In these verses, Nahum speaks of the people of Nineveh as if they were a group of lions, and of the city Nineveh as if it were their den. The metaphor speaks of the way in which the Assyrians would conquer other people and take their possessions as their own as if they were lions hunting prey and bringing the dead animals back to their den. (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-metaphor]])
Nahum uses this rhetorical question to mock Nineveh, which has been destroyed. AT: "The lions' den is nowhere to be found ... afraid of nothing." or "Look at what has become of the lions' den ... afraid of nothing!" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-rquestion]])
"he choked victims." This is probably a reference to the way that lions usually kill their prey, by biting its throat. AT: "he killed his victims" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-explicit]])
# filled his cave with victims, his dens with torn carcasses
These two phrases are saying the same thing in different ways. The verb may be supplied for the second phrase. AT: "filled his cave with victims, and filled his dens with torn carcasses" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-parallelism]] and [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-ellipsis]])
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