Nahum now gives further commands to the people of Nineveh to prepare themselves for a siege (compare 2.1). Again these commands are ironic, for Nahum goes on to say in verse 15 that the city will be captured anyway.
The first command is Draw water for the siege. During a siege, a good water supply is essential for the defenders. However, since Nineveh was situated on the bank of a major river, water was not likely to be a serious problem for its inhabitants. Because of this some scholars think that this command refers to filling the moats which were part of the city’s defenses. However, all available English translations use the word Draw, which normally refers to a supply of drinking water, and translators are recommended to follow this interpretation. The word Draw in English normally signifies the action of using some container such as a bucket to take water out of a well or some other place where there was a water supply. This first sentence may also be translated “You must draw water to prepare for the time when your enemies surround your city.”
Strengthen your forts means make any necessary repairs so that the forts will be in good condition to resist attack. Forts here probably refers to the strongest places in the wall of the city itself. The main building material that was used in Assyria was brick, and many bricks would be needed to repair the fortifications of the city.
The rest of the verse speaks about various parts of the process of making bricks. The first two are go into the clay, tread the mortar. They refer to the trampling of the clay underfoot to make it soft enough to be shaped. Good News Translation drops the repetition and expresses this aspect of the brick making in a single clause, “Trample the clay to make bricks.” When the clay was soft enough, it was put into a brick mold, which was a wooden container that would form each brick into the same shape and size as the other bricks. The bricks were then removed from the mold to dry in the sun. Nahum tells the people of Nineveh to take hold of the brick mold, or as Good News Translation puts it more clearly, “get the brick molds ready!” This sentence can also be translated as “Trample the clay which you use to make bricks, and prepare the brick molds” or “Use your feet to soften the clay which will be used to make bricks….”
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 .