars think that the word translated gazingstock has a different meaning, namely excrement or feces. If so, then this line is parallel in sense with the first one. New English Bible, the only major English version to follow this interpretation, translates “I will treat you like excrement.”

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A . A Handbook on the Book of Nahum. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .