Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Nahum 1:1
The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Ch. 1. The superscription
1. burden of Nineveh ] Rather; oracle of, or, against. This part of the heading is probably due to the editor of the book, as the phrase is common in introducing prophecies, e.g. Isa 13:1 and often. The other part of the heading may very well have come from the hand of the prophet himself. The term “oracle” is from the verb “to lift up” viz. the voice, or “to take up” a parable or speech, Num 24:3; Jer 7:16. On the name Nahum and the designation Elkoshite, see Introd., 1.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The burden – Jerome: The word mas’s’a’, burden is never placed in the title, except when the vision is heavy and full of burden and toil.
Of Nineveh – The prophecy of Nahum again is very stern and awful. Nineveh, after having repented at the preaching of Jonah, again fell back into the sins whereof it had repented, and added this, that, being employed by God to chasten Israel, it set itself, not to inflict the measure of Gods displeasure, but to uproot the chosen people, in whom was promised the birth of Christ . It was then an antichrist, and a type of him yet to come. Jonahs mission was a call to repentance, a type and forerunner of all Gods messages to the world, while the day of grace and the worlds probation lasts. Nahum, the full of exceeding comfort, as his name means, or the comforter is sent to Joh 16:6, Joh 16:8. reprove the world of judgment. He is sent, prominently, to pronounce on Nineveh its doom when its day of grace should be over, and in it, on the world, when it and all the works therein shall be burned up 2Pe 3:10.
With few words he directly comforts the people of God Nah 1:15; elsewhere the comfort even to her is indirect, in the destruction of her oppressor. Besides this, there is nothing of mercy or call to repentance, or sorrow for their desolation (as in Jer 3:12; Jer 8:18, Jer 8:21), but rather the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God upon her and on the evil world, which resists to the end all Gods calls and persecutes His people. The Book of Jonah proclaims God, a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, who repents Him of the evil. Nahum speaks of the same attributes, yet closes with, and will not at all acquit the wicked. : The Merciful Himself, who is by Nature Merciful, the Holy Spirit, seemeth, speaking in the prophet, to laugh at their calamity. All is desolation, and death. The aggression against God is retorted upon the aggressor; one reeling strife for life or death; then the silence of the graveyard. And so, in its further meaning , the prophecy belongs to the close of the world and the comfort of the saints therein, so that whatsoever they see in the world, they may hold cheap, as passing away and perishing and prepare themselves for the Day of Judgment, when the Lord shall he the Avenger of the true Assyrian.
So our Lord sets forth the end of the world as the comfort of the elect. When these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh Luk 21:28. This is the highest fulfillment of the prophecy, for then will the wrath of God against the wicked be fully seen, who now patiently waiteth for them for mercy.
The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite – o He first defines the object of the prophecy, whereto it looks; then states who spake it and whence it was; the human instrument which God employed. The fuller title, The book of the vision of Nahum (which stands alone) probably expresses that it was not, like most prophecies, first delivered orally, and then collected by the prophet, but was always (as it is so remarkably) one whole. The weight and pressure of this burden. may be felt from the very commencement of the book.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Nah 1:1.
The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Nahums book
Nahum writes a book. It was a curious thing to do in those days. It was a book of a vision, and therefore likely to be quite misunderstood; for who has eyes that can see visions of the shadowy, aerial kind? Only a visionist can read visions. There are some men who ought never to attempt to read poetry, because they kill it. They do not know that they are killing it, but their slaughter is none the less complete. There are persons who ought not to read the lighter kinds of literature, say even comedy itself, because they were born to live at the graveside, and never have caught a laugh on the wing. Only those who have the inspired heart can read the prophets, either major or minor, and understand what they are about,–not understand what they are merely saying, but understand what they are meaning. There is a common drift in all the prophecies, a set, a tendency in this great biblical movement. Unless you comprehend that tendency or movement you will be lost in the details of the dislocated parts. The Bible reveals God; now let all the rest fall into proper adjustment under the influence of that dominant and ennobling thought. How will Nahum talk about God? He will talk about God in his own way. If every man would do that we should have a new and grand theology, because we should have as many theologies as there are human beings reverently engaged in the profound study of God. Every man sees his own aspect of the Divine Being; every man catches his own particular view of the Cross; hence a good deal of the obstinacy that is found in theological controversy and religious disputation. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET NAHUM
Chronological Notes relative to this Book, upon the supposition
that it was written about seven hundred and thirteen years
before the commencement of the Christian era
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3291.
-Year of the Julian Period, 4001.
-Year since the Flood, 1635.
-Year from the vocation of Abram, 1208.
-Year since the first celebration of the Olympic games in Elis by the Idaei Dactyli, 741.
-Year from the destruction of Troy, according to the general computation of chronologers, 471.
-Year since the commencement of the kingdom of Israel, by the Divine appointment of Saul to the regal dignity, 383.
-Year from the foundation of Solomon’s temple, 299.
-Year since the division of Solomon’s monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 263.
-Year since the restoration of the Olympic games at Elis by Lycurgus, Iphitus, and Cleosthenes, 172.
-Year from the foundation of the kingdom of Macedon by Caranus, 102.
-Year from the commencement of the reign of Ardysus over Lydia, 84.
-Year since the conquest of Coroebus at Olympia, usually called the first Olympiad, 64.
-Fourth year of the sixteenth Olympiad.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to the Varronian computation, 41.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Cato and the Fasti Consulares, 40.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Polybius the historian, 39.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 35.
-Year of the era of Nabonassar, 35.
-Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, 9.
-Year before the birth of Christ, 709.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 713.
-Cycle of the Sun, 25.
-Cycle of the Moon, 11.
-Eleventh year of Zeuxidamus, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Proclidae.
-Twelfth year of Eurycrates, king of Lacedaemon, of the family of the Eurysthenidae.
-Sixth year of Gyges, king of Lydia.
-Tenth year of Hippomenes, decennial archon of the Athenians.
-Second year of Cordiccas, governor of the Medes, according to some chronologers.
-Seventeenth year of Perdiccas, king of Macedon.
-Third year of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome.
-Fourteenth year of Hezekiah, king of Judah.
CHAPTER I
This chapter opens the prophecy against the Assyrians and their
metropolis with a very magnificent description of the infinite
justice, tender compassion, and uncontrollable power of God,
1-8.
To this succeeds an address to the Assyrians; with a lively
picture of their sudden overthrow, because of their evil device
against Jerusalem, 9-11.
Then appears Jehovah himself, proclaiming deliverance to his
people from the Assyrian yoke, and the destruction of the
Assyrian idols, 12-14;
upon which the prophet, with great emphasis, directs the
attention of Judah to the approach of the messenger who brings
such glad tidings; and exultingly bids his people to celebrate
their solemn feasts, and perform their vows, as a merciful
Providence would not suffer these enemies of the Jewish state
to prevail against them, 15.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. The burden of Nineveh.] massa not only signifies a burden, but also a thing lifted up, pronounced, or proclaimed; also a message. It is used by the prophets to signify the revelation which they have received from God to deliver to any particular people: the oracle-the prophecy. Here it signifies the declaration from God relative to the overthrow of Nineveh, and the commission of the prophet to deliver it.
As the Assyrians under Pul, Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser, three of their kings, had been employed by a just God for the chastisement of his disobedient people; the end being now accomplished by them, God is about to burn the rod wherewith he corrected Israel; and Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, is to be destroyed. This prediction appears to have been accomplished a short time after this by Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares, the Ahasuerus of Scripture.
Nahum, Nachum, signifies comforter. The name was very suitable, as he was sent to comfort the people, by showing them that God was about to destroy their adversaries.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The burden: when the prophets were sent to denounce future judgments against a nation or city, the word was usually called the burden of that nation or city; as, the burden of Moab, Isa 15:1; of Egypt, Isa 19:1; of Babylon, Isa 13:1; of Damascus, Isa 17:1. So here the calamities foretold are called the burden of Nineveh. Nineveh was the mother city of the Assyrian kingdom, and so, by a synecdoche, is here to be interpreted as including the whole kingdom, which is threatened with destruction in the destruction of Nineveh. It was a city very ancient, built by Asshur, son of Nimrod; repaired and enlarged by Ninus, giving name to the city he repaired, Nineveh, A.M. 1905, or 1908.
The book; either because written and sent to Nineveh, or else because written and left to be read by posterity. The vision, or prophecy, for prophets were of old called seers, 1Sa 9:9, and their prophecies were called visions; or it may include the manner in which Nahum was informed what was coming upon Nineveh, God revealed, and the prophet foresaw the things.
Nahum; his name speaks a comforter, but it is to God’s people, to whom he gives notice of the destruction of their oppressors. His family, place of birth, and time of prophesying, are somewhat uncertain; perhaps he might prophesy in the time of Hezekiah, when the ten tribes were carried captive by Shalmaneser.
The Elkoshite: whether this speaks Nahum’s family, or town where born or his country in general, is not certain, but probably it is the village Elkosh in Galilee, by which he is here called.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. burden of Ninevehtheprophetic doom of Nineveh. Nahum prophesied against that citya hundred fifty years after Jonah.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The burden of Nineveh,…. Of the city of Nineveh, and the greatness of it, [See comments on Jon 1:2];
[See comments on Jon 3:3]; Jonah was sent to this city to threaten it with ruin for its sins; at that time the king and all his people humbled themselves and repented, and the threatened destruction was averted; but they relapsing to their former iniquities, this prophet foretells what would be their certain fate; very rightly therefore the Targum, and some other Jewish writings m, observe, that Jonah prophesied against this city of old; and that Nahum prophesied after him a considerable time, perhaps at a hundred years distance. This prophecy is called a burden; it was taken up by the prophet at the command of the Lord, and was carried or sent by him to Nineveh; and was a hard, heavy, grievous, and burdensome prophecy to that city, predicting its utter ruin and desolation; and which, as Josephus n says, came to pass hundred fifteen years after this prophecy; and which event is placed by the learned Usher o in the year of the world 3378 A.M., and which was 626 B.C.; and by others p in the year of the world 3403 A.M., of the flood 1747, in 601 B.C.; but by Dean Prideaux q and Mr. Whiston r, in 612 B.C.;
the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite; no other prophecy is called, a book but this, as Abarbinel observes; and gives this reason for it, because the other prophets immediately declared their prophecies, as Jonah; but Nahum never went to the Ninevites, but wrote his prophecy in a book, and sent it to them. It is called “the book of the vision”; what it contains being made known to him by the Lord in a vision, as was common; hence the prophets are called seers; and the prophet is described by the place of his birth, an Elkoshite; though some think he is so called from his father, whose name was Helkesi, and said to be a prophet too, as Jerom relates; and with this agrees the Targum, which calls him Nahum of the house or family of Koshi; but Jarchi says that Elkosh was the name of his city; Aben Ezra and Kimchi are in doubt which to refer it to, whether to his city, or to his ancestors; but there seems no reason to doubt but that he is so called from his native place; since Jerom s says, that there was a village in Galilee called Helkesi in his days, and which he had seen; though scarce any traces of the old buildings could be discerned, it was so fallen to ruin, yet known, to the Jews; and was shown him by one that went about with him; and which is, by Hesychius t the presbyter, placed in the tribe of Simeon. This is another instance, besides that of Jonah, disproving the assertion of the Jews, that no prophet rose out of Galilee, Joh 7:52.
m Tzemach David, fol. 15. 1. n Antiqu. l. 9. c. 11. sect. 3. o Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3378. p Universal History, vol. 4. p. 331. q Connexion, &c. par. 1. B. 1. p. 47, 48. r Chronological Table, cent. 9. s Proem. in Nahum. t Apud Reland. Palestina Illustrata, tom. 2. p. 748.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The heading runs thus: “Burden concerning Nineveh; book of the prophecy of Nahum of Elkosh.” The first sentence gives the substance and object, the second the form and author, of the proclamation which follows. signifies a burden, from , to lift up, to carry, to heave. This meaning has very properly been retained by Jonathan, Aquila, Jerome, Luther, and others, in the headings to the prophetic oracle. Jerome observes on Hab 1:1: “Massa never occurs in the title, except when it is evidently grave and full of weight and labour.” On the other hand, the lxx have generally rendered it in the headings to the oracles, or even , , (Isaiah 13ff., Isa 30:6); and most of the modern commentators since Cocceius and Vitringa, following this example, have attributed to the word the meaning of “utterance,” and derived it from , effari . But has no more this meaning than can mean to utter the voice, either in Exo 20:7 and Exo 23:1, to which Hupfeld appeals in support of it, or in 2Ki 9:25, to which others appeal. The same may be said of , which never means effatum , utterance, and is never placed before simple announcements of salvation, but only before oracles of a threatening nature. Zec 9:1 and Zec 12:1 form no exception to this rule. Delitzsch (on Isa 13:1) observes, with regard to the latter passage, that the promise has at least a dark foil, and in Nahum 9:1ff. the heathen nations of the Persian and Macedonian world-monarchy are threatened with a divine judgment which will break in pieces their imperial glory, and through which they are to be brought to conversion to Jehovah; “and it is just in this that the burden consists, which the word of God lays upon these nations, that they may be brought to conversion through such a judgment from God” (Kliefoth). Even in Pro 30:1 and Pro 31:1 Massa’ does not mean utterance. The words of Agur in Pro 30:1 are a heavy burden, which is rolled upon the natural and conceited reason; they are punitive in their character, reproving human forwardness in the strongest terms; and in Pro 31:1 Massa’ is the discourse with which king Lemuel reproved his mother. For the thorough vindication of this meaning of Massa’ , by an exposition of all the passages which have been adduced in support of the rendering “utterance,” see Hengstenberg, Christology, on Zec 9:1, and O. Strauss on this passage. For Nineveh, see the comm. on Jon 1:2. The burden, i.e., the threatening words, concerning Nineveh are defined in the second clause as sepher chazon , book of the seeing (or of the seen) of Nahum, i.e., of that which Nahum saw in spirit and prophesied concerning Nineveh. The unusual combination of sepher and chazon , which only occurs here, is probably intended to show that Nahum simply committed his prophecy concerning Nineveh to writing, and did not first of all announce it orally before the people. On ha’elqosh (the Elkoshite), see the Introduction.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Inscription of the Book. | B. C. 710. |
1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
This title directs us to consider, 1. The great city against which the word of the Lord is here delivered; it is the burden of Nineveh, not only a prophecy, and a weighty one, but a burdensome prophecy, a dead weight to Nineveh, a mill-stone hanged about its neck. Nineveh was the place concerned, and the Assyrian monarchy, which that was the royal seat of. About 100 years before this Jonah had, in God’s name, foretold the speedy overthrow of this great city; but then the Ninevites repented and were spared, and that decree did not bring forth. The Ninevites then saw clearly how much it was to their advantage to turn from their evil way; it was the saving of their city; and yet, soon after, they returned to it again; it became worse than ever, a bloody city, and full of lies and robbery. They repented of their repentance, returned with the dog to his vomit, and at length grew worse than ever they had been. Then God sent them not this prophet, as Jonah, but this prophecy, to read them their doom, which was now irreversible. Note, The reprieve will not be continued if the repentance be not continued in. If men turn from the good they began to do, they can expect no other than that God should turn from the favour he began to show, Jer. xviii. 10. 2. The poor prophet by whom the word of the Lord is here delivered: It is the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. The burden of Nineveh was what the prophet plainly foresaw, for it was his vision, and what he left upon record (it is the book of the vision), that, when he was gone, the event might be compared with the prediction and might confirm it. All the account we have of the prophet himself is that he was an Elkoshite, of the town called Elkes, or Elcos, which, Jerome says, was in Galilee. Some observe that the scripture ordinarily says little of the prophets themselves, that our faith might not stand upon their authority, but upon that of the blessed Spirit by whom their prophecies were indited.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
CHART
NAHUM–PROPHESIES JUDGMENT ON NINEVEH
Chapter I
I.His Prophecy of Inevitable Judgment:
a) The Character of the Judge, v. 1-7.
b) The Verdict Pronounced on Nineveh, v. 8-14.
c) Deliverance Proclaimed for Judah, v. 15.
Chapter 11
II. The Execution of Judgment on Nineveh:
a) Nineveh First Warned, v. 1-7.
b) Nineveh Captured, v. 8-12. c) Nineveh Totally Destroyed, v. 13.
Chapter III
III. The Vindication of Judgment:
a) Three indictments Against Nineveh, v. 1-16.. b) The Permanent Nature of Her Destruction, v. 17-19.
WHO SPEAKS?
Nahum, the prophet, is the writer of this book. Of his person little is known. In Nah 1:1, he is called the Elkoshite, which indicates that he was a native of Elkosh, believed to be in the country known later as Galilee; and Capernaum may have been named for him. The name “Nahum” means “consolation.” It is believed that he was born in Galilee later moved to Judea.
TO WHOM?
The burden of Nahum’s message is addressed to, and concerned the city of Nineveh, for more than one hundred years a famous city and capitol of the Assyrian Empire; and it also concerns the soon destruction and fall of the Empire.
ABOUT WHAT?
The theme and burden of content of Nahum’s prophecy concerned the irrevocable decree of God to destroy Nineveh and eventually the Assyrian Empire. Some one hundred and fifty years earlier He had spared Nineveh because of her repentance, at the preaching of Jonah; But her more adamant pursuit of idolatry and moral and ethical decay had now caused God to decree her destruction forever, as also foretold Zep 2:13-15; Jon 3:10; Mat 12:41; Luk 11:32. When Nineveh repented at Jonah’s preaching God spared her in mercy. But her moral and religious violence had become so great this time that God gave her no place for repentance, but to judgment doom, much as Esau found no place for repentance, Heb 12:16-17. This book is a counterpart of the Book of Jonah. No call is herein given to repentance, Nah 1:9.
The book has three parts: 1) First, the introduction and proclamation of inevitable judgment upon Nineveh, 2) Second, the calamity that is come upon Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire, and 3) Third, a summary of why these judgments are coming and of the permanent nature of them.
WHEN?
The book was written about 630 B.C., soon after Isaiah and Micah, after the captivity of the 10 northern tribes of Isarel 721 B.C., and after the destruction of the army of Sennacherib, at the walls of Jerusalem, 712 B.C.
WHAT WAS THE OCCASION?
The book was written and prophecy recorded not only to show the holiness, mercy, and justice of God but also to offer assurance to Israel in captivity, that God’s covenant with their people was irrevocable, and they would have eventual redemption. That peace and redemption would again come to Israel was held out to them in captivity, along with the destruction sign of Nineveh and Assyria, Nah 1:9; Nah 1:15.
Nineveh, founded by Nimrod shortly after the flood, had, from her beginning, been a rival of Babylon, down the Euphrates valley to the south, about 300 miles, Gen 10:11-12. Nahum compares her with a den of ravenous lions, feeding on the blood of nations, ch. Nah 2:11-13. The city had walls 100 feet high, that extended 8 miles in length, around the heart of the city. The walls were wide enough for 4 chariots of horses to race abreast, at the top of the walls. The city fell about 607 to 612 B.C.
NAHUM – CHAPTER 1
THE HOLINESS OF JEHOVAH-GOD
Verses 1-14:
The Character And Nature Of Jehovah-God, v. 1-14
Verse 1 begins, “the burden of Nineveh,” which may be considered as the theme of the book, it was a heavy burden of prophecy, laid on Nahum, by the Spirit to announce judgment doom to this capital city of Assyria and her entire Empire. A report of judgment or chastening is never relished by the receiver. Therefore it was a heavy load for Nahum to deliver and heavier still for Nineveh and Assyria to receive. It is declared to be a vision (Divinely given) to Nahum. For God did speak to His prophets in ancient times through visions and in varied ways, Heb 1:1; 2Pe 1:21; Isa 6:1-8.
Verse 2 describes the character of God as burning against those who hate Him, or take His Holiness lightly, in a fickle way, Deu 6:15. Nahum asserts that the holiness of God’s nature requires that He execute judgment upon those who willfully, impudently disregard His laws. The idea is that men and nations can not sin without punishment, Num 32:23; Psa 103:9; Jer 3:5; Jer 3:12; Mic 7:18.
Verse 3 asserts that God is slow (not impulsive) to anger, and mighty in power, and will under no circumstance acquit or overlook, (let go free) the guilty without punishment, Exo 20:7; Exo 34:6-7; Neh 9:17; Psa 103:8-9; Jon 4:2. His power is expressed as His having His way in (control over) even the whirlwind and the storm, while the clouds are as dust of His feet, as He walks about upon the clouds, Psa 18:7; Psa 97:2; Hab 3:5; Hab 3:11-12. See also Pro 10:25. He is Lord of even the clouds.
Verse 4 ascribes to the omnipotent God, the power of drying up the bottom of the sea by a rebuke (the word of His mouth), as well as all the rivers, and by His own will, Exo 14:21-22; Exo 14:29; Exo 15:19; Mat 8:26; 1Ki 17:1; 1Ki 17:7. God’s judgment on Israel had already been evident in His drying up the brooks and rivers of Bashan, Carmel, and Lebanon, so that life of plants, beasts, and people already languished or had suffered in each of the places, Joe 1:10; Hos 14:7; Isa 33:9. Like Jesus He is Master of the sea, Mat 8:26.
Verse 5 further describes natures response to His will, when His anger, fury, or revenge for sin is given, as mountains quake or tremble, hills melt, and the earth and all therein is singed or burned at the presence of His judgment wrath, Psa 89:20; He is described as coming in “flaming fire to take vengeance on them who obey not the gospel,” at the end of this age, when He comes to be glorified in His saints, 2Th 1:7-10.
Verse 6 raises the question of just who can stand before His indignation wrath or who can reside (exist) under the fierceness of His anger. The answer is no one, except by His mercy, Mal 3:2. Like liquid volcanoes that melt rocks, will be the heated anger of God upon His impenitent, obdurate, adamant, unbowing enemies, until each does bow, 1Ki 17:11; Jer 7:20; Jer 23:29; Jer 51:25-26.
Verse 7 asserts that the Lord is good, a strong hold, a fortress or source of strength in the day of trouble, on whom the obedient may lean and trust, Lam 3:25. It is further affirmed that He knows, is cognizant of, or recognizes those who trust in Him, Hos 13:5; Psa 1:6; Psa 2:12; 2Ti 2:19; Pro 3:3-5.
Verse 8 both warns and affirms that God will, however make an overflowing, flooding, totally inundating and to the callously rebellious Ninevites, without further mercy, toward either them or their nation of Assyria, when invading armies shall sweep over their land, Isa 8:7-8; Hab 3:10; Dan 2:25; Dan 9:27.
Verse 9 asks the Ninevites and Assyrians to answer just what kind of a defense they imagine they can raise to ward off the volcanic anger of Jehovah’s vengeful wrath, that they have contemptuously incited against themselves, through their immoral, irreligious, and heathen bent idolatrous conduct. God has vowed a second time to make a total end to Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria; and this time He vows not to turn away from executing that wrath to the destruction of both Nineveh and the nation of Assyria, Isa 37:23-29; Isa 51:17-23; 2Sa 20:10; Psa 2:1.
Verse 10 describes these Ninevites as folded or entwined together, as a twisted braid of thorns, to be thrown into the lire; So closely were they in colleague of sins against God, as if to present a sharp threat against their foes, 1Ch 4:27. But God made the thorn you see, as well as the fire, with which He could and was prepared to consume them, 2Sa 23:6-7. Even in their drunken stupor, as drunkards in their vain boasts of imagined wisdom and power, God threatened and affirmed that He would destroy them like stubble that is fully dry, or like drunkards, 2Sa 23:6-7. In just as certain a judgment and manner all the wicked who obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ shall one day be destroyed, 2Th 1:7-10.
Verse 11 focuses attention on one who had come out from among the Ninevites, imagining wicked things against the Lord, even the wicked counselor, Sennacherib, whom the Lord had already utterly destroyed, as Nineveh and Assyria’s chief leader and warrior, 2Ki 19:22-23. He had counseled them, with wicked council, to follow Belial, the worthless one, and overthrow the kingdom of God, from earth’s center at Jerusalem, but he had been there destroyed, Isa 36:14-20; 1Sa 25:25; 2Co 6:15.
Verse 12 then warns that though their marshaled, armed men, might be many and quiet or covert in their wicked designs, they too were just as certain for absolute defeat to be cut down as Sennaherib and his marauders against Jerusalem were destroyed, cut down like a razor cuts, Isa 7:20, in one night like stubble, v. 9-11. God then turns back to Judah and comforts her with hope that though He had once afflicted her with the Assyrian foes, He would do it no more.
Verse 13 pledges to Israel that God will break the Assyrian yoke of tribute and embondagement from her, never to permit her to be in bondage under Assyria again, Isa 10:27; Jer 2:20. Never would Judah pay tribute to Assyria again, 2Ki 18:14.
Verse 14 assures that the name and power of Assyria is to become extinct, and the name or dynasty of her race should no more be sown to perpetuate the houses and temples and religion of her idolatrous gods, 2Ki 19:18; Isa 37:38; Job 31:6. God vowed to put the Assyrian nation and her vile molten image gods into their graves forever, Deu 27:15; Exo 20:1-5; Exo 20:23; Exo 34:17; Lev 19:4; Lev 26:1; See also 2Ki 19:37; Job 31:6; Dan 5:27. All false gods are found wanting, Psa 115:5-9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Though a part of what is here delivered belongs to the Israelites and to the Jews, he yet calls his Book by what it principally contains; he calls its the burden of Nineveh Of this word משא, mesha, we have spoken elsewhere. Thus the Prophets call their prediction, whenever they denounce any grievous and dreadful vengeance of God: and as they often threatened the Jews, it hence happened, that they called, by way of ridicule, all prophecies by this name משא, mesha, a burden. (206) But yet the import of the word is suitable. It is the same thing as though Nahum had said that he was sent by God as a herald, to proclaim war on the Ninevites for the sake of the chosen people. The Israelites may have hence learnt how true and unchangeable God was in his covenant; for he still manifested his care for them, though they had by their vices alienated themselves from him.
He afterwards adds, ספר חזון, sapher chezun, the book of the vision This clause signifies, that he did not in vain denounce destruction on the Ninevites, because he faithfully delivered what he had received from God. For if he had simply prefaced, that he threatened ruin to the Assyrian,, some doubt might have been entertained as to the event. But here he seeks to gain to himself authority by referring to God’s name; for he openly affirms that he brought nothing of his own, but that this burden had been made known to him by a celestial oracle: for חזה, cheze, means properly to see, and hence in Hebrew a vision is called חזון, chezun,. But the Prophets, when they speak of a vision, do not mean any fantasy or imagination, but that kind of revelation which is mentioned in Num 14:0, where God says, that he speaks to his Prophets either by vision or by dream. We hence see why this was added — that the burden of Nineveh was a vision; it was, that the Israelites might know that this testimony respecting God’s vengeance on their enemies was not brought by a mortal man, and that there might be no doubt but that God was the author of this prophecy.
Nahum calls himself an Elkoshite. Some think that it was the name of his family. The Jews, after their manner, say, that it was the name of his father; and then they add this their common gloss, that Elkos himself was a Prophet: for when the name of a Prophet’s father is mentioned, they hold that he whose name is given was also a Prophet. But these are mere trifles: and we have often seen how great is their readiness to invent fables. Then the termination of the word leads us to think that it was, on the contrary, the proper name of a place; and Jerome tells us that there was in his time a small village of this name in the tribe of Simon. We must therefore understand, that Nahum arose from that town, and was therefore called “the Elkoshite.” (207) Let us now proceed —
(206) The word comes from נשא, to bear, to carry. Some regard it as the message carried or borne by the Prophets from God to the people, and hence the same as Prophecy. Others consider it to be the judgment to be borne by the people respecting whom it was announced. The latter seems to be its meaning here, where it is said, “the burden of Nineveh.” It was the judgment laid on them, and which that city was to bear, endure, and undergo. — Ed.
(207) “It has been thought, and not without reason, by some, that Capernaum, Heb. כפד נחום, most properly rendered, the village of Nahum, derived its name from our Prophet having resided in it.” — Henderson.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
NAHUM AND THE DOOM OF NINEVEH
Nah 1:1 to Nah 3:19
THE discussion of the Minor Prophets provides a great opportunity for such speakers as our great Humorist George Ade describes in his story on The Preacher Who Flew His Kite High. If one wants to quote from learned authorities, these Minor Prophets provide occasion. There is so much about them that is not known, and never can be known that they provide an almost unlimited field for the speculations of the uninspired. In consequence, a great array of names is associated with the discussion of every one of these Books. Like Ades minister, one may quote from learned authorities all the way from Iceland to Italy, and find himself especially provided with German names.
I should regard a review of these names, together with their opinions, as worth my while if there was anything like agreement in their conclusions; but since their discussions resolve themselves into debates which leave every man a dissenter from his fellows, I count the process folly, and propose instead that we frankly admit the difficulties of date, place of writing, possible interpolations, etc. and settle down upon the most probable conclusion as a proper introduction of the study of the Book.
It seems likely that Nahum was a native of Galilee, until the time of the invasion of his land, and the deportation of the Ten Tribes, when he was driven out, taking up his residence in Jerusalem. From this point he witnessed the siege of the city by Sennacherib, and was filled with joy at the destruction of the Assyrian hosts in the reign of Hezekiah; and was moved by the Spirit of God to see in this memorable event an earnest of the coming downfall of the enemy of his people, involving the complete overthrow of Nineveh and the Empire of which she was then the central city. The date of his prophecy was about 712 B. C. He was therefore a contemporary of Isaiah and Micah. This by way of introduction. Now we shall turn to the study of the Book. It is a convenient arrangement and fairly complete I think, to discuss this Book under three Suggestions.
THE FURY OF THE LORD
Immediately after giving the introduction The burden of Nineveh, The Book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite, we have his initial sentence of prophecy
God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; * * the Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies.
This terrible sentence was full of consolation to Gods oppressed people. It was evidently directed against the Assyrian at whose hands they had suffered every indignity and hardship. And yet the Prophet of God conserves Jehovahs character, and in the same sentence describes His method of procedure,
The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked (Nah 1:3). There are many sermons in that single text. I want therefore that we should dwell upon it this morning. Here men behold God in the hour of His righteous wrath, and yet in that hour three things must ever be remembered.
He is slow to anger! This is not the first time that Nineveh has offended. In our study of the Book of Jonah we saw that great city filled with such wickedness as incited Gods purpose of judgment. He said, Their wickedness is come up before Me. Jonah was dispatched to declare judgment, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
But at the preaching of Jonah they seemed to repentproclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them
It is easier, however, to clothe oneself in sackcloth and cover oneself with ashes than to quit the sins to which one has long been accustomed. We are not surprised therefore to learn, that danger overpast, the Ninevites returned again to their iniquities as the sow returns to the wallow.
That it grieved God to witness this degeneracy, no one would question; but that He waits a hundred years before sending another prophet to declare their just doom, illustrates Nahums claim, The Lord is slow to anger.
He is a God of such grace that the fruitless tree will not be cut down until another years cultivation has failed to bring fruit from it; of such grace that the world will not be flooded until many prophets have pleaded with it, and Noah himself has warned it for more than a century; of such grace, that even Sodom receives angels visits, if not a visit from the Son Himself, and hears the declaration from Divine lips, ere the fire falls. It is sometimes said of a hasty man With him it is a word and a blow. But such a remark can never be made of God. He is slow to anger!
The Psalmist said,
I saw the prosperity of the wicked. * *
They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.
Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. * *
Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. * *
When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God.
I wonder if coming into the presence of God, if being permitted that high privilege, does not convince every saved sinner of this great truth, The Lord is slow to anger.
He is great in power! (Nah 1:3). There is a natural relation between the sentences The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. The small, the insignificant, are quick to anger. Gods very greatness is here shown in His self-control. No man need fear that he will be smitten by Divine petulance. Patience will have been exhausted when penalty is inflicted. But when all patience is gone, not because God has lost it, but because man has despised it, power will still be with Jehovah, for The Lord is * * great in power.
The Prophet continues
The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.
The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
Who can stand before His indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him (Nah 1:3; Nah 1:5-6).
Joseph Parker reminds the men and women who spell nature with a capital N and boast their worship of it that their worship is climatic and Barometric. They are great on sunny Sabbath mornings when the sky is bright and the birds throats are bursting with music. Then you will find them walking abroad and declaring that in Natures Temple they have worshiped Natures God. But when the same God sends rain, they hid themselves to cover, and they do not find it in church either. When the same God sends thunder and lightning, they are filled with alarm. When the earth quakes at their feet, they lose all confidence in Natures God and appeal to Jehovah to save them. And their fears are better than their profession; for it proves that after all their fine speeches they understand that Jehovah is great in power and whether the storm shall sweep them as with the besom of destruction, or they shall be saved out of it by a plain providence, depends upon the will of Him who hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm. In an hour like that, evil men are made afraid. They reason that if the natural elements can exhibit such wrath, who shall be able to stand when God shall speak in judgment?
That same hour, however, is a source of consolation to the saint for he can say, It is my Fathers hand and be free from fear.
The God that reigns on high,
And thunders when He please,
That rides upon the stormy sky,
And manages the seas,
This awful God is ours,
Our Father and our love,
He shall send down His Heavenly powers
To carry us above.
He will not acquit the wicked! (Nah 1:3). The very same God who is slow to anger, sees to it that sinners are punished. Concerning this evil city the Prophet has said, With an overrunning flood He will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue His enemies. * * He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time (Nah 1:8-9).
Evidently He proposed when he did deal with Nineveh to wipe her from the face of the earth. The Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name he sown. * * I will make thy grave; for thou art vile (Nah 1:14).
Is this the God whose Name is Love? Certainly! I can imagine no more unscriptural, insane conception of God, than that which they hold who think that when they have said God is love they have preached a whole Gospel, and effectually disposed of all justice, brought an end to all judgment. I can conceive of the devil as acquitting the wicked without repentance on the part of the latter. I can conceive of him as winking at all kinds of transgressions, but I cannot conceive of God as doing the same. Our best illustrations of divinity are found in good men, and our best type of his satanic majesty is seen in sinful men. Elevate the evil man and the good man to places of power and what will be the result? Gods man will call the guilty to account. Satans man will be a mayor or governor in whom the worst element will delight. Jacob Riis speaks of Tweed as ruling in New York City, and tells how, drunk with power and plunder, he insolently defied the outraged community. In his day, the sinners of New York rejoiced. They seldom had to come to judgment and some saints were foolish enough to defend him by saying, He never squealed, and he was so good to the poor.
How naturally that sounds to a Minneapolitan! What else would you expect of a bad man?the man who is out for buying votes, than that he should let off the guilty with ease? What else would you expect from a good man than such a course as Attorney Folk of Missouri once took? If God acquitted the guilty, He could be impeached from office. Men would have a perfect right to set up another King in His stead. We grow tired of all this sickly sentimentality about the goodness of God as employed by some people. God is good! Infinitely too good to let guilt go on forever without calling it to judgment. Joseph Parker was right when he said, It is a poor ministry that has no perdition in it. It may be a popular ministry. There have been persons who would not go to church because they could not endure the minister who taught that God would execute wrath against evil doers.
But let all such understand that they are not protesting against the preacher, nor yet against the Prophet Nahum who said it, but against the very God whose character demands it, and who will by no means dear the guilty! God was no more acting in keeping with His character when He saved Noah and his household than when He smote the rest of the world with His flood; when He delivered Lot out of Sodom, than when He destroyed the city with fire and brimstone! The physician who comes and cuts the cancer from my flesh hurts me deeply and destroys a part of my body, but that is no sign that he is not my best friend. Removing a diseased part is for the interest of life itself. Ah, beloved, even the fury of Jehovah finds its expression always along the lines of love, life, and holiness.
But I call your attention to the second suggestion.
THE FALL OF NINEVEH
The Prophets sentence is
He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face * *.
The shield of His mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet etc. (Nah 2:1; Nah 2:3).
Then follows a description of sacking the city (Nah 2:13).
Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of Hosts, and I mil burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.
These words demand two remarks. Sentence was spoken when Nineveh seemed secure.
McClintock and Strong in their Encyclopedia say, That the prophecy was written before the final downfall of Nineveh and its capture by the Medes and Chaldeans (about B. C. 625) will be admitted. The allusions to the Assyrian power imply that this was still unbroken (Nah 1:12; Nah 2:13; Nah 3:15-17). The glory of the kingdom was at its brightest in the reign of EsarHaddon B. C. 680-660, who for thirteen years made Babylon the seat of the empire.
It is altogether likely that Ninevites gave little concern to what Micah had said. The average sinner pays little heed to Gods predicted judgments. The only judgment that appeals to him is the imminent one, or better still, the evident one.
We are told that in 1712, Mr. Whitson, having calculated the return of a comet for the 24th of October, at five minutes past five oclock in the morning, gave out his information to the public, and accompanied this by the statement that the world would burn up on the Friday following; and the untutored people believed him. Here was a danger at hand, and before Friday came around many Londoners had left on barges and boats for mid-ocean, thinking that would be a safer place if the elements should melt with fervent heat. A Dutch ship cast all its powder into the river. A hundred and thirty-five clergymen were called to Lamberth to offer special prayer, there being none in the service for such an occasion. A gentleman who had neglected family prayers for five years resumed the same, and, on Thursday evening, persuaded his wife to put off a ball until they saw whether the comet appeared or not. Three young society women were known to burn their novels and buy every one of them a Bible and a copy of Taylors Holy Living and Dying; while more than 7,000 men, living in illegal marriage relations, secured the necessary documents and had a ceremony said. All this because a man, by a scientific calculation, determined the time of the appearance of a comet and miscalculated the result of its coming. The same people who were terror stricken when they saw that comet put into the heavens, according to prediction, were unconcerned about the prophecies of God and His predicted judgments for the wicked, when it is as certain as the sun shining in heaven that not one jot or tittle of these latter shall fail.
The antediluvians reap the result of such indifference; the scoffing Sodomites share in the same; the sinners of today refuse to learn the lesson. Arthur Pierson tells how those German astronomers left the stone at Aiken, South Carolina on which their meridian circuit rested in observing the transit of Venus in 1884, to stand for the use of those who in June 2,004 shall need to watch another transit and then he remarksThink of itthe faith of science in the inflexible order of nature! One hundred and nineteen years hencethree times, at least, within that space a generation will have perished; thrones will have been emptied of occupant after occupant; empires will have passed away; changes, whose number and gravity are too great now to be conceived, will have taken place; nay, human history may have come to its great last crisis and the millennial march may have begun; but punctual to a second, without delay or failure, Venus will make her transit across the suns disc. So while scoffers sneer and doubters question, while empires vanish and nations perish, prophecy moves steadily onward, and nears its grand fulfillment. To a second of time and to the last minute jot or tittle of detail, the prophetic word shall be fulfilled.
Sentence was executed in accordance with the Prophets speech. There are self-styled scholars who play the parts of critics and pick the Minor Prophets to pieces as improbable. Prof. Ira Price, himself a noted Archaeologist, speaking of the work of such men said, My science is daily wrecking their conclusions and proving the truthfulness of the Word. These prophecies of Nahum are a case in point. Dr. Layard, whose researches of the ruins of Nineveh were extensive, speaks of the words of Nahum spoken 2500 years before he did his work, and declares that he finds every evidence of their fulfillment to the letter. He uncovered the pavement at the Gateway and found it marked with the ruts of the chariot wheels, as Nahum had said in Nah 3:2. The ivory ornaments, the metal bowls, vases and saucers, most beautifully embossed and engraved, which he discovered, are accepted as described by Nah 2:9 the spoil of silver, * * the spoil of gold: * * there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture. While the prophecy, I will * * set thee as a gazingstock is strangely fulfilled when we find the remains of this ancient city on exhibit in the museums of Europe. Beloved, the very literalness with which God fulfills His every word should be a consolation to saints and a warning to sinners. When God says to His own people, I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins, they should shout for joy. God keepeth His Word. But when God says, The wicked shall not be unpunished, evil men have occasion for alarm for God is not slack concerning His promise.
Some years ago, at La Porte, Texas, a young man who had come to the assembly grounds expecting to dance in the pavilion, but found Dr. Dixon there delivering a sermon, listened long enough to be convicted and angered. He walked two or three rods to an eating house and, while taking some refreshments, swore at Dixon, and as Dixon had been preaching on the Holy Ghost, profaned also His Name. A few moments later he walked over to the bathhouse, attired himself in a bathing suit, and leaped from the pier into the water.
The tide was out and the bay more shallow than he had calculated. His head struck the sands; his neck broke. A few minutes later he was brought back to the rooms where he had blasphemed the Holy Ghost, dead. It was just as God had said, He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy (Pro 29:1).
Whether we are concerned with the predictions of men makes little difference, but when God speaks, let all the people attend to His sentences at the peril of their souls. Nineveh went as He had said!
THE INFLICTION JUSTIFIED
The last chapter of this Book is given to the defense of the Divine character and judgments. The Prophet maintains that Nineveh has been treated with justice.
Her bloody character brought judgment!
Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery (Nah 3:1).
We have already heard a description of what it was in Jonahs days. It was worse in Nahums days; a hundred years worse. Cities seldom grow in virtue! Their custom is to grow in vice. In commenting upon this passage, both Joseph Parker and Charles Spurgeon felt led to describe the sins of London, and to say, It is the worst city in the world. If you read Jacob Riis Battle with the Slums you will find that he thinks New York City is the worst. If you talk with a Chicagoan who concerns himself with the morals of that great metropolis, he will tell you that she is unrivalled in iniquity. I could take almost any man sitting before me this morning down the street tonight and convince him by two-hours walk, that Minneapolis is modern Sodom.. Some years ago a man who was perfectly familiar with La Crosse, Wisconsin, affirmed to me that her immoralities could not be surpassed; another gave me a mere description of Cedar Rapids, la. and a few days ago I listened to a man who, with tears in his eyes, told me a tale of debauch, involving even the professed Christians and church-members of a little city nearer at hand, that made me wonder why God had not swept it with a cyclone already, or cracked the earth beneath it and swallowed it up. Beloved, it may not be a mere accident that Galveston was drowned, that Chicago burned, or San Francisco was buried, or even that New Richmond, Wisconsin, was destroyed.
The Lord [who] hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm knows just where the bloody city is, just when its cup of iniquity is full, and Who can stand before His indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. If there is one obligation more incumbent than another upon Christian men at this time, it is that of seeing that our cities are not built in blood. When years ago the Federation of Churches made a canvass of the 15th Assembly District, New York City, they found that the churches, schools, and other educational agencies, marshalled a frontage of 756 feet, while the saloon fronts stretched themselves over nearly a mile so that the compiler of these pregnant facts, said Saloon social ideals are minting themselves on the minds of the people at the ratio of seven saloon thoughts to one educational thought. This is the institution that some men and most of congress want back. All our cities had such plague spots, and some of us were content if we could only keep the plague in spots. Legislate the saloon evil away from the door of the well-to-do resident and locate it over against the poor tenement where children, who have no home attractions, will be tempted more than they are able to bear; and all this defended on the cowardly basis that we can do nothing to change it, or by that worse speech It brings financial profit to the city or country, which is the insanity of mens greed for success.
I tell you that for every dollar which comes into the treasury of a city, blood-stained and tear-rusted, and every cent which citizens receive by lying, theft, robbery, and oppression, they will be called to account. God will be saying, Behold, I am against thee, * * and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame (Nah 3:5).
Her judgment was approved, by all, as just. Nahum says of Nineveh,
It shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee? (Nah 3:7)
There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually? (Nah 3:19).
The Prophet foresees, here, that the former friends of this city will desert her and say her sentence is just, and it will be in vain to seek comforters for her; while those against whom she has behaved herself wickedly shall clap their hands for joy when they behold her judgment. Such also will be the fate of all sinners. There is no fellowship of sympathy for the man who has continued in sin against God until his doom is sealed. Dives did not find one friend in hell. Many of you have read Vathek by William Beckford, and it is commonly conceded that Beckford is here reciting his personal history, including even the torments of conscience on account of sin. Think of the description which he gives of the final state of the wicked! Almost the same instant the voice of judgment announced to the Caliph, Nouronihar, the five princes, and the princess, the awful and irrevocable decrees, their hearts immediately took fire, and they at once lost the most precious of the gifts of heaven-hope. These unhappy beings recoiled with looks of the most furious distraction; Vathek beheld in the eyes of Nouronihar nothing but rage and vengeance, nor could she discern aught in his but aversion and despair. The two princes who were friends, and until that moment had preserved their attachment, shrunk back, gnashing their teeth with mutual and unchangeable hatred. Kalailh and his sister made reciprocal gestures of imprecation, but the two other princes testified their horror for each other by the most ghastly convulsions, and screams that could not be smothered; all severally plunged themselves into the accursed multitude, there to wander in an eternity of unabating anguish.
Then Beckford adds, Such was, and such should be the punishment of unrestrained passions and atrocious actions! What a marvelous illustration Beckfords words are that the sinner will consent to the judgment of the sinful.
But the Prophet says, All that hear the bruit of thee shall clap their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?
It is no wonder that Gods people rejoiced in the downfall of this enemy, nor can one make it appear irreligious. What Christian regretted the overthrow of the Turkish power, and end to all Turkish supremacy, even though it should have involved the destruction of what we call the unspeakable Turk? Have not his abominations invited the severest dealing and if God should be pleased to bring him to an utter end would not the world be vastly better off, and the civilized at least clap their hands for joy? So also of the bloody Soviet! And one can very easily carry this thought up to that greater judgment when Jesus Christ shall overthrow every enemy and bring to utter defeat the Adversary and all his hosts. In fact, is it not true that good men pray ardently for the coming of such a day and the sight of that very event? I once heard Dr. Justin Fulton say that when at last the prophecy in the Apocalyptic vision was realized and an angel came down out of Heaven and laid hold on the Dragon the old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him * * and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him he would like to stand where he could see the whole proceedings and lift his voice in song, Halleluiah It Is Done. And where is the Christian who would not rejoice with him, and who does not pray with Dr. Lowell Mason,
Hasten, Lord, the glorious time,
When beneath Messiahs sway,
Every nation, every clime,
Shall the Gospel call obey.
Mightiest kings His power shall own,
Heathen tribes His Name adore;
Satan and his host overthrown,
Bound in chains, shall hurt no more.
Then shall wars and tumults cease,
Then be banished grief and pain;
Righteousness and joy and peace,
Undisturbed shall ever reign.
Bless we then our gracious Lord;
Ever praise His glorious Name;
All His mighty acts record,
All His wondrous love proclaim.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CHAPTER XII
INTRODUCTION
Nah. 1:1 . . .
RV . . . The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
LXX . . . The burden of Nineve: the book of the vision of Naum the Elkesite.
COMMENTS
When Jonah, about 100 years previous to Nahum, foretold the overthrow of Nineveh the great royal seat of Assyrian monarchy, the city repented and was spared. Now, having fallen from their repentance, possibly deceived by their rise to world domination, Nineveh receives a written warning of irreversible doom. The repentance has not been continued, neither will the reprieve from judgement.
As we saw above in the introductory preface (Chapter XI), Elkoshite has not been identified by modern archeology, although Jewish tradition situates it at the site of Alkosh, some thirty miles north of the present town of Mosul. The tomb of Nahum (traditional) is venerated there by present day Judaism.
Jerome located Elkoshite at the site of Helkesei in Galilee, in his commentary on Nahum. This Helkesei is probably present day ElKauzeh between Rameh and Biut Jebeih,
The De Vitis Prophetarum, of the Pseudo-Epiphanius, locates Elkoshite east of the Jordan river near Begabor and connects it with the tribe of Simeon. Nestle concluded that Begabor is to be identified with present day Beit Jibrim in southern Israel.
The important words in this verse are burden of Nineveh and vision of Nahum. They constitute a claim to direct inspiration and a positive identification of the author.
The word massa (burden) was most frequently used to denote a threatening prophecy. (e.g. Isaiah 30 and Zec. 9:12)
The idea seems to be that of a burden laid by God upon Nineveh.
The word may also mean to utter forth or call, e.g. Psa. 15:3 and 2Ki. 9:27.
Paul speaks of the beauty of the feet of those who bring Gods good news (Rom. 10:15). There is a certain inherent ugliness about a bearer of the message of doom. There are few if any passages in the Bible to match Nahum for sheer hopelessness.
The book of the vision indicates that Nahum saw the destruction of Nineveh before it actually took place. The terror of Gods wrath cannot be aptly described, it must be experienced for its full deadliness to be grasped.
Chapter XIIQuestions
Introduction
1.
Jonah prophesied to Nineveh about __________ years before Nahum.
2.
How do you explain Gods destruction of Nineveh in view of her repentance at Jonahs preaching?
3.
What two phrases in Nah. 1:1 establish the work as inspired Scripture?
4.
God assures His faithful and loyal people of His __________ and at the same time He pronounces His wrath against Nineveh.
5.
What had been Ninevehs past dealing with Israel?
6.
Comment on the idea that God is a jealous God.
7.
Explain Jehovah is full of wrath!
8.
In light of Nah. 1:3(b)-7 discuss the power of God.
9.
What is meant by the overrunning flood in Nahim Nah. 1:8?
10.
Show how Ninevehs attempts at self-defense were to prove futile.
11.
What sort of person was Sennacherib?
12.
What was to become of the gods Nineveh worshipped?
13.
Discuss (Nah. 1:15) Behold upon the mountain.
14.
Discuss (Nah. 1:15) keep thy feasts . . . perform thy vows.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(1) The burden of Ninevehi.e., the sentence against Nineveh (see Isa. 13:1, Note). On the names Nahum and Elkoshite see Introduction.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. The title. The first part names the subject of the prophecy.
Burden of Nineveh Better, with R.V. margin, “oracle concerning Nineveh” (compare Isa 13:1; Zec 9:1). The noun is derived from a verb “to lift up,” that is, the voice, or “to take up,” that is, a parable or speech (Num 24:3; Jer 7:16), hence “utterance” or “oracle.” The second part names the author and his home.
Nahum the Elkoshite See Introduction, pp. 426ff.
Vision Primarily this noun denoted only those revelations which were received in visions or trances (Gen 15:1; Eze 11:24), but it underwent a process of generalization, so that it came to denote revelations of every kind, whatever the method by which they were received. Finally it came to be used so here in the headings of the prophetic books (compare Isa 1:1; Isa 2:1; Oba 1:1) as a collective noun in the sense of “ prophetic utterances.” Concerning the origin of this twofold title A.B. Davidson says that the first part “is probably due to the editor of the book, as the phrase is common in introducing prophecies. The other part may very well have come from the prophet himself.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Chapter 1. Declaration of Judgment on Assyria and Deliverance for God’s People.
‘The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.’
‘The burden of Nineveh’ – prophecy was not easy, it came as a burden on the prophets as they had to speak of dreadful events. They carried the weight of God’s wrath and men’s misdeeds on their shoulder. That is ever the lot of the true people of God. The burden came by way of vision. In this case it concerned the destruction of Nineveh, that great capital city of Assyria, which since the time of Sennacherib had ruled the world. It had been extended and beautified through the suffering and deaths of many thousands of slaves at work on its buildings. It was the consequence of the ruination and devastation of many countries. It was based on a policy of transferring of large numbers of peoples from their homelands to exist in foreign countries which were strange to them, so as to keep them pacified. And it was a result of draining the wealth of the nations.
The prophecy is said to have been specifically written in book form, and to consist of a vision given by God to Nahum the Elkoshite. The name Nahum was fairly common, and is born witness to extensively in North-Western Semitic languages and probably means ‘full of comfort’. The message he brought was one of comfort to the world in the light of what Assyria had been. We do not really know where Elkosh was, but it was probably in Judah.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Nah 1:1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Nah 1:1
[9] Josephus writes, “Now there was at that time a prophet, whose name was Nahum, who spake after this manner concerning the overthrow of the Assyrians and NinevehAnd indeed this prophet prophesied many other things besides these concerning Nineveh, which I do not think necessary to repeat, and I here omit them, that I may not appear troublesome to my readers; all which things happened about Nineveh a hundred and fifteen years afterward: so this may suffice to have spoken of these matters.” ( Antiquities 9.11.3)
[10] R. F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, R. K. Harrison, and Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, rev. ed. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), “Nineveh.”
[11] John Gill, Nahum, in John Gill’s Expositor, in e-Sword, v. 7.7.7 [CD-ROM] (Franklin, Tennessee: e-Sword, 2000-2005), “Introduction.”
Comments The Manner in which Divine Oracles were Delivered unto the Prophets – God spoke through the Old Testament prophets in various ways, as the author of the epistle of Hebrews says, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1). The Lord spoke divine oracles ( ) through the Old Testament prophets in three general ways, as recorded in the book of Hosea, “I have also spoken by the prophets, and have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.” (Hos 12:10) ( NKJV) In other words, the prophets spoke to Israel through the words they received, they described divine visions to the people, and they acted out as divine drama an oracle from the Lord.
(1) The Word of the Lord Came to the Prophets – God gave the prophets divine pronouncements to deliver to the people, as with Hos 1:1. The opening verses of a number of prophetic books say, “the word of the Lord came to the prophet” Thus, these prophets received a divine utterance from the Lord.
(2) The Prophets Received Divine Visions – God gave the prophets divine visions ( ), so they prophesied what they saw ( ) (to see). Thus, these two Hebrew words are found in Isa 1:1, Oba 1:1, Nah 1:1, and Hab 1:1. Ezekiel saw visions ( ) of God.
(3) God Told the Prophets to Deliver Visual Aids as Symbols of Divine Oracles – God asked the prophets to demonstrate divine oracles to the people through symbolic language. For example, Isaiah walked naked for three years as a symbol of Assyria’s dominion over Egypt and Ethiopia (Isa 20:1-6). Ezekiel demonstrated the siege of Jerusalem using clay tiles (Eze 4:1-3), then he laid on his left side for many days, then on his right side, to demonstrate that God will require Israel to bear its iniquities.
Nah 1:7 The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.
Nah 1:7
Joh 2:24-25, “But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Divine Counsel Concerning the Judgment upon Nineveh.
v. 1. The burden of Nineveh, v. 2. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, v. 3. The Lord is slow to anger, v. 4. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, v. 5. The mountains quake at Him, v. 6. Who can stand before His indignation? v. 7. The Lord is good, v. 8. But with an overrunning flood, v. 9. What do ye imagine against the Lord? v. 10. For while, v. 11. There is one come out of thee, v. 12. Thus saith the Lord, Though they be quiet and likewise many, v. 13. For now will I break his yoke from off thee and will burst thy bonds, v. 14. And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee that no more of thy name be sown,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Nah 1:1-15
Part I. THE JUDGMENT UPON NINEVEH DECREED BY GOD.
Nah 1:1
1. The heading of the book. The book has a double title, the first giving the object of the prophecy, which otherwise would not be evident; the second, its author, added to give confidence in its contents. The burden; massa (Hab 1:1)a term generally used of a weighty, threatening prophecy (Isa 13:1), though translated by the LXX. here, and elsewhere , and . Some prefer to render it “utterance,” or “oracle.” The word is capable of either meaning. It almost always (except, perhaps, in Zec 12:1) introduces a threat of judgment. Of Nineveh. The denunciation of this city is the object of the prophecy. The effect of Jonah’s preaching had been only temporary; the reformation was partial and superficial; and now God’s long suffering was wearied out, and the time of punishment was to come. (For an account of Nineveh, see note on Jon 1:2.) Some critics have deemed one part of the title an interpolation; but the connection of the two portions is obvious, and without the former we should not know the object of the prophet’s denunciation till Nah 2:8. The book of the vision. This is the second title, in apposition with the former, and defining it more closely as the Book in which was written the prophecy of Nahum. It is called a “vision,” because what the prophet foretold was presented to his mental sight, and stood plainly before him (comp. Isa 1:1). The Elkoshite; i.e. native of Elkosh, for which, see Introduction, II.
Nah 1:2-6
2. The prophet describes the inflexible justice of God, and illustrates his irresistible power by the control which he exercises over the material world.
Nah 1:2
God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; better, Jehovah is a jealous and avenging God, as Exo 20:5; Deu 4:24; Jos 24:19. The threefold repetition of the name of Jehovah and the attribute “avenging” gives a wonderful force to this sublime description of the Divine character. God is here called jealous anthropopothically, as ready to defend his honour against all who oppose him, as One who loves his people and punishes their oppressors. Is furious; literally, master of fury, as Gen 37:19, “master of dreams.” The Lord is full of wrath (comp. Pro 10:12 :24; Pro 29:22). The word used implies a permanent feeling, Hire the Greek . He reserveth wrath. The Hebrew is simply “watching,” “observing” for punishment. Septuagint, , “himself cutting off his enemies;” Vulgate, irascens ipse inimicis ejus. God withholds his hand for a time, but does not forget. All this description of God’s attributes is intended to show that the destruction of Assyria is his doing, and that its accomplishment is certain.
Nah 1:3
Slow to anger (Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7). Nahum seems to take up the words of Jonah (Jon 4:2) or Joel (Joe 2:13). God is long suffering, not from weakness, but because he is great in power, and can punish when he will. Will not at all acquit the wicked; literally, holding pure will not hold pure; i.e. he will not treat the guilty as innocent. [Alex; ] ; Mundans non faciet innocentem (comp. Exo 20:7; Exo 34:7). The Lord hath his way, etc. The prophet grounds his description of the majesty and might of God upon the revelation at the Exodus and at Sinai. (see Exo 19:16-18; Psa 18:1-50.; 97.). The clouds are the dust of his feet, Large and grand as the clouds look to us, they are to God but as the dust raised by the feet in walking. As an illustration of this statement (though, of course, the fact was utterly unknown to Nahum), it has been remarked that recent scientific discovery asserts that clouds owe their beauty, and even their very existence, to the presence of dust particles in the atmosphere. The aqueous vapour, it is said, condenses on these particles, and thus becomes visible.
Nah 1:4
The great physical changes and convulsions in the world are tokens of God’s wrath on sinful nations. He rebuketh the sea, as at the passage of the Red Sea (Exo 14:21; Psa 106:9). This is a sign of omnipotence (comp. Luk 8:24). All the rivers. A generalization from the miracle at the Jordan (Jos 3:1-17.; comp. Psa 107:33; Isa 1:2). Septuagint, , “making rivers desolate;” Vulgate, flumina ad desertum deducens. Bashan (see note on Amo 4:1). Carmel (see on Amo 1:2). Flower of Lebanon. This district was famous, not only for its cedars, but also for its vines and flowers (comp. Hos 14:7; So Hos 4:11). These three regions are mentioned as remarkable for their fertility, and they occur most naturally to the mind of a native of Galilee, as was Nahum. They also geographically are the eastern, western, and northern boundaries of the land. They are used here proverbially to express the truth that God can cause the most luxuriant regions to wither at his word.
Nah 1:5
The mountains quake. The mountains, the very emblems of stability, tremble before him (Adios 8:8). The hills melt; , “The hills were shaken”. The hills dissolve like wax or anew at his presence (see Amo 4:13; Mic 1:4). Burned; Septuagint, , “recoils,” “is upheaved,” as by an earthquake. This rendering has the greatest authority. The world; i.e. the habitable world, and all living creatures therein (Joe 1:18-20). Nature animate and inanimate is represented as actuated by the terror of conscious guilt.
Nah 1:6
Who can stand? (Psa 76:7; Joe 2:11; Mal 3:2; comp. Rev 6:17). His fury is poured out like fire (Deu 4:24); like the brimstone and fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24), or like the molten lava that issues from a volcano (Jer 7:20). Septuagint (reading differently), : consumit principatus (Jerome). Are thrown down; rather, are rent asunder. If such is tile power of God, how shall Assyria resist it?
Nah 1:7-11
3. The prophet prepares the way for proclaiming the punishment of Nineveh lay deriding that the wrath of God falls not on those who trust in him, but is reserved for his enemies.
Nah 1:7
The Lord is good. The Targum adds unnecessarily, “for Israel” (Psa 25:8). He is “good,” in that he is a stronghold in the day of trouble, as in the perilous time when the Assyrians attacked Judaea (comp. Psa 27:1; Jer 16:19). He knoweth; loves and cares for.
Nah 1:8
With an overrunning flood. This may be merely a metaphor to express the utter devastation which should overwhelm Nineveh, as the invasion of a hostile army is often thus depicted (comp. Isa 8:7; Dan 11:26, Dan 11:40); or it may be an allusion to the inundation which aided the capture of the city (see note on Nah 2:6). Of the place thereof; i.e. of Nineveh, not named, but present to the prophet’s mind, and understood from the heading (Nah 1:1). (For the utter destruction of Nineveh, comp. Zep 2:13, etc.) The LXX. has, (“those that rise up”). The Chaldee has a similar reading, with the meaning that God would exterminate those who rise up against him. Darkness shall pursue his enemies. So the Septuagint and Vulgate. But it is better rendered, He shall pursue his enemies into darkness, so that they disappear from the earth. If this is the meaning of the clause, it resembles the termination of many Assyrian inscriptions which record the defeat of a hostile chieftain: “and no one has seen any trace of him since.”
Nah 1:9
The prophet suddenly addresses both Jews and Assyrians, encouraging the former by the thought that God can perform what he promises, and warning the latter that their boasting (comp. Isa 10:9, etc.; Isa 36:20) was vain. What do ye imagine against the Lord? Quid cogitatis contra Dominum? (Vulgate). This rendering regards the question as addressed to the Assyrians, demanding of them what it is that they dare to plot against God; do they presume to fight against him, or to fancy that his threats will not be accomplished? But the sentence is best translated, What think ye of the Lord? ; “What devise ye against the Lord?”. This is addressed not only to the Jews in the sense, “Do ye think that he will not accomplish his threat against Nineveh?” but to the Assyrians also. He will make an utter end. This denunciation is repeated from Nah 1:8 to denote the absolute certainty of the doom. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. The Assyrians shall never again have the power of oppressing Judah as they have ruined Israel there shall be no repetition of Sennacherib’s invasion. Septuagint, : Non vindicabit bis in idipsura (Jerome). From this text the Fathers take occasion to discuss the question how it is that God does not punish twice for the same sin.
Nah 1:10
While they be folden together as thorns. The clause is conditional: “Though they be interwined as thorns.” Though the Assyrians present an impenetrable front, which seems to defy attack. (For the comparison of a hostile army to briers and thorns, see Isa 10:17; Isa 27:4; Henderson.) And while they are drunken as drunkards; and though they be drunken with their drink, regarding themselves as invincible, and drenched with wine, and given up to luxury and excess. There may be an allusion to the legend current concerning the destruction of Nineveh. Diodorus (2.26) relates that, after the enemy had been thrice repulsed, the King of Nineveh was so elated that he gave himself up to festivity, and allowed all his army to indulge in the utmost licence, and that it was while they were occupied in drunkenness and feasting they were surprised by the Medes under Cyaxares, and their city taken. An account of such a feast, accompanied with sketehes from the monuments, is given in Bonomi, ‘Nineveh and its Discoveries,’ p. 187, etc. We may compare the fate of Belshazzar (Dan 5:1, etc.). They shall be devoured as stubble fully dry; like worthless refuse, fit only for burning (Exo 15:7; Isa 5:24; Joe 2:5; Oba 1:18). The LXX. renders this verse differently, “Because to its foundation it shall be dried up (: redigentur in vepres, Jerome), and as bind weed () intertwined it shall be devoured, and as stubble fully dry.”
Nah 1:11
The reason of the destruction and of the punishment is told. There is one come out of thee. Nineveh is addressed; and we need not refer the words entirely to Sennacherib and his impious threats, but may take them generally as expressing the arrogant impiety of the Assyrians and their attitude towards Jehovah. A wicked counseller; literally, a councilor of Belial; i.e. of worthlessness. The expression, perhaps primarily applied to Sennacherib, also regards the plans prepared by the Assyrians for destroying the people of God, a type of the world arrayed against piety.
Nah 1:12-15
4. The destruction of Nineveh is emphatically announced, and Zion is depicted as rejoicing at the news of its ruin, and celebrating her feasts in safety.
Nah 1:12
Thus saith the lord. An expression used to introduce a solemn declaration. Though they (the Assyrians) be quiet. Shalem has this meaning elsewhere, as Gen 34:21; but this is unsuitable here, where it must be translated, “in full strength,” “unimpaired,” “complete,” like the thorn hedge in Gen 34:10. Vulgate, Si perfecti fuerint. Though they be unbroken in strength, and likewise (on that account) many in number. Septuagint, , “Thus saith the Lord, ruling over many waters.” So the Syriac and Arabic. Jerome interprets “the waters” to mean the heavenly powers (Psa 148:4). Yet thus (though such is their state) shall they be cut down. The verb is used of the mowing of a fold or the shearing of sheep, and implies complete destruction. When he shall pass through; better, and he shall pass away. The number is changed, but the same persons are meant, spoken of as one to show their insignificance and complete annihilation. Septuagint “Thus shall they be dispersed [: dividentur, Jerome], and the report of thee shall no more be heard therein.” The following clause is not translated. Though I have afflicted thee. The Lord addresses Judah, referring to the oppression of Judaea by the Assyriaus in the times of Ahaz and Hezekiah (2Ki 16:18; 2Ch 28:20, etc.; 32.). I will afflict thee no more; according to the promise in Gen 34:9. This is further confirmed in what follows.
Nah 1:13
His yoke. The yoke of Assyria, probably referring to the vassalage of Judah (2Ki 18:14; 2Ch 33:11). (For the metaphor of “yoke” denoting subjugation, setup. Le 26:13; Jer 27:2; Eze 34:27.) Jeremiah (Jer 30:8) seems to use these words of Nahum to announce the deliverance of Israel from captivity. Burst thy bonds in sunder; by the final overthrow of the Assyrian power (Psa 2:3; Jer 2:20).
Nah 1:14
Concerning thee. The prophet addresses the Assyrian, and announces God’s purpose concerning him. That no more of thy name be sown. There is no special reference to Sennacherib in this or the next clause, but the prophet means that the Assyrian people and name shall become extinct. Out of the house of thy gods (Isa 37:38, whore the murder of Sennacherib in the temple of Nisroch is mentioned). An account of the religion of the Assyrians will be found in Layard, ‘Nineveh and its Remains,’ vol. 2 ch. 7. Graven image; carved out of wood or stone. Molten; cast in metal. The two terms comprise every kind of idol, as in Deu 27:15; Jdg 17:3. The Assyrians used to destroy the images of the gods worshipped by conquered nations (2Ki 19:18). Bonomi gives a picture of soldiers cutting up the image of some foreign deity, and carrying away the pieces. So should it now be done unto their gods. I will make thy grave. I will consign thee, O Assyrian, and thy idols to oblivion (Eze 32:22, etc.). It is not, “I will make it, the temple, thy grave,” as those who see a reference to the death of Sennacherib (2Ki 19:37) render it; but, “I prepare thy grave”I doom thee to destruction. The reason is given: For thou art vile; quia inhonoratus es (Vulgate): , “for they are swift”. The word is also translated “light,” weighed in the balances, and found wanting, as Dan 5:27.
Nah 1:15
The second chapter commences here in the Hebrew and Syriac; the Anglican follows the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Chaldee Versions. This seems most agreeable to the method of the prophecy, wherein threat is succeeded by promise, denunciation of the enemy by declaration of comfort to Judah (comp. Nah 1:6, Nah 1:7, Nah 1:12, and Nah 1:13; so here Nah 1:14 and Nah 1:15). The prophet announces the joy with which Judah receives the news of the overthrow of Nineveh. Behold upon the mountains, etc. Isaiah (Isa 52:7) uses these words to proclaim the coming of Messiah (comp. Isa 40:9; Rom 10:15). The messengers come from the East across the mountains of Palestine, announcing the fall of Nineveh and the consequent peace and security of Judaha type of the overthrow of God’s enemies and the safety of his Church. There may be an allusion to the custom of spreading tidings by beacon fires. Keep thy solemn feasts. Judah is exhorted to resume the observation of her solemnities, which were interrupted during the enemy’s occupation of the country, or which could not be properly attended by the distant inhabitants. Judah must offer her praises and thanksgivings for deliverance, and perform the vows which she made unto the Lord in the time of peril. The wicked (Hebrew, Belial) shall no more pass through thee. Belial is here the adversary, the opposing army (see verse 11).
HOMILETICS
Nah 1:1
A vision and a burden.
I. THE VISION OF NAHUM.
1. The person of the prophet.
(1) His name. Nahum, “Consolation”fitly borne by one whose mission was to be the comforter of God’s people. That so many in the Hebrew Church and nation possessed names prophetic of their future destinies points as its explanation to an overruling providence, which in this way kept alive in the hearts of the people a strongly operative belief in a Divine interposition in human affairs. That names are not now in this fashion significant does not prove that God is less cognizant of or interested in mundane matters, but merely shows that such devices are not now required to enable thoughtful persons to detect God’s finger in the progress of history.
(2) His birthplace. Elkosh; not to be sought for in Assyria, as e.g. in the modern Christian village of Elkosh, east of the Tigris and northwest of Khorsabad, two days’ journey from Mosul, where the tomb of the prophet is still shown, in the form of a simple alabaster box of modern style (Michaelis, Eichhorn, Ewald, etc.); but in Galilee, perhaps in the present day village of Helcesaei (Jerome, Hitzig, Delitzsch, Keil, etc.).
(3) His parentage. Unknown. That his father’s name was Elkosh (Strauss) could only be maintained by regarding “the Elkoshite” as a patronymic, and the Elkoshites as a distinct family. Of this, however, Scripture affords no trace.
(4) His time. Uncertain. According to Josephus (‘Ant.,’ 9.11, 3), Nahum prophesied in the reign of Jotham. But the prophecy itself rather points to a later datenot to the earlier years of Hezekiah, before the destruction of Sennacherib’s army (Jerome, Fausset), but to a point of time after that event, and consequently after the conquest of Samaria and the deportation of the ten tribes (Vitringa, Hitzig, Delitzsch, Keil, Nagelsbach in Herzog), more particularly to an age after the destruction of No-Amon, or Thebes (Nah 3:8), which took place soon after Tirhakah’s death, in B.C. 664. Hence B.C. 660, or the last years of Manasseh, may be accepted as the most probable date for Nahum’s prophecy. 2. The nature of his vision.
(1) Not political foresight merely, since the destruction of Nineveh occurred in B.C. 609-606 (Schrader), i.e. a full half century later than the days of Nahum, which is too broad a chasm to be spanned by purely human sagacity. If the Preacher is not in error (Ecc 3:11; Ecc 8:7), Nahum required more than mere natural ability to enable him to predict the downfall of the great Assyrian capital fifty years before it happened.
(2) Divine inspiration alone can explain the utterance of Nahum. “The Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amo 3:7). Compare the examples of Abraham (Gen 18:17), Moses (Num 12:6), Samuel (1Sa 3:11), Elijah (1Ki 18:36), Jeremiah (Jer 11:18), Daniel (Dan 2:19), etc. The details given in Nahum’s prophecy concerning Nineveh are such that they must have been obtained either by direct personal knowledge or by Divine revelation. But inasmuch as the former hypothesisthe ground upon which some scholars and critics locate Elkosh in Assyriais rendered impossible by the time when Nahum lived (shortly after the destruction of No-Amon), it can only have been by the latter method that he acquired his information.
II. THE BURDEN OF NINEVEH.
1. The city. Nineveh; in Assyrian Ninua, or Nina, equivalent to “Station,” “Dwelling,” if the word be of Semitic origin; equivalent to “Fish house” if derived from the Accadian (Delitzsch). A city remarkable for:
(1) Its antiquity. Founded by Asshur, who went forth out of the land of Shinar, or Babylon, and builded Nineveh, the present day Kouyunjik and Nebbi Yunus. opposite Mosul on the Tigris (Layard, Smith, Schrader); Rehoboth Ir, the site of which is unknown; Calah, represented by the mounds of Nimrud (Layard, Smith, Schrader); and Resen, or Selamiyeh (Layard, Smith, Schrader), between Calah and Nimroud (Gen 10:11, Gen 10:12). “The foundation of Nineveh, the modern Kouyunjik, probably goes back to as early an age as that of Assur (Kalah Shergat, the original capital), but it was not until a much later period that it became an important city, and supplanted the older capital of the kingdom’.
(2) Its size. Even from earliest times it was regarded as a great city, including Calah, Rehoboth Ir, and Resen, as well as Nineveh proper. In Jonah’s day it was “a great city” (Jon 1:1), “an exceeding great city of three days’ journey” (Jon 3:3). This accords both with the statements of classical writers one of whom gives its circumference as four hundred and eighty stadia, or twelve geographical milesand with the discoveries of modern research, according to which Nineveh appears to have been used to designate at one time Nineveh proper, at another time the four large prominent citiesNineveh, equivalent to Kouyunjik and Nebbi Yunus; Calah, Nimroud; Resen, Selamiych; and Dur-Sargina of the inscriptions, Khorsabad. These four cities “formed a trapezium, the sharp angles of which lay towards the north and south, the long sides being formed by the Tigris and the mountains, the average length being about twenty-five English miles, and the average breadth fifteen” (Delitzsch, on Jon 1:1). “The circumference of these four quarters or towns has been given by the English Jones at almost ninety English miles, which may correspond to a circuit of three days’ journey”.
(3) Its population. In Jonah’s time it contained over a hundred and twenty thousand young persons at and under seven years of age (Jon 4:11), which would give a population of six hundred thousand (Niebuhr, Delitzsch, Keil) or seven hundred thousand (Schrader) soulsa number exceeded by many modern cities.
(4) Its wealth. Nahum speaks of Nineveh as having multiplied her merchants above the stars of heaven (Nah 3:16); and that this was so her situation “at the culminating point of the three quarters of the globe, Europe, Asia, and Africa” (O. Strauss), might naturally lead one to expect. That Nineveh contained immense stores of gold and silver (Nah 2:9) accords with the statements of ancient writers, which represent the spoil of Nineveh as having been unparalleled in extent. So completely also was it plundered that “scarcely any fragments of gold and silver have been found in its ruins” (Kitto’s ‘Cyclopaedia,’ 3:334), thus verifying the prediction that she should be “empty, and void, and waste” (Nah 2:10).
(5) Its power. The crowned ones, i.e. nobles, and the marshals, i.e. the captains, of Nineveh were as plentiful as the locusts and great grasshoppers (Nah 3:17); in which case what must have been the number of the common soldiers? To thesethe levied and selected ones (for war) and the soldieryrather than to the princes and commanders, according to another interpretation (Keil), the prophet’s language refers. The shields and scarlet coats of her mighty men, the rattling of her war chariots, and the prancing of her horses are vividly depicted (Nah 2:3; Nah 3:1); as well as the fierceness and destructiveness of her warfare (Nah 2:11, Nah 2:12).
(6) Its wickedness. This, which in Jonah’s time was so aggravated as to call forth against it a threatening of Divine punishment (Jon 1:2; Jon 3:4, Jon 3:8, Jon 3:10), was not less conspicuous in the days of Nahum. The “bloody city full of lies and rapine” (Nah 3:1), had fully justified her designation by the manner in which she had deceived and destroyed the nations, Syria, Phoenicia, Philistia, Israel, and even Egypt.
2. The burden. This, which refers to Nahum’s oracle concerning Nineveh, appropriately describes:
(1) Its momentous character. A burden on the prophet’s soul until it was uttered, it forthwith became a weight of doom upon the city against which it was pronounced.
(2) Its certain fulfilment. Laid upon the bloody city by Jehovah’s hand (Nah 2:13; Nah 3:5), it would inflict a grievous wound and cause a bruise for which there should be no healing (Nah 3:19).
LESSONS.
1. The argument from prophecy for the inspiration of the Scriptures.
2. The superiority of the Christian dispensation, whose messenger was not a prophet of Jehovah, but the Son of God (Heb 1:1).
3. The excellence of the gospel, which contains a burden, not of wrath, but of mercy.
Nah 1:2-6
The wrath of God-a warning.
I. NECESSARY AS TO ITS EXISTENCE Based upon the character of God as a jealous God. Jealous:
1. For his own glory, and therefore admitting of no rival claimant to man’s worship and homage (Exo 34:14; Deu 4:24).
2. For his holy Law, and therefore shut up to punish iniquity (Exo 20:5; Deu 5:9; Deu 29:20; Jos 24:19).
3. For his own people, and therefore impelled to take vengeance on their adversaries.
II. RIGHTEOUS AS TO ITS CHARACTER. Directed only and always:
1. Against his adversaries; i.e. against those who decline to do him homage, and show this by worshipping idols.
2. Against those who dishonour his holy Law by their disobedience and unrighteousness.
3. Against those who oppress and tyrannize over his people, as the Assyrians had done and were doing.
III. FURIOUS AS TO OPERATION. The wrath of Jehovah is not a trifle. Nahum speaks of it as something that has fury in it (verses 2, 6). The prophets generally represented it as terrible in its forth flashing against sin and sinners (Deu 29:28; 2Ch 28:13; Isa 13:9; Jer 21:5; Zep 1:18; Zec 7:12). Christ did not view it as of small moment (Luk 21:23; Luk 22:22). Reason does not warrant the idea that it will be slight and easy to bear, it being the anger of a great and holy God.
IV. SLOW AS TO MANIFESTATION. It does not spring forth readily. Scripture distinctly testifies that God is slow to anger (verse 3).
1. Jehovah himself claimed that such was his character,
(1) when he spake to the people at Mount Sinai (Exo 20:6); and
(2) when he declared his Name to Moses (Exo 34:6).
2. The Bible throughout concedes to him this character. Moses (Num 14:18), David (Psa 86:15), Jonah (Jon 4:2), Micah (Mic 7:18), Nehemiah (Neh 9:17), alike proclaim it. In the New Testament, Paul (Rom 9:22) and Peter (2Pe 3:9, 2Pe 3:15) entertain the same idea.
3. Experience sufficiently confirms the Divine claim and the Scripture representation. The providential treatment of the world, of the antediluvian race, of Israel and Judah, of Nineveh and Babylon, of unbelievers in Christendom and of idolaters in heathendom,the best evidence that God is not willing that any should perish.
V. CERTAIN AS TO INCIDENCE.
1. His character such as to demand this. “He will by no means clear the guilty.” If he did he would contradict the representations of his character, falsify his word, and endanger his government. Hence his long suffering cannot arise from any secret sympathy which he has with sin, but must spring solely from his own inherent mercifulness.
2. His power sufficient to secure this. If Jehovah is slow to anger, this proceeds not from any defect in his ability to execute wrath upon his adversaries. He is of great powera truth explicitly set forth in Scripture (Gen 18:14; Exo 15:11; Deu 7:21; Job 9:4; Psa 89:8, etc.), and amplified and illustrated by Nahum, who depicts that power in a threefold way.
(1) By its character as supernatural. “The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (verse 3). As such it is mysterious, violent, and swift, inscrutable as to origin, immeasurable as to vehemence, incalculable as to velocity.
(2) By its effects as irresistible. Nothing can stand before it; not the most uncontrollable element in nature, the sea, which with its dashing billows and moaning waters is to the human mind a striking emblem of power. “He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers” (verse 4)an allusion to the drying up of the Red Sea and of the Jordan for the Israelites to pass over (Exo 14:22; Jos 3:17), Jehovah’s supremacy over the sea a frequent theme with Scripture writers (Job 9:8; Job 38:8, Job 38:11; Psa 29:3; Psa 65:7; Psa 74:15; Isa 44:27; Isa 51:10). Not the freshest and most vigorous, of which Bashan, Carmel, and Lebanon are cited as examplesthese languish and fade, their beauty decaying and their fruitfulness departing when he directs against them the fury of his wrathful power (verse 4; cf. Psa 107:34). Not the most solid and stable, the mountains, the hills, the earth, the world, all of which quake, melt, and burn at his presence (verse 5; cf. Psa 68:8; Mic 1:4; Isa 64:1). Not the most exalted and wise, the living creatures that dwell upon the surface of the globe, beasts and men, both of which are upheaved with terror before the manifestations of Jehovah’s power (Joe 1:18, Joe 1:20; Hos 4:3; Psa 65:8).
APPLICATION. “Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?” (verse 6).
Nah 1:7, Nah 1:8
Consolation in God.
I. IN HIS LOVE. “The Lord is good.”
1. Revealed in his Word.
(1) Made known to Moses (Exo 33:19; Exo 34:6);
(2) proclaimed by David (Psa 52:1; Psa 100:5; Psa 119:68);
(3) announced by Jeremiah (Lam 3:25);
(4) confirmed by Christ (Mat 19:17).
2. Attested by his works.
(1) In creation, God having made the earth to be an abode of happiness for innumerable myriads of creatures: “the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord” (Psa 33:5).
(2) In providence, by his being good unto all (Psa 145:9), and making all things work together for good to his people (Rom 8:28).
(3) In grace, by the gift of his Son to be man’s Redeemer (Rom 8:32; 2Co 9:15), and by the various blessings of salvation he for Christ’s sake bestows upon thempardon, peace, adoption, holiness, light, strength, life, heaven.
3. Experienced by his saints. From the beginning of time downwards, good men have been partakers of, and delighted to bear testimony to, the goodness of God, saying, like David, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” etc. (Psa 23:1); “He hath dealt bountifully with me” (Psa 13:6); confessing, like Solomon, “There hath not failed one word of all his good promise” (1Ki 8:56); acknowledging, like Jacob, “He hath fed me all my life long unto this day” (Gen 48:15).
4. Illustrated by his Son. The highest, clearest, and fullest evidence that God is good was furnished by Jesus Christ, who was good in himself (Joh 10:11), and went about continually doing good (Act 10:38).
II. IN HIS POWER. “He is a Stronghold in the day of trouble.”
1. Accessible.
(1) To all troubled ones, amongst his believing people (Psa 46:1; Pro 14:26; Isa 25:4), and amongst mankind generally, if they care to avail themselves of it (Psa 91:9).
(2) From every quarter of the globe, from every rank and condition of society. Jehovah the God, not of the Jew only, but also of the Gentile (Rom 3:29); not of the rich and learned and outwardly virtuous, to the exclusion of the poor, ignorant, and degraded, nor of these to the disadvantage of thosewith him is no respect of persons (2Ch 19:7; Rom 2:11; Eph 6:9; Col 3:25).
(3) In every form of calamityin the day of national adversity, such as had often befallen Israel undivided (Exo 14:10; Jdg 6:1, Jdg 6:2; Jdg 10:9; 1Sa 4:2), and Judah in separation (2Ch 14:9; 2Ch 20:1; 2Ch 32:1), and such as was soon to threaten the latter again, if not from the Assyrian, from the Babylonian power; in the day of domestic tribulation, such as overtook Job (Job 1:13-19), David (2 Samuel 15-18), Jacob (Gen 42:36), Jairus (Mat 9:18), the centurion (Luk 7:2), the widow of Nain (Luk 7:12), the nobleman (Joh 4:46), and the household of Bethany (Joh 11:1); in the day of personal affliction, which may be either spiritual like the distress which fell on David (Psa 38:3), or material like that which overtook Lot (Gen 19:29), bodily like that which struck Hezekiah (Isa 32:1), or mental like that which crushed Jeremiah (Jer 9:1), occasional like that which happened to Manasseh (2Ch 33:12), or perpetual like that which was the lot of Paul (2Co 4:10).
2. Impregnable. This inevitable, considering what kind of a fortress it isDivine, and by what munitions it is guarded, the royal battalion of the Divine attributes, by Jehovah’s omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, faithfulness, wisdom, holiness, love, Against this manifestly no weapon can prevail. “Mine omnipotency shall be your guard. I am God Almighty, your Almighty Protector, your Almighty Benefactor. What though your enemies are many? More are they that are with you than they that are against you; for I am with you. What though they are mighty? they are not almighty,” etc..
3. Sufficient. Every succour the soul needs in its day of trouble is found in God, and found oomph relyfor the soul’s guilt, pardon (Isa 1:16; Isa 43:25); for its pollution, cleansing (Eze 36:25); for its anxiety, peace (Isa 26:3; Mat 11:28); for its weakness, strength (Isa 45:24); for its darkness, light (Psa 118:27; 1Pe 2:9; 1Jn 1:5); for its death, life (Isa 25:8; Rom 4:17).
III. IN HIS KNOWLEDGE. “He knoweth them that put their trust in him.” He knoweth them:
1. Collectively. All that belong to the body of his believing people he exactly and always knows, so that he can think and speak of them as his people (Isa 32:18; 2Ti 2:19), as Christ does of those who are his (Joh 10:14).
2. Individually. Not in the mass merely, but separately and singly, he knows them (2Sa 7:20; Psa 139:1; 1Co 8:3, Heb 4:13), as Christ also calls his own sheep by name (Joh 10:3).
3. Thoroughly.
(1) Their charactersseeing that he searches the heart (1Ki 8:39; Jer 17:10; Psa 139:2; Luk 16:15; Act 1:24; Act 15:8; 1Th 2:4). Hence he can never err as to their persons.
(2) Their conditionssince nothing can be hid from him, neither person (Jer 23:24; Hos 5:3) nor thing (Psa 139:15; Jer 16:17), but both alike are manifest in his sight (Heb 4:13). Hence he can never mistake as to their circumstances, but must always understand precisely what they need.
4. Efficiently. Different from the wicked, whom he knows afar off (Psa 138:6), i.e. as persons estranged from and hostile to him elf, them that put their trust in him he knows appreciatively and helpfully, so as to love, cherish, protect, and assist them. “Though the Lord be-high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly”to their persons to love them, to their characters to admire them, to their wants to supply them, to their souls to save them.
CONCLUSION. Note:
1. The characters of those for whom this consolation existsthey put their trust in God. Remark upon the simplicity and efficacy of faith.
2. The evil fate of them who, being destitute of faith, are his enemiesthey shall be destroyed by an overrunning flood, their habitations swept away, their persons engulfed, their hopes disappointed, their projects defeated, their ambitions scattered to the winds; they shall be pursued by (or into) darkness (see next homily).
Nah 1:8
Pursued by (Authorized Version), into (Revised Version), darkness.
I. A WOEFUL FATE.
1. The picture. That of a defeated enemy pursued by a victorious general who comes up behind his foes like the shades of night upon a wearied and dispirited traveller stumbling forward upon an uncertain and perilous way, as Abraham fell upon the kings by night and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah (Gen 14:15); or, who drives them on before him into the gloom of night, where they encounter unforeseen dangers and perish, as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah did when chased by Chedorlaomer’s troops (Gen 14:10).
2. The interpretation. The defeated enemy is the sinner; the pursuing conqueror is either darkness, meaning those calamities which God has ordained to follow sin, or God himself, by whom the sinner shall be chased into such disastrous overthrow. In either case, with darkness behind or darkness beforeand, in reality, it is both behind and beforethe condition of God’s enemy is pitiful indeed.
II. A CERTAIN DOOM. Pursued by or into darkness. There is no “peradventure” about the lot of the ungodly. What is here predicted is not contingent, but absolute; not what ought to be merely, or what may be only, but what shall be.
1. God‘s Word hath declared it. “The wicked shall be silent in darkness,” etc. (1Sa 2:9); “The eyes of the wicked shall fail,” etc. (Job 11:20); “He shall be driven from light into darkness” (Job 18:18); “Let their way be darkness and slippery places” (Psa 35:6); “The candle of the wicked shall be put out” (Pro 24:20); “The children of the kingdom [who have become God’s enemies] will be cast into outer darkness,” etc. (Mat 8:12)”And the Scripture cannot be broken” (Joh 10:35).
2. God‘s character requires it. If his love and mercy make it sure that none who return to him will be rejected (Isa 55:7; Jer 3:22; Hos 14:4), his holiness and justice render it equally imperative that the impenitent and unbelieving, the rebellious and disobedient, should be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of God and from the glory of his power (Rom 1:18; 1Co 6:9; 1Pe 3:12).
3. Sin itself ensures it. Every action that a man performs carries in its own bosom its reward or punishment. “The wages of sin is death,” just as certainly as “the fruit of holiness” is “everlasting life” (Rom 6:21-23).
III. A JUST RETRIBUTION. To be pursued by or into darkness is a fitting lot for those who in their lifetime have loved the darkness rather than the light.
1. The law of moral retribution demands that this shall be so. “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap” (Gal 6:7). He that walks in darkness here cannot hope to walk in light yonder; he who does the deeds of darkness on earth will not likely begin to do deeds of light in heaven.
2. The character of the wicked makes it certain that this shall be so. No being can act otherwise than in accordance with its nature. Mere change of place suffices not to alter one’s nature. No reason to think that passing from one form of existence to another will effect any radical transmutation of one’s being. Hence they who have died in darkness will (in all probability) continue to dwell in darkness.
LESSONS.
1. Forsake sin. “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.”
2. Follow holiness. “Walk as children of the light.”
Nah 1:9-14
A wicked counsellor.
I. HIS PERSON.
1. The Assyrian power. Represented in Hezekiah’s reign by Sennacherib; in Manasseh’s (Nahum’s time) by Esar-haddon or Assurbanipal; in each successive reign by the ruling sovereign.
2. The unbelieving world. Of this Assyria was now the symbol, as in former times Egypt had been, as in later days Rome was (Joh 15:18; Jas 4:4).
3. The unrenewed heart. The curtal mind is enmity against God (Rom 8:7).
II. HIS CHARACTER.
1. Powerful. The Assyrian in Nahum’s age was “in full strength” (verse 12), a well organized and firmly knit confederacy like “tangled thorns” (verse 10), which were dangerous to touch, and a multitudinous people (verse 12) in comparison with which Judah was but a handful. The same elements of power coexist in the unbelieving world force (Eph 2:2), order (Eph 6:12), numbers (1Jn 5:19)in comparison with which the Church of God is weak, disunited, and small. The individual transgressor also not unfrequently exhibits an energy, a determination, and a capacity to enlist others upon his side which are wanting in the followers of God and Christ.
2. Self-reliant. Like drunkards drenched in drink (verse 10), the Assyrians were foolishly confident, and believed themselves to be invincible. In like manner, the unbelieving world in general and the individual sinner in particular, are of opinion that they are more than sufficient to cope with any form of calamity that may assail them, and to ensure their own safety against any foe, bodily or ghostly, earthly or unearthly, human or Divine.
3. Vile.
(1) The Assyrian court was notorious for its gluttony and revelry, especially in the days of Assurbanipal. The world also runs to strange excess of riot in eating and drinking (Rom 13:13; 1Pe 4:4).
(2) The Assyrian people were worshippers of idols (verse 14); and the world of today has its idols before which it delights to prostrate itself and present homage.
(3) The Assyrian kings were tyrannical, cruel, and oppressive; and so also is the world.
III. HIS DESIGNS.
1. Evil. “He counselleth wickedness” (verse 11)in particular oppression of the people of Jehovah (verse 13). Such was the aim of Assyria towards Judah; such is the aim of the world towards the Church; and of the unbeliever towards the believer.
2. Impious. His wicked counsels are also directed “against the Lord” (verses 9, 11). This was the spirit of Assyria as represented by Rabshakeh in the time of Hezekiah (2Ki 18:28-35; 2Ch 32:11-17; Isa 36:7, Isa 36:14, Isa 36:15, Isa 36:18-20; Isa 37:10-13); and of Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentile world, and the unbelieving Jews in the days of Christ (Psa 2:1; Act 4:25-28); and is the spirit still of the unrenewed heart (Rom 8:7).
3. Vain. The fruits of a corrupt “imagination” (verses 9, 11), they will prove idle and worthless. Assyria’s schemes for the subjugation of Judah came to nought; so resulted in defeat those of Herod and of Pilate, of the Jews and of the Gentiles against the holy Child Jesus; and so will terminate in shame those of wicked men generally against the truth.
IV. HIS DOOM.
1. Certain. The decree had gone forth against Assyria when Nahum spoke. “The Lord hath given commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy seed be sown” (verse 14). A similar decree has gone forth against the ungodly world (2Pe 3:7; 1Jn 2:15-17), and against unbelievers as individuals (Php 3:19; 1Th 1:9).
2. Complete. Of Nineveh Jehovah was to make “a full end,” so that no second affliction should be required to destroy them (Calvin, Hitzig), or should be able to proceed from them (Keil, Fausset) against Judah (verse 9); the Assyrians were to be “destroyed utterly as dry stubble” (verse 10), “to be cut down and pass away,” so that Jehovah should no more (at least by their hand) afflict his people (verse 12); the royal house was to come to an end, no more of that name being sown (verse 14); the very divinities of Assyria and Nineveh were to be exterminated (verse 14). More complete ruin was inconceivable; so will all the enemies of God and Christ be utterly destroyed (Jer 12:17; Psa 37:38; Mat 21:41; 2Pe 2:12).
LESSONS.
1. The danger of forming designs against either God or his people.
2. The wisdom of taking warning in time before it is too late.
3. The certainty that, when God begins the work of judgment, he will also make an end.
Nah 1:15
Glad tidings for God’s people.
I. THE DESTRUCTION OF A POWERFUL FOE.
1. The historical allusion. The “wicked one” whom Nahum represents as “utterly cut off” was the power of Assyria, whose certain and complete annihilation he has just predicted (verse 14), and now depicts as accomplished.
2. The spiritual application. Capable of being applied to every deliverance wrought by Jehovah for Judah, in particular to her deliverance from Babylonian captivity, it is specially true of that emancipation which was wrought for mankind sinners by the destruction of the Church’s greatest foe, the prince of the power of the air, over whom Christ triumphed through his cross. This the first note of the gospel message that Christ hath destroyed death, and him that hath the power of death, the devil (Heb 2:14).
II. THE PROCLAMATION OF A BLESSED PEACE.
1. The scene depicted. The prophet represents heralds as appearing on the mountains encircling Jerusalem with the joyous announcement that the ancient and terrible enemy she feared was overthrown, and could no more invade her land or oppress her people, and that henceforth she might dismiss all anxiety and be at peace.
2. The sense intended. The prophet wished to convey the thought that when once the power of Assyria was broken there would be no cause of alarmthat Judah might rest at ease, and prosecute her national career without fear of being disturbed by hostile invasion.
3. The symbol interpreted. As the destruction of Nineveh meant peace for Judah, so the overthrow of Satan and the powers of darkness means peace for God’s believing people. This the second note of the gospel message. After the work of redemption the publication of peace (Act 10:36; Eph 2:14-17). As Judah’s duty was to behold the peace messengers upon the mountains of Judah, and to believe their message, so the duty of the New Testament Church is to recognize him whom God hath sent, and to receive his gospel of peace.
III. AN INVITATION TO A JOYOUS FEAST.
1. The feasts referred to. These were the three principal feasts enjoined upon the Hebrew Church by Mosesthe Feast of the Passover, commemorative of the nation’s deliverance from Egypt; the Feast of Harvest, in which the firstfruits of the field were presented to the Lord; and the Feast of Ingathering, when the labours of the year were happily concluded by the safe storing of the well filled sheaves. In addition were other toasts which need not now be mentioned. The above named three were pre-eminently gladsome in their causes and their forms. They gave expression to the nation’s thankful joy in thinking of the Divine mercifulness, the Divine faithfulness, and the Divine goodnessfirst, in sparing them and making them a nation; next, in faithfully keeping with them his covenant of seed time and harvest; and, thirdly, in making such abundant provision for their wants, of all which they had been made partakers. Hence they tidy stood as types of the great feast of salvation to which God’s believing people are invited in consequence of Christ’s atoning and redeeming work, and in which God’s mercy, faithfulness, and goodness are expressedthat feast of fat things full of marrow, and of wines on the lees well refined, of which Isaiah speaks (Isa 25:6), that feast to which Christ alluded in his parables of the wedding banquet (Mat 22:2) and of the great supper (Luk 14:16), and that feast which is symbolized in the Lord’s Supper (1Co 5:8).
2. The invitation given.
(1) To whom addressed? To Judah, God’s ancient people; and, while in one sense the overtures of the gospel are extended to all, in another they belong only to them who believe and are God’s people through faith in Christ Jesus.
(2) On what based? Not on any merit or good works on the part of Judah, as e.g. on Judah’s prowess in defeating her ancient enemy, but solely on the fact that Jehovah had done so; and the people of God in the Church of Christ are invited to participate in the joyous banquet of salvation, and to celebrate their New Testament feast, not because of any worthiness in themselves, or because of any share they have had in overthrowing their arch foe (since they have had none), but exclusively because their adversary hath been destroyed for thembecause God’s right hand alone hath gotten him the victory (Psa 98:1).
IV. A SUMMONS TO A PLEASANT DUTY.
1. A becoming duty. The payment of Judah’s vows meant her performance of the engagements she had come under to be faithful and obedient to Jehovah, observing his worship, and keeping his commandments. To do this had been her duty from the first, though she had often failed in it; to return to it now after experiencing Jehovah’s mercy was in the highest degree proper.
2. A necessary duty. Without this Judah would not be truly grateful for her deliverance, her outward observance would be insincere and hypocritical, and her inner life would be practically unchanged. So the highest evidence a soul can give of its thankfulness for Divine mercy, of its own heartfelt sincerity, and of its genuine conversion and regeneration, is obedience.
3. An agreeable duty. What should be easier or more delightful than service which springs from love? So to gracious souls God’s commandments are not grievous, and hearts constrained by the love of Christ find that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.
Learn:
1. The possibility of extracting gospel truths from Old Testament Scriptures.
2. The clearer light which shines in the Christian records concerning God’s gracious work of redemption.
3. The larger responsibilities that rest upon such as have experienced the salvation of Christ.
HOMILIES BY S.D. HILMAN
Nah 1:1
The messenger of judgment.
Notice here –
I. THE MESSENGER: HIS PERSONALITY. “Nahum the Elkoshite.”
1. His name. “Nahum,” signifying “Consolation;” and whilst this scarcely accords with the character of his mission as the proclaimer of Divine judgments, yet, interspersed with the heavy tidings concerning Nineveh, we have here very tender and consolatory words addressed by him to his own afflicted nation (verses 7, 12, 13-15).
2. His birthplace. He was “the Elkoshite,” a native of Elkosh, a village of Galilee. This has been questioned, and a tradition has been appealed to representing that he belonged to the Captivity, and was born at Alcosh, a town near Mosul. It has been urged, however, that much of the phraseology he employs, together with certain familiar references to places, connects him unmistakably with North Palestine.
II. THE CHARACTER OF HIS MESSAGE. “The burden of Nineveh.”
1. It was a message to be delivered to a heathen nation. Like the message of Jonah, to which it has been fittingly described as being “the complement and the counterpart,” it indicates theft God holds wider relations with mankind than the Jews were prepared to admit; and that all nations and peoples lie within the range of his providence and power.
2. It was a message full of dark forebodings. It told of impending judgment and of national destruction and desolation. The sombre announcements were unrelieved even by a single word of hope being addressed to the guilty nation. The Ninevites had previously recognized the Divine righteousness, and upon their repentance had experienced the Divine clemency; but this had been followed by relapse into the grossest iniquity, and there remained now only the experience of the threatened ruinthe nation should be “utterly cut off.” “The burden of Nineveh” was also the burden of Nahum. His few words recorded here addressed to his own people are sufficient to indicate that he was a man of refined susceptibilities; and to such a man his commission must have been indeed oppressive. Yet he would not shrink, but would faithfully fulfil his trust. Whilst the mercy and love of God should be the constant theme of the modern teacher, yet the great and solemn fact of his retributive justice must not be ignored. There is to be declared “all the counsel of God” (Act 20:27).
III. THE DIVINE AUTHORITY WITH WHICH HE WAS INVESTED. A plain man unfolding such teachings respecting a mighty heathen power might well be required to furnish his credentials. And we have his authority expressed in the words, “the vision of Nahum.” A Divine insight had been imparted unto him; there had been given him “visions and revelations of the Lord,” and of his terrible doings about to be wrought. Such apprehension of spiritual realities is absolutely essential in order to constitute any man a messenger of God to his age (1Co 2:10-16; 1Pe 1:12; 1Jn 4:14).
IV. THE PERMANENT RECORD OF HIS SOLEMN TEACHING. “The book of the vision,” etc. (verse 1). This is the only form in which mental thoughts and conceptions can be lastingly perpetuated. The matchless works of the great, masters in painting, sculpture, and architecture, which have excited the admiration of the whole world, can have but a limited existence; no copy equal to the originals can be made; and in the waste and wear of time these must inevitably pass away; whereas the literary productions of men of genius will continue to live on; for time does not impair that, art by which books are reproduced and the circle of their influence extended. The Bible is a collection of books; and the remarkable unity combined with progressiveness traceable therein furnish s very convincing evidence of its Divine origin. Written prophecy forms a most important feature in this development of truth. It was not only necessary that the prophets should labour (as they did so earnestly) to maintain religion amongst the people who had been chosen of God and separated to his praise, but also that, as the work of prophecy advanced, there should be indicated and recorded how that the Lord was working among the nations, Hebrew and heathen alike, and bringing about the fulfilment of his all-wise and gracious purposes. And viewed under this aspect, “the book of the vision of Nahum tim Elkoshite” fills an important niche, whilst its grave words of admonition and warning may well lead evil doers to reflection and penitence, and its occasional words of hope to the pious and God fearing may serve, in troublous times, to keep their hearts in quietness and assurance.S.D.H.
Nah 1:2-6
The Divine vengeance.
In engaging in work for God, the worker must not be unmindful of the terrible consequences resulting from despising the riches of Divine mercy and grace. There is, assuredly, such a thing as retribution following a course of alienation from God’s ways. It must be so. The very love of God renders the punishment of the ungodly absolutely essential. Objectors sometimes point to the scriptural teaching concerning the future of the impenitent as indicating that the God of the Bible is unlovely and severe. But surely, where there is love there will also be found regard for justice. There is a mawkish sentimentalism about the teaching which dwells upon the love of God to the exclusion of all regard for his rectoral character. There is much of this teaching prevalent today. It is the recoil from extreme Calvinism, and, as is usual in such eases, the very opposite extreme is reached. It is impossible to indicate the extent to which the intense sense of God possessed by the Reformer of Geneva gave strength to his work; and let God be realized by us as “infinite Justice, infinite Love, and infinite Truth, blended in one indivisible ray of whitest light,” and the thought of his all-embracing sovereignty and wise and perfect administration will be found full of comfort and inspiration to our hearts. And so long as he is righteous, sin, unrepented of and unabandoned, must be followed by bitter results; and hence, whilst joyfully proclaiming “the acceptable year of the Lord,” we must also declare the coming of “the day of vengeance of our God.” In these verses
I. LIGHT IS CAST UPON THE NATURE OF THE DIVINE VENGEANCE. Our conceptions of the Divine Being are sometimes assisted by our ascribing to him certain characteristics belonging to the children of men. Analogy, however, in this direction must not be pressed too far, or we may be led to form very erroneous views concerning our God. We have in these verses a case in point. Nothing is more strongly to be condemned in men than the cherishing by them of the spirit of jealousy and of vengeance; yet this is here ascribed to God. “The Lord is jealous, and the Lord revengeth,” etc. (Nah 1:2). But then “jealousy” and “vengeance” mean something very different when applied to man from what is intended when the same terms are used in reference to God. By jealousy on the part of man we understand envy, but by the same word in reference to God we are reminded of his regard for the maintenance of truth, his holy concern for the upholding of righteousness. And by vengeance on the part of man we understand revenge, a determination that satisfaction shall be given for the injury we consider has been done to us; whereas the same word as applied to God carries with it no such idea of vindictiveness, but simply a pure desire that the cause of justice and rectitude may be established and secure complete vindication. Since this brief book of prophecy has almost exclusive reference to the Divine judgments to fall upon the Assyrians, it is all-important that we clearly understand at the outset that Divine vengeance has absolutely no malice in it, and is ever exercised in the maintenance of righteousness. This is indicated in the next verse in three particulars (Nah 1:3).
1. The Divine slowness. “The Lord is slow to anger.” Vindictiveness will not brook delay; human vengeance reckons with its victims at the earliest moment; revenge burns; passion rages; but the Divine vengeance delays, that perchance, through penitence, the blow may not be required to fall.
2. The restraining of Divine power. Man, cherishing the spirit of vindictiveness, sometimes lingers because conscious of his want of power to inflict the penalty; but God “great in power” (Nah 1:3) restrains his might, holds back his avenging hand, that “space for repentance” may be given, and the fact be made manifest that he “desires not the death of the wicked.”
3. The Divine concern for the maintenance of his pure Law. “And will not at all acquit the wicked” (Nah 1:3). His vengeance is not vindictive, but is exercised in order that the supremacy of his holy Law may be asserted. He has graciously made provision for the forgiveness of sin and the salvation of transgressors from condemnation (Rom 8:1), and they who wilfully persist in iniquity must bear the consequences, which will light upon them, not because God is vindictive, but because the honour of his pure Law must be sustained.
II. THIS ASPECT OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER IS SET FORTH IN GRAPHIC IMAGERY. (Nah 1:3-6.) For sublimity and grandeur this passage stands unrivalled. The Divine vengeance is presented to us here:
1. In its irresistibleness. Like the whirlwind, it sweeps everything before it (Nah 1:3).
2. In its terribleness. In vivid symbolical language all nature is represented as full of terror at the Divine manifestations (Nah 1:5).
3. In its destructiveness. Desolation is brought aboutthe sea and the rivers are dried up at the rebuke of the Lord; the rich pastures of Bashan, the beautiful gardens of Carmel, and the fragrant flowers and fruitful vines and stately trees of Lebanon languish (Nah 1:4); as a devouring fire this vengeance consumes in every direction (Nah 1:5, Nah 1:6); yea, so mighty is it that the very rocks crumble to pieces when it is put forth (Nah 1:6).
III. THIS VIEW OF OUR GOD IS PRESSED HOME UPON OUR HEARTS BY EARNEST INQUIRY. “Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger?” (Nah 1:6). The design of the questions is to quicken conscience. They contain and suggest the answers. Humbled in the very dust of self-abasement, we cry, “Enter not into judgment with thy servants, O Lord; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psa 143:2).S.D.H.
Nah 1:7
The Divine goodness.
“The Lord is good.” The word “good” is used herein the sense of the desire to promote happiness. The prophet affirms that “the Lord” possesses this dispositionthat whilst he is powerful he exerts this power in saving, not in destroying, “judgment” being “his strange work;” that whilst his presence fills all space, and his omniscient eye penetrates all, he is concerned, in his watchfulness, that none of the creatures he has formed should lack the blessings his bounteous hand has to bestow; and that as he is eternal in his duration, so the streams of his bounty shall ever continue to flow. “The Lord is good.” This inspiring truth was revealed even from the earliest times, and is inscribed in Scripture upon every page. Abram in the vision by night (Gen 15:1-21.), Jacob in his weary wanderings (Gen 28:10-22), and Moses in “the holy mount” (Exo 33:19), were alike favoured with special revelations of it. The very thought of God thus woke up within the psalmist the faculty of song, and led him to strike his lyre and to sing with holy fervour, “Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive” (Psa 86:5); “They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness,” etc. (Psa 145:7); “Oh, taste and see,” etc. (Psa 34:8). And prophets unite with psalmists in bearing this testimony (Jer 33:11; Isa 63:7). Very different was the conception formed by the heathen. We think of the tyranny, caprice, and revenge supposed to characterize heathen deities, the acts of cruelty ascribed to them, the impurity of heathen rites, and the wearisomeness of heathen penances, and we rejoice that the voice from heaven has spoken unto us, and that the truth which heathen worshippers did not know has been so clearly revealed to us in the bright assurance, “The Lord is good.” “The Lord is good.” Nature, with bar ten thousand voices, bears emphatic testimony here. Benevolence marks all the operations of the Creator’s hands. All his works declare his goodness. The majestic sun, the full-orbed moon, the stars countless in number and sparkling in the vault of heaven, the refreshing and fertilizing shower, the gentle breeze, the woods re-echoing with the notes of little songsters, the varied landscape, the carpeted earth, the tinted flowers, all seem to speak and to say, “The Lord is good.” “O Lord, how excellent is thy Name in all the earth!” (Psa 8:1); “O Lord, how manifold,” etc.! (Psa 104:24). “The Lord is good.” As in creation so in providence, the same testimony is borne. Specially is this so in the Divine dealings with men, supplying his wants, ministering to his necessities, scattering blessings in his path, and daily, yea, hourly, sustaining and preserving him from peril and danger. His goodness, too, is seen in that he is “kind even to the unthankful,” and bestows his flowers not only upon “the just” but also upon “the unjust,” sustaining even these who live in rebellion against him. Nor does the fact that whilst the ungodly often seem to “prosper in their way,” “waters of a full cup are wrung out to his people,” militate against the declaration of this text; for God’s providence takes into account the entire welfare of his servants, and adverse scenes may be necessary in order to the promotion of this; and, the discipline accomplished, deliverance shall be theirs, whilst the arm of the oppressor shall be bracken (Nah 1:12, Nah 1:13). “The Lord is good.” This truth, impressed upon the pages of the Old Testament, receives its highest exemplification in the records of the New. In him whose advent prophets predicted, and whose work was shadowed forth in type and symbol, and in the free redemption he has wrought; in the seeking and self-sacrificing love and the compassionate mercy and grace of God as thus expressed, we see the noblest, purest, brightest token that “the Lord is good.” In this Divine goodness, ever watchful to guard us; almighty, and hence equal to every emergency of our life; immutable too, and therefore an unfailing dependence amidst the mutations and fluctuations of our earthly lot,let us rest with unswerving trust, until at length, every bond sundered, we, as “the ransomed of the Lord, come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon our heads,” there with adoring gratitude to reflect upon the memory of his great goodness, and to praise him for his mercy and grace and love forevermore.S.D.H.
Nah 1:7
God our Stronghold.
Great, indeed, is the honour sustained by the man who fulfils the mission of being a comforter to others, who is enabled to minister to sorrowing and stricken ones, who watches with them in their Gethsemanes, and by his gentle words and tender sympathy imparts consolation to their wounded hearts. “I dwelt as a king in the army; as one that comforteth the mourners“ (Job 29:25). No service makes a greater demand upon a man than this, yet he has an abundant reward for the self-sacrifice involved, in beholding the objects of his regard no longer in “ashes,” but raised out of the dust and made comely; no longer with disfigured countenance through grief, but radiant with joy; no longer arrayed in gloom, but clad in the beautiful garments worn on festal days (Isa 61:2, Isa 61:3). Nahum, whilst the minister of condemnation to the Ninevites, was also the minister of consolation to his own people in their sadness and sorrow. Only a few of his words to Israel are recorded, but they are words full of consolation and hope. Here he pointed to God as the Stronghold of his servants. “He is a Stronghold in the day of trouble” (verse 7). We have here
I. A COMMON UNIVERSAL EXPERIENCE. “Trouble.” Man is born to this. Trials arise; conflicts must be engaged in; the cares and anxieties of life press; hopes are frustrated; injustice triumphs; slander blights; sickness, disease, death, prevail; our best and dearest pass away from our view; graves are opened; the tears fail fast; and immunity from all this is granted to none, each must pass through dark experiences and encounter adverse influences: this is the discipline of life.
“In this vain world the days are not all fair;
To suffer is the work we have to do;
And every one has got a cross to bear,
And every one some secret heart, ache too.”
II. A DEEP INWARD NEED ARISING OUT OF THIS EXPERIENCE. It is implied here that man circumstanced thus needs help. He knows not how to bear the ills of life unaided and alone. He who has to face the pitiless storm needs to be robed to resist the stress of adverse weather, and he who has to confront the foe requires to be armour clad. This need of the sorrowing heart cannot be supplied by earthly sources. The world’s cheer then comes to the man like songs to a heavy heart, and he has no taste for its music. Scepticism can east no bow of promise across the cloud; whilst human philosophy may counsel the cherishing of the spirit of indifference, but which under the pressure it is impossible to cultivate.
III. THIS NEED AMPLY MET IN GOD. “He is a Stronghold in the day of trouble.” The figure is a very striking one. There stands the castle with its thick walls and buttresses and its brave defenders ready to resist any attack. The foes attempt a landing, and the inhabitants, old and young, hasten to the fortress. The drawbridge is lifted, the moat is filled with water, and all are safely lodged in the stronghold, and in the day of visitation are securely guarded and safely kept. Even thus is it with the good in “the day of trouble.” So David cried, “Thou hast been a Shelter for me and a Strong Tower from the enemy” (Psa 61:3, Psa 61:4). God was his “Light and his Salvation” (Psa 27:1), his “Pavilion” (Psa 27:5), the Solace of his every grief as well as the Centre of his every joy. He loved him, he trusted him, he knew that the dearest experience in life is the experience of God’s love and care. So Hezekiah and his people when threatened by Sennacherib. The Assyrian army gathered in all its strength around “the city of God,” and Jerusalem became as a mountain shaken by the swelling of the sea, portions of which were crumbling and falling through the violence of the waves, and the whole of which seemed ready to be borne entirely away; yet the king and his subjects were calm and tranquil; they committed their cause to “the Strong One,” and rested in his protection, and cried with holy fervour, “God is our Refuge and Strength,” etc. (Isa 36:1-22.; 37.; Psa 46:1-11.). And let us only realize that Jehovah is to us a living Presence, the Source of our inspiration, the Strength of our hearts and our abiding Portion, and we shall give to the winds all craven fear, and in our darkest seasons shall sing
“A sure Stronghold our God is he,
A timely Shield and Weapon;
Our Help he’ll be, and. set us free
From every ill can happen.
And were the world with devils filled,
All eager to devour us,
Our souls to fear shall little yield,
They cannot overpower us.”
S.D.H.
Nah 1:7
The Divine regard for trusting hearts.
“And he knoweth them that trust in him.” Something more than mere acquaintance is involved here; the meaning undoubtedly is that he intimately and lovingly regards those who commit themselves and their way unto him, and will tenderly care for them and promote their weal; yea, still more, even that he knows and cares thus for such personally and individually, not overlooking any of them in the multitude, but regarding thus each and every such trusting heart.
I. THIS TRUTH ADMITS OF AMPLE CONFIRMATION. There is something very wonderful in this thought. Is it not almost past conception that he who has the direction of all worlds dependent upon him, and whose dominions are so vast, should look upon his servants in this small world of ours, separately and with loving regard, and should interest himself in our personal concerns? So too, awed and humbled as we stand in the midst of the vast and mighty works of God, we feel impelled to cry, “When I consider thy heavens.” etc (Psa 8:3) Yet that it is so is abundantly confirmed in the teachings of Scripture.
1. See this truth taught in type. Call to remembrance the breastplate of the Jewish high priest, that splendid embroidered cloth which covered his breast, and in which were set precious stones bearing the names of the tribes of Israel. And did not those precious stones, worn so near the heart of the high priest, symbolize the truth that all sincere servants of God are dear unto him; that he not only bears them up in his arms with an almighty strength, but bears them also upon his heart with the most tender affection?
2. See this truth taught in prophecy. It is therein declared that there is nothing so impossible as that God should forget his trusting children. “Zion said, The Lord hath forgotten me, and my Lord hath forsaken me” (Isa 49:14, Isa 49:15). And in response to this fear the Lord declared that this could never be, and that his love and care are even more enduring than that of mothers. “Can a woman,” etc.? (Isa 49:15); “I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” (Isa 49:16). Undying remembrance surely! The name is inscribed there, never to be obliterated, a ceaseless memorial before his face.
3. The New Testament unites with the Old in bearing this bright testimony; for does not Christ, as the good Shepherd, declare that “he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out”? do we not read also the assurance, “The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2Ti 2:19)? yea, is it not even affirmed that this Divine knowledge and care respecting the good shall be perpetuated evermore (Rev 7:15-17; Rev 21:3, Rev 21:4)?
II. THIS TRUTH IS CALCULATED TO EXERT A STRENGTHENING AND STIMULATING INFLUENCE. This thought, if more intensely realized by us, would prove helpful in many ways.
1. It would render us less dependent than we are upon human supports. What over anxiety is felt by us at times in reference to the success of our plans and projects, or for the continuance to us of those in whom our prosperity, humanly speaking, centres! But if we grasped fully the assurance here expressed, we should be led to depend less upon earthly sources and more upon him who has loved us with an everlasting love; who, though unseen by us, ever encompasses our path, and who, in the season of their deepest extremity, will guide and strengthen all who stay themselves on him.
2. It would give increased reality to the sacred exercise of prayer. We too often draw nigh unto God as though we were seeking One who, because he is invisible, is necessarily at an infinite distance from us, and who may or may not regard our cry, and perhaps it is not too much to say that we sometimes draw nigh without any distinct apprehension of the Being to whom we profess to come, and whose aid we invoke; but then we should indeed feel prayer to be a reality and not a merely formal exercise, and by such intimate and hallowed communion should renew our spiritual strength.
3. It would strengthen and aid us in our conflicts with sin. In this strife we sometimes suffer defeat; and in our endeavours after the Christian character and life we are painfully conscious at seasons of failure. How cheering in such circumstances is the thought that all our aspirations after truth and purity and goodness are known unto our God; that he is acquainted with all tile circumstances of our case; that he is conscious we have not designedly strayed from him; and that he follows us, with loving regard, in all our wanderings, with a view to bringing us back to his fold!S.D.H.
Nah 1:8-15
Antagonism to God and his rule.
Nahum doubtless prophesied during the reign of Hezekiah, and shortly after the defeat of Sennacherib by the destroying angel of the Lord (Isa 37:36). That memorable event, it would appear, was present to his mind and is referred to in these verses, although his thoughts were also carried on to the future and to the complete and final overthrow of the Assyrian power in the destruction of the capital, and which forms the theme of the succeeding chapters. The latter part of this first chapter may be regarded as introductory to the description to be given of the ruin of Nineveh; and in the mind of the seer, as he wrote these verses, the events which had recently transpired and darker events yet to come were associated together. The significance of the conflicts waged by Sennacherib against Hezekiah lies very materially in the fact that his enterprises were designedly antagonistic to the God of the Hebrews. It is not simply an ambitious sovereign seeking to extend his dominions and to spread his conquests that is presented to us here, but a mortal man, invested with regal honour, resolved upon measuring his strength with that of the Supreme Ruler. The historical records we possess bearing upon the career of this Assyrian king present him to us as one who thought he could “outwit Divine wisdom, and conquer omnipotence itself” (2Ki 19:10-13; Isa 36:13-20); and viewed thus they become suggestive to us of important teachings bearing upon that moral antagonism to God and his authority which unhappily prevails in every age. Concerning this opposition to the Most High and his rule, note
I. ANTAGONISM TO GOD HAS ITS ORIGIN IN A DEPRAVED HEART. Evil thoughts and vain imaginings, self-sufficiency and self-conceit, revellings and drunkenness, all betoken an evil heart, and these are here associated with the action of Assyria. “For thou art vile” (verse 14); “a wicked counsellor” (verse 11), etc. So in every age. Men with hearts alienated from all that is true and right desire not the knowledge of his ways, and say unto him, “Depart from us;” and “they set themselves against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and let us cast away their cords from us” (Psa 2:2, Psa 2:3).
II. ANTAGONISM TO GOD REVEALS ITSELF OPENLY IN THE ACTIVE OPERATIONS OF EVIL MEN. As here:
1. Unprincipled leaders are forthcoming (verse 11).
2. Combinations are formed. “Though they be entire, and likewise many” (verse 12); “While they be folden together” (verse 10).
3. Plots are conceived. “They imagine evil against the Lord” (verse 11).
4. Mischief is wrought. “The yoke” of Assyria was upon Judah, and because of the threatened invasion the hearts of the good Hezekiah and his subjects failed, and were in sore distress. The Assyrians were as “thorns” to Judah (verse 10). And so evil men, antagonistic to God and to the principles of his rule, are ever a blight and a curse.
III. ANTAGONISM TO GOD CAN ONLY END IN DEFEAT AND DISHONOUR. In the case of Assyria this discomfiture was:
1. Divinely inflicted. “I will make thy grave” (verse 14).
2. Suddenso far as the proud, vaunting Sennacherib and his hosts were concerned (Isa 37:36).
3. Complete. “He will make an utter end” (verse 9).
4. Permanent. “The Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown” (verse 14). “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might” (Jdg 5:31).S.D.H.
Nah 1:8-15
Spiritual redemption symbolized.
The expression in Nah 1:11, “a wicked counsellor,” is rendered in the margin “counsellor of Belial.” “Belial” is used in the Old Testament to indicate sensual profligacy (Jdg 19:1-30 : 22:13; 1Sa 2:12); and in the New Testament as a synonym for Satan (2Co 6:15). The term was here (Nah 1:11) applied to Sennacherib; and the deliverance of Judah from the vauntings and oppressions of this mighty and evil Assyrian monarch described in these verses (8-15) may be taken as serving to illustrate the spiritual deliverance of men. There is thus suggested
I. DELIVERANCE FROM SERVITUDE. Assyria had been a bitter scourge to Judah. Through the action of his predecessors, Hezekiah found himself the vassal of this heathen power, and his. attempts to free himself from the yoke had only resulted in his fetters being fastened the more securely; until now, by Divine interposition, the power of the oppressor was broken (Nah 1:13). So sin yielded to becomes a tyranny, It gains an ever-increasing power over its subjects. The fetters of habit become forged about them that they cannot release themselves. There is no slavery like that of sinonly the grace of God can sunder the fetters and free us from the galling yoke; but “made free” thus, we become “free indeed” (Joh 8:34-36).
II. DELIVERANCE. FROM SORROW. “Affliction shall not rise up the second time” (Nah 1:9); “Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more” (Nah 1:12). The promise was conditional. The people humbled themselves before God in penitence, and it was implied that they should not be afflicted again if they continued in God’s ways. In this they failedthe reformation proved but partial; still, God never afflicted them again through Assyria. So suffering is disciplinary, and “made free from sin” there accompanies this deliverance from sorrow. The character of life’s trials become changed to the good; they are not looked upon as harsh inflictions, but as lovingly designed by the All-wise and All-gracious.
III. DELIVERANCE RESULTING IN PRIVILEGE. “O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows”(Nah 1:15). Whilst under the yoke of Assyria, there had been the restriction of their religious privileges, but now these could be renewed and enjoyed without restraint, and the ransomed of the Lord could return to Zion with songs, and pay their vows unto the Lord, and keep the sacred festivals. Spiritual freedom is with a view to holy and joyous service. The Emancipator becomes enthroned in the hearts of the enfranchised; they love him supremely; his service is their delight; they become bound to him in loving loyalty and devotion forever.
IV. DELIVERANCE PROCLAIMED IN THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GLADNESS. (Nah 1:15.) Let the countenance be lighted up with joy as the announcement of the “good tidings” is made. With a glad heart let the proclamation be published that, through the abounding mercy and grace of God, it is possible for sinful men to become delivered from condemnation and freed from the slavery of sinful habit, and to soar to that higher and holier realm where God is, and to exchange the miserable chains of evil for those golden fetters which only bind to the holy and the heavenly. There can be no more exalted or joyous service than that engaged in by the man who stands upon the mountains ringing this great bell, that, guided by its sum,d, the imperilled traveller may make his way across the snowy wastes, to find in Christ a sure and safe retreat from the storm and tempest. “Behold upon the mountains,” etc. (Nah 1:15; Isa 40:9).S.D.H.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Nah 1:1, Nah 1:2
Great sins bringing great ruin.
“The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Etkoshite. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” But little is known of Nahum, whose name signifies “Comfort.” He was a native of Elkosh; generally supposed to be a Galilaean village. He lived probably in or about the year B.C. 650. The burden of his prophecy is the destruction of Nineveh, which destruction was predicted by Jonah a century before, Nineveh was destroyed about fifty years after this prophecy was uttered, and so complete was its overthrow that the very site where it stood is a matter of conjecture. The prophecy, though divided into three chapters, is a continuous poem of unrivalled spirit and sublimity, and admirable for the elegance of its imagery. “The third chariot is a very striking description of a siegethe rattle of the war chariot, the gleam of the sword, the trench filled with corpses, the ferocity of the successful invaders, the panic of the defeated, the vain attempts to rebuild the crumbling battlements, final overthrow and ruin.” The opening words suggest two remarks.
I. THAT THE GREAT SINS OF A PEOPLE MUST EVER BRING UPON THEM GREAT RUIN. The population of Nineveh was pre-eminently wicked. It is represented in the Scriptures as a “bloody city,” a “city full of lies and robberies;” its savage brutality to captives is portrayed in its own monuments, and the Hebrew prophets dwell upon its impious haughtiness and ruthless fierceness (Isa 10:7, Isa 10:8). In this book we have its “burden,” that is, its sentence, its doom; and the doom is terrible beyond description. It is ever so. Great sins bring great ruin. It was so with the antediluvians, with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was so with the Jews in the time of Titus. Thirty-seven years after the crucifixion of our Lord, the Roman general, with a numerous army, laid siege to their city, and converted it into a scene of the greatest horrors ever witnessed on this earth. The principle of moral causation and the eternal justice of the universe demand that wherever there is sin there shall be suffering; and in proportion to the amount of sin shall be the amount of suffering. “Unto when,soever much is given, of him shall be much required.”
II. THAT THE GREAT RUIN THAT COMES UPON GREAT SINNERS PRESENTS GOD TO THE “VISION” OF MAN AS TERRIBLY INDIGNANT. “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” The passions of man are here ascribed to God. In this form of speech the Eternal Spirit is often represented in the Bible as having feet, hands, ears, mouth; but as he has none of these, neither has he any of these passions. It is only when terrible anguish comes upon the sinner that God appears to the observer as indignant. The God here was the God who only appeared in the “vision” of Nahumthe God as he appeared to a man of limited capacity and imperfect character. Jesus alone saw the absolute God. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” The God of Jesus of Nazareth had no jealousy, no vengeance, no fury. He was love. “Fury is not in me, saith the Lord” (Isa 27:4) If God has anger, it is the anger of principle, not passionthe anger of love, not malevolence. It is indeed but another form of love: love opposing and crushing whatever is repugnant to the virtue and the happiness of the universe.
CONCLUSION. Beware of sin. Ruin must follow it. “Be sure your sins will find you out.”D.T.
Nah 1:3
The patience of God.
“The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.” These words suggest two thoughts concerning God’s patience.
I. HIS PATIENCE ALWAYS IMPLIES GREAT POWER. “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power.” This is a remarkable expression. It seems as if the prophet meant, God is “slow to anger” because he is “great in power;” if he had leas power he would be less patient. A man may be “slow to anger,” slow to deal out vengeance, because he lacks power to do so. But God is “slow to anger” because he has abundance of power. In order to see the power revealed in his forbearance towards sinners in this world, think of four things.
1. His exquisite sensibility. There are some men “slow to anger” because they have not the susceptibility of feeling an insult or offence; their patience, such as it is, is nothing but a natural stoicism. Many men are lauded for their calmness under insults, who are rather to be pitied for their natural insensibility, or denounced for their moral callousness. But the great God is ineffably sensitive. He is sensibility itself. He is love. He feels everything. Every immoral act vibrates, so to speak, on his heart chord; and yet he is “slow to anger.”
2. His abhorrence of sin. It is the “abominable thing” which he emphatically hates. His whole nature revolts from it. He feels that it is antagonism to his will and to the order and well being of the universe.
3. His provocation by the world. Multiply the sins of each man in one day by the countless millions of men that populate the globe; then you will have some conception of the provocation that this God of exquisite sensibility, of an ineffable hatred to sin, receives every day from this planet. One insult often sets man’s blood ablaze. Surely, if all the patience of all the angels in heaven were to be embodied in one personality, and that personality were entrusted with the government of this world for one day, before the clock struck the hour of midnight he would set the globe in flames.
4. His right to do whatever he pleases He could show his anger if he pleased, at any time, anywhere, or anyhow. He is absolutely irresponsible. He has no one to fear. When men feel anger there are many reasons to prevent them from showing it; but he has no such reason. How great, then, must be his “power” in holding back his anger! His power of self-control is infinite. “He is Slow to anger, and of great power.” “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2Pe 3:9).
II. HIS PATIENCE PRECLUDES NOT THE PUNISHMENT OF THE IMPENITENT. “And will not at all acquit the wicked.” That is, the impenitent wicked. However wicked a man is, if he repents he will be acquitted. “Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,” etc. (Isa 55:7).
1. To “acquit” the impenitent would be an infraction of his law. He has bound suffering to sin by a law as strong and as inviolable as that which binds the planets to the sun. “The wages of sin is death;” “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Sin leads to ruin: this is a law.
2. To “acquit” the impenitent would be a violation of his word. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God;” “Unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish;” “I will laugh at your calamities, and mock when your fear cometh.”
3. To “acquit” the impenitent would be to break the harmony of his universe. If inveterate rebels and incorrigible sinners were acquitted, what an impulse there would be given in God’s moral empire to anarchy and rebellion!
CONCLUSION. Abuse not the patience of God; nay, avail yourselves of it. While he forbears, and because he forbears, repent! “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Rom 2:4).D.T.
Nah 1:3-6
God’s power.
“The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers,” etc. Here is a description of God’s power unrivalled in its sublimity and soul stirring force. “Power belongeth unto, God.” It is absolute, inexhaustible, ever and everywhere operative. “He fainteth not, neither is weary.” His power is here presented in two aspects.
I. AS OPERATING IRRESISTIBLY IN NATURE.
1. It works in the air. “The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” He is in the “whirlwind” and in the “storm,” and has his way in the clouds. As men walk on the dust of the earth, he walketh upon the clouds of heaven. He creates the whirlwind and the storm; he controls the whirlwind and the storm; he uses the whirlwind and the storm. “He maketh the clouds his chariot, and rideth upon the wings of the wind.” He awakes the tornado and simoom, he forges the thunderbolts, and he kindles the lightnings.
2. It works in the sea. “He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers.” There is undoubtedly an allusion to the Red Sea and the Jordan. “He holdeth the winds in his fists, and the waters in the hollow of iris hands.” His “way is in the sea,” and his “path in the great waters.” The billows that rise into mountains, as well as the smallest wavelets that come rippling softly to the shore, are the creatures of his power and the servants of his will.
3. It works on the earth. “Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.” No spots in Palestine were more fruitful than these three; they abounded in vigorous vegetation and majestic forests. But their life and their growth depended on the results of God’s power. All the blades in the fields, all the trees in the forest, would languish and wither did his power cease to operate. Nor is his power less active in the inorganic parts of the world. “The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.” “He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.” He piles up the mountains, and again makes them a plain; he kindles the volcanoes and quenches them at his pleasure. God’s power is seen in all the phenomena of the material world. How graphically and beautifully is this presented in Psa 104:1 The fact that God’s power is ever acting in the material universe is:
(1) The most philosophic explanation of all its phenomena. The men who ascribe all the operations of nature to what they call laws fail to satisfy my intellect. For what are those laws?
(2) The most hallowing aspect of the world we live in. God is in all. “How dreadful is this place! it is none other than the house of God.” Walk the earth with reverence. “Take your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”
II. AS IRRESISTIBLY OPPOSED TO THE WICKED. “Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.” The mightiest rocks are but as pebbles in his hands. “He taketh up the isles as a very little thing; he weigheth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance” (Isa 40:12, Isa 40:15) His anger, as we have said, is his determination to crush the wrong; and there is no power in the universe that can thwart him in this. Who can stand before this? Were all the creatures in the universe to stand up against it, the attempt would be as feeble and as futile as the attempt of a child to turn back the advancing tides with his little spade. Sinner, why attempt to oppose him? You must submit, either against your will or by your will. If you continue to resist, the former is a necessity. He will break you in pieces like a potter’s vessel. The latter is your duty and your interest. Fall down in penitence before him, yield yourselves to his service, acquiesce in his will, and you are saved.D.T.
Nah 1:7, Nah 1:8
Opposite types of human character, and opposite lines of Divine procedure.
“The Lord is good, a Stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. But with an overruning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.” The previous verses were introductory to the subject which the prophet now takes up, namely, the safe keeping of the Jews by Jehovah, in view of the tremendous attack the King of Nineveh was about making on their country and their city, and also to announce the terrible doom of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian foe. In these verses there is a very striking and significant contrast
(1) between the characters of men, and
(2) between the lines of Divine procedure in relation to them. Here we have
I. TWO OPPOSITE TYPES OF HUMAN CHARACTER.
1. Here we have the friends of God. There is here a twofold description of them.
(1) “They trust in him.” This is the universal character of the good in all ages. Instead of placing their chief confidence in the ever-changing creature, they centre it in the immutable Creator. They trust his love ever to provide for them, his wisdom as their infallible guide, and his power as their strength and their shield. “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord.”
(2) He acknowledges them. “And he knoweth.” This means that he recognizes them as his loyal subjects and loving children, his people. In Hos 13:5 he saith, “I did know thee in the wilderness,” which means, “I did acknowledge thee, and took care of thee!” The words imply the cognizance of special sympathy with the just. He knows them; they are always in his mind, his heart. “Can a mother forget her sucking child,” etc.?
2. Here we have the enemies of God. “Darkness shall pursue his enemies.” The men who misrepresent our characters, oppose our expressed wishes, seek to undermine our influence, and are ever in association with those who are opposed to ussuch men, whatever may be their professions of regard and friendship, we are bound to regard as enemies. Is it not so with men in relation to God? Those who pursue a course of life directly opposite to the moral laws of Heaven, whatever they may say, are his enemies. How numerous are God’s enemies! These two great classes comprehend the human race today. The race may be divided into very numerous classes on certain adventitious principles, but on moral grounds there are but twoGod’s friends and God’s enemies.
II. TO OPPOSITE LINES OF DIVINE PROCEDURE. God’s procedure is very different towards these two opposite classes of men.
1. He affords protection to the one. When the hosts of Sennacherib were approaching Jerusalem, Hezekiah the king, under Divine inspiration, said to the people, “Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the King of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah King of Judah” (2Ch 32:7, 2Ch 32:8). Thus it is ever. God is always the Refuge and Strength of his people in times of tribulation. As a Refuge, he is:
(1) Ever accessible. However suddenly the storm may come, the refuge is at your side, the door is open. “I will never leave thee,” etc.
(2) Ever secure. The sanctuary once entered, no injury can follow. Amidst the most violent convulsions of nature, the wreck of worlds, the shatterings of the universe, there is no endangering the security of those who avail themselves of this refuge.
2. He sends destruction to the other. “But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.” The image of a flood which breaks through every barrier is not unfrequently used in the Bible to represent overwhelming armies of invasion. The primary allusion here, no doubt, is to the way which Nineveh was captured by means of the Medes and Babylonians. A flood in the river, we are told, broke down the wall for twenty furlongs. The rolling tide burst its barriers, bore away the defences of the city, and opened an easy and unexpected way for the invading armies. On all finally impenitent men destruction must come as irresistibly as a flood. The destruction, however, of existence, conscience, or moral obligations would be the destruction of all that would make existence worth having.
CONCLUSION. The grand question of every man isHow do I stand in relation to God? If I am his friend, his procedure is in my favour, it guards me and blesses me every step. It I am his enemy, his procedure is not in my favour, not because he changes, but because I put myself against him, and it must be my ruin if I change not. As he proceeds in his beneficent and undeviating march, he showers blessings on the good, and miseries on the evil, and this forever.D.T.
Nah 1:9, Nah 1:10
Sin.
“What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time. For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” These words suggest a few thoughts concerning sin.
I. THE ESSENCE OF SIN IS SUGGESTED; IT IS HOSTILITY TO GOD. It is something directed against the Lord: it is opposition to the laws, purposes, spirit of God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:7). It involves:
1. The basest ingratitude; for to him we owe everything.
2. The greatest injustice; for he has supreme claims to our devotion and obedience.
3. Impious presumption. Frail worms raising their heads against the Infinite!
II. THE SEAT OF SIN IS SUGGESTED: IT IS IN THE MIND. “What do ye imagine against the Lord?” Sin is not language, however bad; not actions, however apparently wicked. Words and deeds are no more sin than branches are the sap of the tree. They are the mere effects and expression of sin. Sin is in the mindin the deep secret, mute thoughts of the heart. God’s legislation extends to thought, reaches it in the profoundest abyss. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Pro 23:7). Christ, in his sermon on the mount, taught this. Adultery, robbery, murder, are all perpetrated on the arena of the heart. How necessary the prayer, “Create within us clean hearts, O God”!
III. THE FOLLY OF SIN IS SUGGESTED: IT IS OPPOSITION TO OMNIPOTENCE. “What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up a second time.” “How mad is your attempt, O Assyrians, to resist so powerful a God! What can ye do against such an Adversary, successful though ye have been against all other adversaries? Ye imagine ye have to do merely with mortals, and with a weak people, and that so you will gain an easy victory; but you have to encounter God, the Protector of his people” (Fausset). In opposing him:
1. He will completely ruin you. “He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” The literal meaning of this is that the overthrow of Sennacherib’s host was so complete that Judah’s affliction caused by this invasion would never be repeated. The man who opposes God will be utterly ruined.
2. He will completely ruin you, whatever the kind of resistance you may offer. “For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” You may be combined like a bundle of thorns, offering resistance; you may have all the daring and temerity of drunkards, albeit you “shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” All this was realized in the destruction of his enemy. Oh the folly of sin! Fighting against God is a mad fight. “What do ye imagine against the Lord,” then? Sinners, submit.D.T.
Nah 1:11-14
Corrupt kings.
“There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counsellor. Thus saith the Lord; Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through,” etc. These words suggest a few thoughts concerning human kings and kingdoms.
I. HUMAN KINGS ARE SOMETIMES TERRIBLY CORRUPT. “There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counsellor.” This evidently means Sennacherib, the King of Nineveh. He was one of the great moral monsters of the world. “He invaded the land of Judah with an immense army, besieged Lachish, and having reduced that city, threatened to invade Jerusalem itself. Hezekiah, dreading his power, sent him an obsequious embassy, and by paying three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold, purchased an inglorious peace. But no sooner had Sennacherib received the money than, disdaining his engagements, he prosecuted the war with as much vigour as if no treaty had been in existence, sending three of his generals and a powerful army to besiege Jerusalem. Being informed that Tirhakah King of Ethiopia joined by the power of Egypt, was advancing to assist Hezekiah, he marched to meet the approaching armies, defeated them in a general engagement, ravaged their country, and returned with the spoil to finish the siege of Jerusalem. Hezekiah, in the extremity of his distress, implored the succour of Heaven; and the insolence and blasphemy of Sennacherib drew upon the Assyrians the vengeance of God. And, in perfect accordance with the prophecy of Isaiah, the sacred historian informs us that the angel of the Lord slew, in one night, one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian army.” Such is a brief and very partial sketch of this monster. Alas! he is only a type of the vast majority of men who have found their way to thrones! They have been in all ages the chief devils of the world. There are kings that have powers ordained of God; but such kings, and those only, are “a terror to evil doers and a praise to those that do well.” We are commanded to honour the king; but such a king as this Sennacherib, who can honour? A king, to be honoured, must be honourworthy; he must be just, ruling in the fear of the Lord.
II. CORRUPT KINGS OFTEN RUIN THEIR KINGDOMS. “Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.” These words seem to be addressed to Judah concerning the utter destruction that will befall their enemies, and their consequent deliverance from all fear from that quarter. It was here said they should be destroyed:
1. Notwithstanding their military completeness. “Though they be quiet.” The word “quiet” means complete. No doubt the military organization, discipline, and equipment of Sennacherib’s mighty army, as he led them up to attack Jerusalem, were as complete as the intelligence, the art, and the circumstances of the age could make them. Notwithstanding this, ruin befell them.
2. Notwithstanding their numerical force. “Likewise many.” Their numbers were overwhelming, yet how complete their destruction! They were “cut down,” and their name ceased. Nineveh has been long since blotted from the earth. The account given of the destruction you have in 2Ki 19:35, “And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.” Then followed, in due course, the complete destruction of Nineveh itself by the forces of the Medes and Babylonians. So utterly was it destroyed, that even the references of classical writers to it are to a city that is long since extinct. It was a wonderful city; it stood, according to the account of some, on an area ten times the size of London; its walls a hundred feet high, and so broad that three chariots could be driven on them abreast. It bad fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet in height. In 1842 Botta began to excavate, and three years afterwards Layard commenced his interesting and successful explorations. The remains which were discovered by these excavators filled the world with astonishment. “A city, an empire, had risen from the silent slumber of ages; its kings could be numbered, and its tongue mastered; while its history, manners, customs, and dwellings formed an unexpected revelation, wondrous in its variety and fulness.” Who brought all this ruin on this grand old city? Sennacherib, a ruthless despot and a bloody warrior, and his successors, as savage as himself. And what cities and empires have been rained by such men in all ages! Who broke up ancient dynasties? Despots. And in modern times who has brought all the suffering, the disorder, and the spoliation that has befallen France during the last sixty years? Despots. Until despotism is put down, such will continue to be the case.
III. THE RUIN OF CORRUPT KINGDOMS IS A BLESSING TO THE OPPRESSED. “For now will I break his yoke from off thee [that is, ‘thee, Judah’], and will burst thy bonds in sunder.” “Yoke” here refers to the tribute imposed upon Hezekiah King of Judah by Sennacherib (2Ki 18:14). And so it ever iswhen despotism has fallen, the oppressed rise to liberty. What teeming millions of men are groaning, not only in Asiatic countries, but in European countries, under the tyranny of despots! These arrogant, haughty autocracies must fail, as Assyria and other ancient despotisms fell, before the yoke shall be taken from the neck of the oppressed, and their bands burst asunder.
CONCLUSION.
1. Realize the truth of prophecy. When Nahum uttered these fearful predictions in relation to Nineveh, Nineveh shone in unabated splendor, and stood in unabated strength; but after a very few generations had passed away the predicted ruin came, and Nineveh has long since been buried in the oblivion of centuries. Have faith in the Wont of God. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of his Word shall fail to be accomplished.
2. Realize the importance of promoting education among the people. By education I do not mean what is merely technical or scientific, but chiefly moral. The education that teaches the people the sense of personal independency and responsibility, the duty of self-respect, the inalienable right of private judgment, and a liberty of action circumscribed only by the rights of others. It is when such an education as this spreads among the peoples of the world that despotisms will moulder to dust. When men shall know the moral truth, the moral reality, then the truth shall make them free,
“It’s coming yet for a’ that,
That man to man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.”
D.T.
Nah 1:15
Three things worthy of note.
“Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.” A mighty army has gone up against nineveh, and so certain it is that it will be utterly destroyed that the prophet speaks of it as past. He has seen the “messenger” upon the mountain proclaiming deliverance to Judah. The “mountains” are those round Jerusalem, on which the hosts of Sennacherib had lately encamped, and the messenger of peace scales the mountains that his welcome presence may be seen. How transporting the message must have been! Sennacherib, the disturber of the nations, is no more, and Jerusalem is delivered. The first clause of this verse is applied in Isa 52:7 to the message of peace brought to the world through Jesus Christ. There are three things here worthy of note.
I. PEACE PROCLAIMED. “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.” Glorious to the ears of the men of Jerusalem must have been the intelligence that their great enemy was destroyed, that the Assyrian hosts were crushed, and now peace was come. A proclamation of peace is indeed “good tidings.” A proclamation of national peace is “good tidings.” What country that has been engaged in a bloody campaign, in which its commerce has been all but ruined, the flower of its manhood destroyed, and its very existence imperilled, does not hail with rapture the proclamation of peace? But the proclamation of moral peace is still more delightful. Paul quotes these words, and applies them to the ministers of the gospel. “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Rom 10:15). As there is no war so painful, so terrible, as a moral war, the war of a soul with itself, with the moral instincts of the universe, and with the will of its God; so no tidings are so delightful to it as the tidings of peace, peace brought through Jesus Christ, the “peace that passeth all understanding.” “My peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give I unto you.”
II. WORSHIP ENJOINED. “O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows.” “During the Assyrian invasion the inhabitants of Judah were cut off from all access to the metropolis; now they would be at liberty to proceed thither as usual, in order to observe their religious rites, and they are here commanded to do so.” Observe:
1. War disturbs religious observances. War, which had been called the totality of all evil, is an enemy to the progress of religion. It not merely arrests the march of the cause of truth and godliness, but throws it back. It is said in Act 9:31, “Then had the Churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.” The storm of persecution which Stephen had invoked and Saul aided had abated, and the Christian religion advanced. As peace in nature is the time to cultivate your ground and sow your seed, peace in the nation is the time to promote growth in religion and virtue.
2. In war men are disposed to make religious vows. When dangers thicken around, and death seems close at hand, the soul naturally turns to Heaven, and vows that, if life is preserved, it shall be devoted to God. When peace comes they are called upon to “perform” their “vows.” But alas! how often are such vows neglected! and we are told (Ecc 5:5) it is better not to vow, than to vow and not pay. Worship is a duty ever binding.
III. ENEMIES VANQUISHED; “For the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.” Here is encouragement. Sennacherib is gone; Nineveh is in desolation. They will “no more pass through thee.” The time will come with all good men when their enemies shall be utterly vanquished. “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” What a blessed time for the world, when the wicked shall no more “pass through” it! This will be its millennium.
“Peace is the end of all thingstearless peace;
Who by the immovable basis of God’s throne
Takes her perpetual stand; and, of herself
Prophetic, lengthens age by age her sceptre.
The world shall yet be subjugate to love,
The final form religion must assume;
Led like a lion, rid with wreathed reins,
In some enchanted island, by a child.”
(Bailey.)
D.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Nah 1:1. The burden of Nineveh The sentence upon Nineveh. See the Argument, and Isa 13:1. Bishop Newton observes, that if there be some difficulty in discovering the persons by whom Nineveh was taken, there is more in ascertaining the king of Assyria in whose name it was taken; and more still in fixing the time when it was taken; scarcely any two chronologies agreeing in the same date. But as these things are hardly possible to be known, so neither are they necessary to be known with precision and exactness; and we may safely leave them among the uncertainties of ancient history and chronology. It is sufficient for our purpose, that Nineveh was taken and destroyed according to the predictions, and that Nahum foretold not only the thing but also the manner of it.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
CHAPTER 1
A Sublime Description of the Attributes and Operations of Jehovah, with a View to inspire his People with Confidence in his Protection (Nah 1:2-8). The Assyrians addressed and described (Nah 1:9-11). Their Destruction together with the Deliverance of the Jews connected with that Event (Nah 1:12-15).
1The Burden1 of Nineveh.
The book of the Vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
2A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah;
Avenging is Jehovah and a Lord2 of burning wrath
Avenging is Jehovah to his adversaries;
And He keeps anger against his enemies.
3Jehovah is slow to anger and of great strength,
And acquitting He will not acquit [the guilty].
Jehovahhis way is in the whirlwind and in the tempest;
And clouds are the dust of his feet.
4He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
And all the rivers he drieth up:
Bashan and Carmel languish;
And the flower of Lebanon droopeth.
5Mountains tremble because of Him,
And the hills melt away;
The earth heaves3 before Him,
And the globe and all the inhabitants upon it.
6Before his anger who shall stand?
And who shall endure in the heat of his wrath?
His fury is poured out like fire;
And the rocks are shattered by Him.
7Good is Jehovah, a fortress in the day of trouble,
And He knoweth those, who trust in Him.
8And with an overflowing flood
He will make an end of her place,
And pursue his enemies with darkness.4
9What devise ye against Jehovah?
He is about to make an end:
Distress shall not arise twice.
10For though they are interwoven like5 thorns,
And soaked with their wine,
They shall be devoured like stubble fully dry.
11From thee came forth
One meditating evil against Jehovah,
Counseling wickedness.
12Thus saith Jehovah:
Though they are complete and so very numerous,
Yet even so are they mown down,
And he has passed away.
Though I have afflicted thee,
I will afflict thee no more.
13And now I will break his yoke from off thee,
And break thy fetters.
14And Jehovah has given commandment concerning thee:
No more of thy name shall be sown;
From the house of thy gods I will cut off the graven and the molten image;
I will make thy grave, because thou art despised.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Nah 1:1. The book has a double title, like Oba 1:1. First, a title of the contents: The sentence of Nineveh. About the signification of the word Mass there is a dispute. On the one hand it cannot be denied that it is used, with preference, as a title for threatening prophecies: Compare the series of Massim, Isaiah 13 ff., to which the Mass here conforms in a manifold relation. Consequently, we may suppose that the fundamental idea of a burden, laid by God upon the object of his threatening, is the prominent one. This is the meaning that Jonathan, Aquila, Luther, and others, give in their translations, and which recently, Hengstenberg, Strauss, Kurz, and Keil maintain with great force. Indeed the idea of burden is very plainly derived from the root , [to lift up.C. E.], to bear, and suits the word also in its literal signification (2Ki 5:17, and above). But on the other hand it can just as little be denied, that in prophecies such as Zec 9:12, the real contents can be represented as a threatening burden only by means of critical subtilty: namely, only in this way, that we, as Hieronymus has already done (Ad Hab 1:1 : Mass nunquam prafertur in titulo, nisi quum grave ac ponderis laborisque plenum est quod videtur), refer to the serious and sorrowful topics, which, beside others, occur in this as in every prophecy, whereby evidently the special idea of threatening prophecy is set aside. This is still clearer in the maxims, Proverbs 30, 31 which, in their titles, are also styled Massaim. Hence, if it is evident from Exo 20:7; Isa 42:2, that the radical word can signify also, by the ellipsis of (properly , to raise the voice), to utter forth, to call, then one will have sure ground to hold with Hupfeld (on Psa 15:3) and Delitzsch (on Isa 13:1), that declaration, or sentence, is the common, and in all places naturally [ohne Zwang] the proper signification of the word; the more, as this signification, both for the verb and noun, undoubtedly lies on the face of 2Ki 9:27 [25]. Moreover, in passages like 1Ch 15:27, with the signification of burden and without supplying , one could arrive at no meaning; and finally as in Jer 23:33 ff., the ambiguity, which was attached to the word, by giving it the meaning of burden, is stigmatized as impious, and consequently rejected. Concerning Nineveh, see the Introduction.
The title is connected with the prophecy as an integrant part, as the reference of the suffix in Nah 1:7 shows, and is accordingly to be ascribed to the prophet himself. Of course also the following second title: Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elkoshite; as also the expression: Book, Writing, refers to a redaction of this prophecy already given to the public before the compilation of the Canon. is, as in Isa 1:1, the nomen acti of , the term employed to express prophetical vision (comp. on Hab 1:1): that which Nahum, the Elkoshite (comp. the Introd.) saw.
[The first part of the title gives the substance and object of the book; the second the form and author.
The noun , in the superscriptions of the prophecies, has been from ancient times interpreted in two different ways. According to the one interpretation it means burden. According to the other it means declaration, prophecy.
For a discussion of these different meanings, see Hengstenbergs Christology on Zec 9:1 (vol. 3 pp. 380384. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1858). Where he strenuously advocates the meaning of burden. See also Keil on Nah 1:1.
On Nineveh refer to (besides the Introduction), the Com. on Jon 1:2.C. E.]
Nah 1:2-6. The Exordium. The prophet begins his announcement in the manner of a psalm, and that of the psalms of degrees, with a concatenated structure of members formed by repetition of words (compare Delitzsch, Psalter, 1867, p. 692), forming the way, as it were, from the general statements concerning Gods holy wrath and righteous jealousy to the special, approaching manifestation [of Gods righteous judgment and wrath.C. E.]
Nah 1:2. A God jealous and taking vengeance is Jehovah. The general statements Nahum takes from the book of the Covenant, and that from its core, the Decalogue, Exo 20:5. [Compare also Exo 34:14; Deu 4:24; Deu 5:9.C. E.] For the secondary form , instead of , compare Jos 24:19. The jealousy of God arises from his love to his people. He is jealous of his people, lest they should serve any other god, lest they should acknowledge any man as their lord (Exo 34:14; Deu 4:24); and he is jealous for his people, lest any should approach them with malicious intention, or for their injury (Deu 32:43). He avenges both; and hence his coming is not merely (in the first case) an object of fear, but also (in the second case) an object of longing hope on the part of his people. So Psa 94:1, and here.
The vengeance of God is more strictly defined as furious: An avenger is Jehovah and a master of fury (= furious, possidens iram, Calv., Gen 37:19); further, as aimed at his adversaries: An avenger is Jehovah with respect to his adversaries; finally, as inevitably realized; that can be deferred, but not arrested: and one, who keeps wrath to his enemies (Lev 19:18.) The three statements are complementary to one another (He can be provoked, He kindles into anger, and keeps it, Hitzig), and the threefold repetition of the word avenger, contributes to the emphatic prominence of the central thought, as in Isa 6:3. The reference of it by Tarnov and Mich. to the Trinity is forced.
It would seem natural, according to the analogy of , and in allusion to 2 d, to translate also 3 a, in strict conformity with the original meaning of the word: He is long in wrath, i.e., He is angry for a long while. This, however, would be against the constant usage of the language, according to which the combination [ ] designates the slowness with which his anger discharges itself. He is slow to anger, long suffering, as He had proved himself in the present instance by a hundred years endurance of the wickedness of the Assyrians. The connection with Nah 1:2 is antithetic: the whole verse is a reproduction of the Mosaic declarations concerning the nature of God (Exo 34:6 f.). But we must not think that this delay arises from weakness; for He is of great power. And just as little should we think that it is a remission of punishment, for He does not clear the guilty (Exo 20:7; Exo 34:7). He is a just judge; and his sentence is fact. Calmly looking on He permits the vast, restrained power of his wrath to be accomplished, until the measure is filled up and runs over. There follows (3 b6) a description of this actuality of Gods judging, in the general features of the Theophany, i.e. of an appearance of Jehovah in judgment connected with powerful signs in nature. These descriptions, borrowed from Exodus 19 occur in Judges 5, and run through the whole book of Psalms Psalms 18, 1, 68, 97 Nah 1:3 b, first of all describes his coming, as in Micah 1, under the image of a thunder-storm approaching with tempest speed, whose whirling clouds sweep over the earth (comp. Psa 83:16). Jehovah, in the storm and in the whirlwind is his way. He moves along quickly and with power (Isa 4:4), And clouds are the dust of his feet; He continues in his approach a concealed God (Psa 77:20 (19)).
From this image [of a storm] Nah 1:4 changes to that of a scorching heat (comp. Joe 1:18 ff.; Psa 83:15), in allusion to the glow of wrath, Nah 1:2 : He threatens the sea and makes it dry. The memory of the historical fact (Exo 14:15) is woven into the description of the judgment; hence the imp. attractum; although the miraculous deliverance on that occasion acquires another meaning in the coming to judgment (=, comp. Ges., sec. 69, obs. 6).
And He drieth up all the rivers, and with them the fountains of the land: Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossom of Lebanon withers. These three extreme points, in East, West, and North, are used here, as they are frequently, for the whole land. That Canaan is designated, although the judgment was to fall upon Assyria, proves, that we have to take it as a typical, that is to say, as an abstract description of the judgment, not surely as prophetic details. The same conclusion follows from the interchange of the images, for the different features [ground-lines] of the separate theophanies described by the Psalms and prophets gradually meet. To the two first he joins the third, viz., that of an earthquake accompanied with violent rains.
Nah 1:5. The mountains quake (Amo 8:8) and the hills melt away (comp. on Mic 1:4); and the earth heaves, with violent commotions, at his presence, the manifestation of his glory (, , ), which is revealed for the destruction of the wicked (Psa 35:5; Isa 30:27 ff.); and the circle of the earth (the inhabited land, Job 37:12; O. Strauss) with all that dwell thereon. is intransitive, as in Hos 13:1; Hab 1:3 (Abarb., Cocc., Hitz.). The signification, to shriek, (O. Strauss) is possible, and would not even here unmeaning, but it does not suit the figure. It is natural that all things should tremble, for the judgment is irresistible, before which everything must fall.
Nah 1:6 : Before his fury who can stand? impf. potent., comp. Psa 15:1. And who can endure the fierceness of his anger? (Jer 10:10.) His fury pours itself out like fire and the rocks are shattered (the syllable is repeated onomato-poetically) before Him. With storm and dark clouds, with sultriness and reeling of the earth, the thunder-storm bursts forth; the last catastrophe is the fiery eruption; and it is at hand.
[Nah 1:2-6. The description of the divine justice, and its judicial manifestation on the earth, with which Nahum introduces his prophecy concerning Nineveh, has this double object: first of all, to indicate the connection between the destruction of the capital of the Assyrian empire, which is about to be predicted, and the divine purpose of salvation; and secondly, to cut off at the very outset all doubt as to the realization of this judgment. Keil and Delitzsch.C. E.]
Nah 1:7-14. The Announcement. The transition to the impending confirmation of the avenging zeal of God. It is introduced by a reference to the goodness of God to those who trust in Him; on the one hand that his wrath may enter into more striking contrast with it; and on the other hand, that the ethical ground of this wrath in the nature of God may not be mistaken. This double turn governs the whole announcement, so that it constantly fluctuates between threatening and consolation, between Nineveh and Judah.
Good is Jehovah, not unfavorably disposed, but full of tender inclination of heart (Psa 86:5; Psa 143:10), a refuge in the time of trouble; is not to be construed with ; good for a refuge; which would be a Germanism; but both are cordinate predicates. But He is not good to all (Psa 73:1): He knows them that trust in Him. stands emphatically for the knowledge, with which God fosters and provides for his elect, and which is experienced by them (Hos 13:5).
Therefore it is no contradiction, when Nah 1:8 adds: But with an overflowing flood He will make an end of her place: not with an unjust destruction, but with the divine justice overwhelming the wicked (Isa 10:22 f.). Calvin: cum inundatione transiens, because the word may be designated as feminine by the suffix attached to .6 But this suffix refers to Nineveh (Hitz., Strauss), to which, withdrawing his mind from the consideration of the divine wrath and zealous love, the prophet now turns with energetic change of address. The completeness of the destruction is expressed by , finishing stroke, utter ruin (the construction is here that of the double acc.), but still more by the fact, that not merely the city itself, but even its place is mentioned as the object of the same destruction. Concerning the special reason, which the prophet had for employing, to describe this destruction, the image of a flood, evidently borrowed from Amo 9:5, compare the Introduction, 4, p. 11 and the Com. on. Nah 2:7.
And he will pursue his enemies with [into] darkness. [Henderson and Newcome render it: And darkness shall pursue his enemies. So also the LXX: and the Vulgate. Luther and Kleinert: Und Seine Feinde verfolgt Er mit Finsterniss.C. E.] Light is the emblem of good and salvation (comp. Num 6:25); darkness, of wrath and destruction (Ps. 88:19; comp. also the Introd. 4, p. 11). And resistance is useless.
Nah 1:9. What devise ye against Jehovah? Rosenm., Strausb, Keil:7 What think ye against Jehovah? This, however, is feeble. frequently, moreover, takes the place of , and in relation to Jehovah the scheme of the enemies is of a character hostile to Him. Hitzig. Compare also Hos 7:15. The prophet imagines, as addressed, all who doubt the announcement; not only the external Jews (Strauss, Keil), whose doubt, moreover, was, in the estimation of the prophet, a thought against Jehovah (Isa 7:10 ff.); but also the enemies, who still imagined that they would, by means of preparation for defense, be able to escape from the hand of God (Nah 2:2). It is in vain: He makes an utter ruin. The part expresses the absolute fixedness of the decree.
For the affliction shall not arise twice, namely, the affliction mentioned Nah 1:7, the affliction, which his people should suffer from Assyria, in which they took refuge in Him. It is too confidently asserted that an argument is found in the verse for placing the composition [of this book] immediately after the catastrophe of Sennacherib. His invasion was not the first trouble that Judah experienced from Assyria, but already the second or third. (2Ch 28:20 f. mentions a siege by Tiglath-Pileser; and even if one would not ascribe to it the origin of the imposition of tribute upon Hezekiah, we must still admit that there was an oppression by Sargon, the conqueror of Samaria, which is highly probable, taking into consideration his enterprises against Egypt.)
The prophecy has principally to do with the affliction experienced from the hand of Assyria, Conformable to the same view is the translation of Marck, Strauss, and others: the enemy, to wit, Nineveh, will not arise twice. However this is, on account of the in Nah 1:7, not very probable.
Nah 1:10. But with a single stroke the trouble ends: in thorns they are entangled [ as in Isa 37:3, in the place from which one cannot extricate himself, in which one is fettered], so that they find no escape, at the time of the manifestation of the divine wrath (comp. Mic 7:4), but they are burned with the thorns (Ecc 7:6); and while they are drowned in their carousing. is not, as the commentators think, a substantive, but the infinitive of the same verb (Isa 56:12), whose passive participle follows; and is temporal, as in Isa 18:4 f.] i. e., they are swallowed by the flood (Nah 1:8), they are consumed by the fire (Isa 5:24), like stubble fully dry. is an adverb modifying (comp. Ew., 279 a; Mic 2:7). Diodorus Siculus, ii. 26, following Ctesias (comp. the Introd. 4, p. 11), describes the drunkenness, in which the last king of Nineveh was surprised by destruction. [Ewald, and also Hitzig with a few changes, introduce an antithesis into the three members. Even should they be like wicker-work of twisted thorns, and as moist as their wine itself, yet shall they be consumed by the fire like dry stubble. Similarly also, Keil. The antithesis between b and c would be striking, and at the same time, as Hitzig remarks, witty; but between a and c none exists; and the irony, which exists in our wording, is more earnest, perhaps also more becoming the prophet.] The change and the apparent inconsistency of the accumulated images are accounted for, on the one hand, by the inwoven hint at the reality (comp. on 2:17); on the other hand, by the vivacity of the prophets language (Introd. i.), which manifests itself directly again (Nah 1:11) in the shifting of the person addressed.
From thee, Nineveh, has he gone out [not out of thee, viz., Jerusalem, has He gone out hence, retreated (Hlemann, Strauss): the formula has a fixed meaning (Mic 5:2; Gen 17:6 and above)], who meditated evil against Jehovah, who advised worthlessness. It is difficult to think of a definite person (according to the old interpreters, Rabshakeh), but, like Nah 1:9, we must understand it of the constant hostility of the kings of Nineveh against the kingdom of God, which is typically expressed in the name Nimrod, Mic 5:5.
So then finally the discourse, Nah 1:12 ff., culminates in the Divine Sentence of annihilation: Thus speaks Jehovah; however complete and numerous they are: however numerous they are, they shall be cut off: subito et tanquam falce memoria abscinduntur. Kreenen. And he passes away, who went out with mischief (Isa 29:5). But the sentence has two sides: a terrible one for Nineveh, a consoling one for Gods people, Nah 1:7 : and though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. For the sense, compare 9 c; for the construction, Mic 7:8.
Nah 1:13. But now (to the prophets mind) in the nearest present (Mic 4:9),all prophetic visions have the in themselves (Rev 1:1)I will break his yoke from off thee and will burst thy bonds: the day has come, which I have long ago announced to thee (Isa 10:24; Isa 10:27).
But the discourse, Nah 1:14, turns again to Nineveh: concerning thee, Jehovah has given a command: no more shall there be seed of thy name; literally, it shall no more be sown of thy name. As from , house, comes the Niph. denom. a house, i. e., off, spring, is raised for me [literally, I shall be builtC. E.]; so from , seed, comes the Niphal , seed springs up [literally, shall be sownC. E.]. The race is to be destroyed forever.
From the house of thy God I will destroy the graven image; in the fate of the national god is represented the fate of the nation (Isa 36:18).
Yes, thy molten image will I make thy grave. Thy temple shall fall over thee, so that thou shalt perish, where thou seekest refuge: antithesis to Nah 1:7 (comp. Isa 37:38). Such is the connection pointed out by the accents, and Grot, Drus., Rosenm., Btticher, and others follow them. [On the other hand, Hitzig, Strauss, and Keil connect with what precedes, and translate I will prepare thy grave.] For thou art found light. Compare Dan 5:27.
[Keil: To confirm, the threat expressed in Nah 1:8-11, Nahum explains the divine purpose more fully. Jehovah hath spoken: the completeness and strength of her army will be of no help to Nineveh; Nah 1:12-14.
It is not the King of Assyria who is here addressed, but the Assyrian power personified as a single man, as we may see from what follows, according to which the idols are to be rooted out along with the seed from the house of God, i. e., out of the idol temples (cf. Isa 37:38; Isa 44:13). Pesel and masskhh are combined, as in Deu 27:15, to denote every kind of idolatrous image. For the idolatry of Assyria, see Layards Nineveh and its Remains, ii. p. 439 seq. cannot mean, I make the temple of thy god into a grave, although this meaning has already been expressed in the Chaldee and Syriac; and the Masoretic accentuation, which connects the words with what precedes, is also founded upon this view. If an object had to be supplied to from the context, it must be pesel umassekhh; but there would be no sense in I make thine idol into a grave. There is no other course left, therefore, than to take as the nearest and only object of , I lay, i. e., prepare thy grave. , because, when weighed according to thy moral worth (Job 31:6), thou hast been been found light (cf. Dan 5:27). Hence the widespread opinion, that the murder of Sennacherib (Isa 37:38; 2Ki 19:37) is predicted here, must be rejected as erroneous and irreconcilable with the words, and not even so far correct as that Nahum makes any allusion to that event. He simply announces the utter destruction of the Assyrian power, together with its idolatry, upon which that rested. Jehovah has prepared a grave for the people and their idols, because they have been found light when weighed in the balances of righteousness.
Hendersons translation is: From the house of thy gods I will cut off the graven and the molten image; I will make it thy grave, because thou art worthless. He applies the threat to the Assyrian monarch, who was slain by his sons, while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, 2Ki 19:37. The Medes being great enemies to idolatry, those of them who composed the army of Cyaxares would take singular pleasure in destroying the idols which they found in the chief temple at Nineveh.
Newcome understands the language, there shall not be sown of thy name any more, to refer to colonies: That no more of thy colonies be transplanted to other countries.C. E.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL8
The matter in question in prophecy is not the foretelling of single facts, but the exposition of the laws and dispensations of the Divine government of the world, which result from the holy nature of God, and from the fact that He governs the world with a view to his Kingdom. Therefore the prophet Nahum also, who more than others might be suspected of having, like the heathen diviners, but one catastrophe of the future in view, begins his prediction, by causing the light of God to shine, in which He would have his prophecy viewed and understood. It treats of the destruction of an enemy of God, and of such a one, as is found too light on the just and infallible balances of God. He articulates the judgment of Nineveh into the joint connection of the one Divine judgment of the world, which began with the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea (along with his revelation to his people), and which shall end in the final judgment of all those who are disobedient (Mic 5:14).
Gods essence is light, warming and blessing those who love Him and trust in Him (comp. Psa 139:11 with Nah 1:7); but consuming to his adversaries. Both meet in the zeal of God, which includes in it potentially all the warmth of love and all the heat of wrath (Son 8:6); even the ardor of his wrath springs from love (Exo 34:14; Exo 20:5). But if God reserves his wrath for the wicked, He does not do so out of any feeling of grudge, as a revengeful man might picture God in his imagination, but because of His righteousness, which by forgetting would destroy itself. The unjust verdict of man originates in forgetfulness (Psa 103:2). God reserves wrath, not because He is angry, but because He is slow to anger, and allows much to be accumulated, before He resolves upon judgment. He knows that his judgment is terrible. The reserving of his wrath has the same root as the knowledge of his own. He is pure Spirit, hence pure understanding, pure wisdom, and also pure memory. Forgiving and forgetting belong to the self-forbearance of God (Isa 43:25). If a man, or a nation, should succeed in suddenly placing the whole Kingdom of Christ in peril of destruction, then we could better comprehend the emphasis, with which the prophets speak of the avenging zeal of God. Whoever oppresses Israel is guilty of this very thing in the estimation of the prophet. The world-power is the Old Testament form of Antichrist, just as Israel is the Old Testament form of Christ (Heb 11:26). Hence John, in the Apocalypse, describing great Babylon, makes frequent use of this prophet. The world-power, indeed, in its effects, is an instrument and scourge of Jehovah, and thus it belongs to the phenomena of judgment, which commenced in the Holy Land; but its disposition is hostile to God, and this comes to light in its execution of his judgments (Zec 1:15). He decrees chastisement against Israel; it devises mischief against Jehovah (comp. Isa 37:10): He intends a rod: it makes out of that a yoke; and therefore it becomes subject to judgment.
Jehovah himself is a refuge; his judgments are accomplished by meansthunderstorm, waves, and darkness. So appeared He also to Elijah, not in storm, tempest, and earthquake, which passed before him, but in the still voice.
The whole creation falls under the judgment of God in painful commotion. For it was made for man and united by God to him in indissoluble unity. Hence the land is involved in the penal sufferings of its inhabitants; and the creature longs to be delivered from the bondage of this transitory existence into the glory of the children of God, which is promised to it also (Genesis 3; Romans 8; Isa 11:6). As the earth stained with the sin of the Adamites9 must go through the destructive purifying bath of the Flood, so the site of Nineveh must go through the purifying waves of Gods new judgment.
As the judgment of Nineveh is only a reflection in time of the one eternal judgment, so also is its result, the deliverance of the Church from the yoke of Nineveh, only one in the series of Gods deliverances, which are fundamentally but one deliverance. For they all proceed from the heart of the one kind God, who knows those who trust in Him; and all are of no effect, if not embraced with faith in God. Each preceding judgment presignifying the final judgment, contains its characteristics: each of the foregoing deliverances will receive its perfect light only from the final redemption.
It cannot be denied that to the prophetical vision the great city is in itself, in a certain sense, an object of the Divine displeasure. The_ destruction of each of the great cities, which have come into contact with the history of the Kingdom of God, has been the subject of prophecy: e. g., Nineveh Babylon, Jerusalem, Borne. As the founding of cities had its origin in the anguish of conscience experienced by Cain, who, with the consciousness of the guilt of murder, sought society in order to Find protection in it, so one after another of the great cities is swept away, because they become in themselves cities of murder (Isa 1:21). Living together unfetters the consciousness of power for insolence, and the overthrow of the tower of Babel is a type of each succeeding Babel. [The concatenation of the inward and outward crisis prevailing therein, which the prophets represent from the, point of view of the everlasting laws of God, Schiller has, with penetration, more fully carried out in his Walk, by imitating the prophets, but obscured it by Hellenistic turns. From this we can understand how it was necessary for Micah to depict the future Jerusalem, (Mic 4:1) as being built upon the ruins of the present (Nah 3:12).
The relation of the heathen to the Kingdom of God falls, in the Old Testament, under a twofold point of view. On the one hand the heathen are included from the beginning in the purpose of the kingdom. It is true that in the Torah, according to the nature of the case, the relation in which Gods plans extend also over the heathen, is thrown more in the back ground. Here the election of Israel stands in the foreground, and the acts of God toward the heathen are manifestations of his glory in favor of Israel. The admission of the heathen into Israel has, in the mean time, only the painful form of circumcision, by which they could enter as servants into the fellowship of the chosen people. However, Deu 32:8 presents already a wider field of view; and further on the bearing of that statement becomes always more distinct. Jehovah brought the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir (Amo 9:7). He weakens the Egyptians by insurrection (Isaiah 19), even where no mention is made of collision with Israel. He gives to Nebuchadnezzar the countries of the earth (Jeremiah 25.). The kings, who destroy Babylon, are his instruments (Eze 31:9; Isa 13:3 ff.); so also is Cyrus, though he knows it not (Isa 41:4-6). And thus the heathen world enters by degrees, in a form adequate to the original (Gen 12:3, comp. Gen 9:27), into the circle of the expectation of Salvation: the universality of salvation, the participation of all the heathen in it is a vital moment thereof (Isa 45:22; Psalms 87). But on the other hand the heathen also come into consideration as the conscious enemies of the Kingdom of God. The world-powers are scourges in His hand to chastise his people (Isaiah 10.; Habakkuk 1.) But their minds are elated with pride and arrogance (Hab 1:7; Hab 1:11), and hence they carry to excess the power of punishment committed to them temporarily (Zec 1:15), presume to attribute their success to themselves in defiance of the God of Israel (Isa 37:10), and continue in their hostility against Him (Nah 1:11). It follows then, that there is a difference between the heathen, who hear, and those who hear not (comp. Com. on Mic 5:14). The former will be added to the people of God: the latter are subjected to various overwhelming judgments, which will hereafter find their completion in the final judgment.
Schmieder: It is according to the style of prophecy to view each judgment upon the enemies of God and of his people as a type of the last judgment. As long as the people of God sin against the Lord, they will certainly always and always again be subjected to new scourges of hostile nations. But to the converted, who are the genuine seed of Israel, each deliverance from any hostile power is an image and pledge of the last complete redemption, and the prophets, filled with the Spirit of God, so speak that the vista is always open to this.
HOMILETICAL
Nah 1:2-6. The glory of the Lord in his judgments.
1. He honors his word, Nah 1:2 ac, 3 c.
2. He proves His eternal omniscience, 2 d.
3. He puts to shame those who consider His forbearance weakness, 3 a.
4. He proves his glorious and irresistible (6 a b) power as Creator over the whole world, nature, and men, 3 b6.
Nah 1:7-14. The consolation of the pious in the great judgments of God.
1. Their refuge in God, Nah 1:7 a.
2. None of them can be lost, 7 c.; comp. Ezekiel 9.
3. His floods destroy only his enemies, and his darkness is dark to them only, Nah 1:8.
4. His terrors will make a free course for his Kingdom, for
(a.) They bring the hostility against Him to an end, Nah 1:9, and Amo 9:5.
(b.) They terminate the severe purifying chastisements of his friends, Nah 1:10-12; Psa 75:4.
(c.) Their end is redemption, Nah 1:13.
5. And even to the last judgment, every thing which comes from Him, is in accordance with justice, Nah 1:14.
Nah 1:2-8. Advent-sermon: Make haste to be saved. For (1) look at the misery in which thou standest: a guilty and impotent being before the Holy and Almighty One (Nah 1:2-6); (2) look at the salvation which is offered thee (Nah 1:7); (3) look at the wretchedness of those, who refuse to be saved (Nah 1:8).
On Nah 1:2. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith Jehovah; He says it, that we may be still, and that our heart may learn to give way to the wrath of God. If we had Nahums faith, we would be Nahums too, i. e., consolatory. We would then also learn to intercede; for he, with whom God is long-suffering, deserves compassion. This is also the case among men. He who is speedily ready for action has usually little power. Gods forgiveness does not proceed from weakness of mind like that of Eli. The latter does not punish because he cannot; but God forgives, although He cannot, according to his nature, allow sin to go unpunished. Hence follows the necessity of the expiatory death of Christ. We do not see the ways of God, even though they are very near to us (Psa 77:20 (19)). That should not induce us to go astray; but inspire us with confidence. Where God approaches, there a cloud of dust arises: a cloud is the dust of his feet. God treads under foot nothing, which is not already in itself rubbish, Nah 1:4, Exo 14:15; Isaiah 3 :
Nah 1:6. Before Him mountains and rocks are dashed to pieces: before Him even the hardest heart cannot stand. [Nah 1:3 b6 gives a beautiful and striking allegory of the approaching hour of death. Darkness comes before the eyes: the heart disturbed and agitated by earthly cares, becomes all at once withered as it were with reference to these things: every delight of the eye loses its charm: ambitious pride vanishes and the flesh trembles; and in the conscience begins the burning feeling of divine wrath. Then the heart learns to flee to God (Nah 1:7).]
Nah 1:7. Because God is good, He knows them who trust in Him: He knows the heart, and He will be acknowledged with the heart.
Nah 1:8. To him to whom the eternal light becomes darkness there is no more morning.
Nah 1:9. Human wisdom is powerful, if it coperates with God; impotent, if it opposes Him. Eating and drinking are the lot of the despisers of God: and the Lord leaves them to their lot. Food and drink for the body do not give the life, which secures against destruction.
Nah 1:11. Nineveh and Bethlehem.
Nah 1:12. Were the enemy ever so dissolute and impious, yet it is not without the permission of God, when he succeeds in humbling thee.
Nah 1:14. We cheerfully puzzle our brains how to remedy the evil consequences of an injury, which will probably operate for a long time hereafter. We should rather think that it is in the power of God, and also in his will, if it should appear necessary to his wisdom, to extirpate such an injury with all its consequences by a single blow. Wickedness is chaff: it falls not to the ground to become lasting seed; but because it is too light, it must fly away as far as it can go. Nineveh was a great city before God (Jon 3:3), and yet now it is too light. In Gods scales number and size [augenmass, measuring by the eye] weigh nothing.
Luther: On Nah 1:1. The burden which hitherto has lain upon and oppressed you, will come to lie upon the Ninevites. Such is our weakness that we always wish that God would speedily avenge Himself; and if He does not, then we think that we are undone. But he says, when ye shall be regarded as thoroughly subdued, and when there is no more hope on your side, when it is impossible to withstand the enemy with human power, then He is there, withstands them, and subdues them most gloriously [aufs allerherrlichste].
Nah 1:10. The prophet calls them thorns, which grow into one another, i. e., they combine their might and power into a mass, make leagues and friendships, and are very insolent and proud. But still they are thorns which must perish, let them combine together as they will.
Nah 1:12. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Starke: On Nah 1:1. God draws forth his eminent men even from obscure and unknown places.
Nah 1:2. We can indeed discover the wisdom and power of God from the book of Nature; yet the Holy Scriptures teach them to us most correctly. God does not allow the heathen, when they mock his holy name, to go unpunished.
Nah 1:3. The reason of the long-suffering of God is that He waits for repentance.
Nah 1:4. As the fruitfulness of a country comes from God, so also its unfruitfulness.
Nah 1:6. If the wrath of an earthly king is a messenger of death (Pro 16:14), how much more the wrath of the Almighty (Job 9:13).
Nah 1:7. Whoever will avail himself of the Divine help must trust in God.
Nah 1:8. God causes his punishments to come like a flood, that is, suddenly and before they are expected.
Nah 1:9. Those who fall again into their former sins, after they have repeatedly been brought by God to repentance, are generally lost.
Nah 1:10. Godless people are like thorns, which thrive and grow without culture, but at last are burned with fire.
Nah 1:11. God causes the mischief, which men prepare for others, to fall upon their own heads. The enemies of God place their confidence upon fleshly things: but thereby destroy themselves.
Pfaff: On Nah 1:2. Notwithstanding the Lord is slow to wrath and kind, yet, if one turns his grace to licentiousness, his wrath comes at last upon hardened sinners like a storm, and his vengeance like a tempest.
Nah 1:4 ff. Behold how terrible are Gods wrath and majesty. And thou sinner, sinnest recklessly and fearest not this wrath of thy Creator, and wilt not know that He can destroy soul and body in hell.
Nah 1:9 ff. It is in vain to take counsel against the Lord. His wisdom, justice, and omnipotence will finally prevail and utterly destroy the godless.
Rieger: The principal design of the last six prophets is to comfort the people of God under the actual invasion and pressure of their chastisements, and to snow them how the zeal of God toward them is truly great, but that his wrath toward his enemies is still greater; and how God, after having accomplished his design by their chastisement, will recompense their enemies, but remember his covenant for their highest good.
Nah 1:2 ff. Every thing in God is terrible to the wicked: every thing to them, who take refuge in Him, is consolatory. Jealousy is caused by violated love, and is exercised either toward those whom one would bring back by it to the duty of love, or against those who outrage the beloved [object]. The patience and power heretofore shown, in his forbearance for a long time with the objects of his wrath, give to his judgments, when at last Gods time comes to visit, a special sting in the conscience of men which, however, in case of a final humiliation, may prove quite salutary.
Nah 1:9 ff. If we compare the blasphemous words, which Sennacherib uttered by his servants, against the God of Israel, with the definitive sentence pronounced here against his seed, we can see how impotent even the mightiest upon earth is against the Lord in heaven; and like interwoven thorns, plans projected with the greatest skill, well supported on all sides, and strengthened by the association of wicked men, can be suddenly overthrown by the wrath of God before they become ripe, if the heart of man is still set to evil. Blessed are all that trust in Him!
Caspari: On Nah 1:1. In all times there was in Israel a great number of persons, whose very names (Nahum, from nachem, to console) were for themselves and their countrymen a constant living sermon on the glorious being and the great deeds of Jehovah their God; and also on the subject, as to how the heart should stand with Him, and on what one should ask and expect from Him.
Mich.: Hostium deletio ecclesi consolatio.
Schmieder: Nahum, in the Spirit, saw the Lord as He appears as an avenger upon Nineveh. Filled with this vision he now announces the Lords purpose to destroy this wicked city. But at the same time he teaches how the Holy God unites his righteous wrath with long-suffering and patience; how his judgment upon the oppressors is at the same time protection and deliverance to his people. Hence this prophecy is a master-key for understanding the divine judgments.
Schmieder: Nah 1:2. The enemies of the Lord are those who hate the living God, his name, his word, and his covenant, and therefore inflict every evil upon his people.
Calvin: Nah 1:3. The godless should not console themselves with the fact that God is patient; for He is also powerful; hence those who abuse his patience will not escape from Him.
Burck: God shows his long-suffering not only toward his children, whose manifold weaknesses He so bears with as to restore them again and again; but also toward his enemies, whom He does not punish at once, but bears with them very patiently for a long time.
Hieronymus: Nah 1:4. It will not be hard for Him, who has the prerogative to put even the elements in commotion, to destroy Nineveh.
Nah 1:7. He does not surprise all mariners with a storm.
Schmieder: Nah 1:8. That is really darkness, which breaks in on the day of the Lord (Amo 5:18).
Nah 1:9. As the deluge shall not occur again, so the desolation of Israel by the Assyrians shall not take place the second time (Isa 54:9). God comforts and tranquillizes those hearts which have become fearful by the divine judgments which they experienced.
Mich.: Nah 1:12. As the multitude of hairs can offer no resistance to the shears, so also God will remove the multitude of his enemies by an easy cut.
Hieronymus: Nah 1:14. God gives a command concerning thee, in order that whatever may come upon thee, may come not accidentally and from another judge; but in order that thou mayest suffer it according to the Divine announcement.
[Calvin: Nah 1:7. The prophet expresses here that God is hard and severe toward refractory men, and that He is merciful and kind to the teachable and obedient,not that God changes his nature, or that, like Proteus, He puts on various forms; but because He treats men according to their disposition.
Henry: Nah 1:7. This glorious description of the Sovereign of the world, like the pillar of cloud and of fire, has a bright side toward Israel, and a dark side toward the Egyptians.C. E.]
Footnotes:
[1][Nah 1:1.; LXX., ; Vulgate, Onus, is derived from , to take up, to lift up, to raise, and signifies something uttered. As it is often found in the inscriptions of threatening oracles or denunciations, Jerome, Luther, the English version, and others, have rendered it burden, meaning a threatening oracle. Hengstenberg contends (Christology of the O. T., vol. 3 pp. 380384, on Zec 9:1; and vol. 4 p. 60, on Zec 12:1. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1858), that it always signifies burden, and occurs only in the superscription of prophecies announcing adversity. Gesenius thinks that it is used also for the annunciation of good. Lexicon, sub .
[2][Nah 1:2. , lord, master, or possessor, of burning wrath.
[3][Nah 1:5. , the earth heaves; LXX., ; Vulgate, et contremuit terra; Luther, Das Erdreich bebet; A. V., the earth is burned.
[4][Nah 1:8.Kleinert translates the last clause of this verse: und seine Feinde verfolgt Er mit Finsterniss. So does Luther. Keil defends this translation on the ground that the translation of the LXX., Vulgate, and A. V. is irreconcilable with the makkeph, and does not answer so well the parallelism of the clauses.
[5][Nah 1:10., to the degree that, i.e., like. See Gesenius, s. v.C. E.]
[6][Calvin: By inundation, then, he, in passing, will make a consummation in her place; that is, God will suddenly overwhelm the Assyrians as though a deluge should rise to cover the whole earth. He intimates, that God would not punish the Assyrians by degrees, as men sometimes do, who proceed step by step to avenge themselves, but suddenly. God, he says, will of a sudden thunder against the Assyrians, as when a deluge comes over a land. Hence this passing of God is opposed to long or slow progress; as though he said, As soon as Gods wrath shall break forth or come upon the Assyrians, it will be all over, for a consummation will immediately follow: by inundation, He, passing through, will make a consummation in her place. By place he means the ground; as though he had said, that God would not only destroy the face of the land, but would also destroy the very ground, and utterly demolish it. A feminine pronoun is here added, because he speaks of the kingdom or nation, as it is usual in Hebrew. But it ought especially to be noticed, that the Prophet threatens the Assyrians, that God would entirely subvert them, that He would not only demolish the surface, as when fire or waters destroy houses, but that the Lord would reduce to nothing the land itself, even the very ground.C. E.]
[7] [Keils view requires: What think ye of Jehovah? He says: The question in 9 a is not addressed to the enemy, viz., the Assyrians, as very many commentators suppose: What do ye meditate against Jehovah? For although Chsabh, el is used in Hos 7:15 for a hostile device in regard to Jehovah, the supposition that el is used here for al, according to a later usage of the language, is precluded by the fact that is actually used in this sense in Nah 1:11.
The LXX. have ; the Vulgate has Contra Dominum, Luther; Was gedenket ihr wider den Herrn?C E.]
[8][Reichsgedanken. See note, Com.,on Jonah, p. 20.C. E.]
[9][This expression does not necessarily imply that the whole human race was not descended from Adam.C. E.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The chief points in the opening of Nahum’s prophecy, are to set forth the Lord’s just judgment on his enemies, and his mercy over his Israel.
Nah 1:1
Here seems a double title to Nahum’s book. It is a burthen. And it is the book of a vision. Perhaps this double title might signify ruin, and an heavy burthen upon Nineveh, and a vision of peace and glory to Israel.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Burden of Nineveh
Nah 1
There is a sense in which every prophet must make a burden of his work. If he himself had to do it all it would be nothing but burden. Instead of idealising the word, making it poetical, bringing up before the eye of the mind some stalwart pilgrim carrying his easy load upon his shoulder, think of it as a man whose heart is sore because of the wickedness of the people, whose sleep is taken away from him because night is turned into a day of wickedness and wrath. Think of a man who has more to say than he can utter, whose tongue cannot keep pace with his heart because his heart is full of the thunder and lightning of judgment, and full of the music and pathos of gospel, and would utter itself incoherently, paradoxically, so that men not versed in this species of eloquence would say, What doth this babbler exclaim? for now he thunders, and now he whispers, and now he storms like a whirlwind, and now he cries like a brokenhearted mother. What would he be at? Yet through all this whirl and tumult and conflict must men come before they can understand what the old prophets had to do in the name and strength of God.
Nahum writes a book. It was a curious thing to do in those days. It was a book of a vision, and therefore likely to be quite misunderstood; for who has eyes that can see visions of the shadowy aerial kind? Who but Moses could have seen the cloud, histrionically treated, shaped into tabernacle and sanctuary and coming temple, as the Lord took handfuls of cloud and scattered them about in apocalyptic vision, so that the meek heart could see the new architecture? Only a visionist can read visions. There are some men who ought never to attempt to read poetry, because they kill it. They do not know that they are killing it, but their slaughter is none the less complete. There are persons who ought not to read the lighter kinds of literature, say even comedy itself, because they were born to live at the graveside, and never have caught a laugh on the wing. Only those who have the inspired heart can read the prophets, either major or minor, and understand what they are about, not understand what they are merely saying, but understand what they are meaning. There is a common drift in all the prophecies, a set, a tendency in this great biblical movement. Unless you comprehend that tendency or movement you will be lost in the details of the dislocated parts. The Bible reveals God: now let all the rest fall into proper adjustment under the influence of that dominant and ennobling thought. How will Nahum talk about God? He will talk about God in his own way. If every man would do that we should have a new and grand theology, because we should have as many theologies as there are human beings reverently engaged in the profound study of God. Every man sees his own aspect of the divine Being; every man catches his own particular view of the Cross: hence a good deal of the obstinacy that is found in theological controversy and religious disputation. A man cannot depersonalise himself, nor need he; what he wants to do is to understand that every other man is also a student of the same mystery, and is also blessed with some portion of the Spirit without whom there is no life, without whom there can be no music in the soul. Hear Nahum:
“God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies” ( Nah 1:2 ).
That was true for the day. The prophecies of Nahum, however, do not consist of one verse. The prophet will see another aspect presently, but he was true to the revelation as it passed before him. It is poor preaching that harps upon the words, “God is love”; because it does not take in the whole aspect of a manifold revelation. Yet it does take in every aspect if we understood the meaning of the word “God,” and the meaning of the word “love.” Love is not softness, moral indifference, spiritual turpitude, a sentiment that buys itself off from service by offering copious tears; love is law, love is righteousness, love is anger. Love can be hot as unquenchable fire. Our God is a consuming fire: God is love. Here is a man who says, “God is jealous”; so he was at that moment. “The Lord revengeth”; so he was doing when Nahum wrote. We want the real experience of men: What do you see of God? How does the vision appear to you? Put it all down, day by day, for the bread of the soul, as well as the bread of the body, is a daily donation of God. You need not struggle to reconcile yesterday with to-day: the harmony of things does not lie under your fingers; it is no trick wrought out by the cunning of man’s hand: the solidarity, the unity, the music of the whole must be left to the sovereignty of the sovereign God. You will not be out of harmony with your age if you write in your book: God burns; God is an unquenchable fire; God scorches men. Put it down; tomorrow you shall write otherwise.
Nahum did; said he: “The Lord is slow to anger.” What, the same God that in the second verse was jealous, furious, revenging, reserving wrath for his enemies? Yes. Herein is the mystery of the total personality. “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.” He does not drop into mere sentiment. Nahum carries his law with him. Even when he says God is slow to anger he admits the anger, and the slowness to it may be its assurance and its completeness in the latter end. There are those who speak much of the God of nature. There are now persons who are nature worshippers. They generally confine their services to a particular condition of the atmosphere. Their worship is climatic and barometric. They are great on sunny Sabbath mornings. When the churchgoer meets them and says, “Where have you been this morning?” they say, “In the temple of nature, hearing the lark or the thrush; watching the bees or the butterflies; inhaling the soft health-laden breeze. A beautiful church is nature.” All that is mere sound, not worth the name of fury, yet joining the poet again when he says, “Like an idiot’s tale.” There is no such God of nature. The God of nature he is described by the prophet Nahum just as he is:
“The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein” ( Nah 1:3-5 ).
That is the God of nature. Where are his worshippers now? Do you find them standing on the mountain-top, drenched with rain, worshipping in the beautiful temple of Nature? Never. By arrangement and of set purpose they may have been caught in a tempest, but they never braved it in order to worship the God of nature. They love to hear morning worship the lark; evening worship the nightingale; delightful service the south-blowing breeze, the fragrant air. Away with such mockery if you call that the God of nature! He is God of nature also when he thunders and lightens, and shakes the mountains and melts the rocks. Where are you, then, you lovers of the lark, and devotees of the nightingale, where are you then? You speak of the God of nature as if he were the leading florist of the universe, as if he were the chief gardener who had laid out all his walls and terraces and parterres for your benefit. The God of nature can be as furious as the God of the Church, or the God of the inner and spiritual temple. The Lord writes his whole signature upon the volume of nature. On that volume he has written: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Our God is a consuming fire: the volcano is the inkhorn in which he dips his pen that he may write his fury, his grandeur, and his sensitive majesty. We hold that the God of nature is the God of the Bible, and that the God of nature properly and fully interpreted is just as many-sided as is the God of revelation; and we protest against the squashy, useless, pithless sentimentality that goes out on Sunday morning because the lark is singing, and because the wind is in the south. That is the God of one side of nature; but the God of nature is as complex as is the God of Nahum, set forth in the second and third and following verses of his prophecy.
“Who can stand before his indignation?” One might imagine that all this is found only in the Church; this is the ideal or poetic view of God; this is theology in blank verse; this is the dream of a village mind; the high uplifting of one who has been caught suddenly in a divine afflatus, and who speaks that which he does not understand. Yet all that is in the Bible is written in nature, in germ, in hint, in outline, in dim symbol, if we had the eye that could read such typology. And do those who attend what is specifically called the Church care nothing for nature? Contrariwise, they love it; it is the Christian poet that has made the flower blush with subtlest, and just flattery; it is the Christian astronomer that has made night blush by praising her reverently to her face. The Christian will find flowers where atheism cannot find them. Christian prophecy has the faculty of causing stones to rise up as children unto Abraham; Christian interpretation does not read things into divine providence, but reads them out of it, saying always, We have not got the whole secret of this root, there is more beauty in it, and with more sunshine we shall get it all. History is the root out of which God grows flowers and wheat, great trees and flowerets that little children may gather with their tiny hands. We protest against the division of the God of nature and the God of grace, the God of nature and the God of revelation, as if only atheists or agnostics had to do with the God of nature, whilst Christians were worshipping some totally distinct being. Christians claim both. Nature and revelation are God in two volumes. Is he a wise reader who, having been entranced in the first volume of the drama, simply declines to read the second? What shall we say of his entrancement when he flushes with the purple of wonder, and expands under the enthusiasm of delighted gratitude, because he has read the first volume, but says he will have nothing to do with the volume that succeeds it? Such indifference to the succeeding volume throws suspicion upon the reality of his admiration when he offers that mockery to volume one. In Nahum you find the God of the book and the God of nature, the God of moral attributes and the God of majestic revelation, in the forms, the palpitations, and the changing colours of this dissolving scene.
Nahum is strong in contrasts. Hear him: “The Lord is good” what! the Lord who is jealous? “a stronghold in the day of trouble” what! the God who is “furious”? Yes. Now the contrast: “But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.” Then it is a division of character. “He knoweth them that trust in him”; that is character: “and darkness shall pursue his enemies”; that is character. It is character that is elected, predestinated; it is character that is doomed from all eternity. It is one of two things: a savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death; a trusting soul, or a hostile spirit. In the one case the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble when nobody else wants you; in the other it is night sevenfold, following like an infinite beast of prey, the enemy of righteousness and light, truth and love. We have advanced nothing beyond this position taken up by the prophet The God of the New Testament is as jealous as the God of the Old Testament, and the God revealed by our blessed and only Saviour Christ Jesus is as loving in the Old Testament as in the New. Hebrew seems better made for expressing tenderness than Greek; Hebrew can fondle the reader, embrace him; Hebrew can whisper better than Greek can. Greek has its own music, but not that rich, round, deep, mellow music that follows the soul through the darkness, yea, through the valley of the shadow of death: “Like as a father pitieth”; “The Lord is my shepherd”; “The Lord is very pitiful”: these are Hebrew whispers, and there is nothing in New Testament music other than in quality. The New Testament has its own accent and individualism, but the New Testament represents the same God as the Old Testament; Nahum and Paul discourse concerning the same attributes. If any man therefore shall be in the seventh verse of Nahum he will be saying, The Lord is good; I know it; he has dried my tears, he has directed my steps, he has held me up in all my goings; though I have fallen I have not been utterly cast down. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble; when my nearest, dearest friend did not know me the Lord received me, and when my father and my mother forsook me, then the Lord took me up, and I have had a habitation in his pavilion all my life. If another man should be in the eighth verse he will discourse of the same God in other terms, calling him an overrunning flood, calling him an infinite aggregation of darkness. The explanation will not be found in the variety of poetic conception, but in the consistence of spiritual character. God is to us what we are to God; to the froward he will show himself froward; to the humble he will come with that sweeping condescension as graceful as it is noiseless, an insinuation not a patronage.
Then Nahum will not let the enemy alone. He says: “For while they be folden together as thorns… they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” Here he is referring to the intricacies of sin, “folden together as thorns,” so interwrapped and intervolved that it is simply impossible to perform the task of unravelment. Will the Lord pick with patient fingers all the intertwinings of these intricate perplexities? No. What will he do with them? Burn them! We had not thought of that: we had looked at the intricacy, the difficulty, the manifold perplexity, and said, Surely God’s own patience cannot overtake this task; we wondered how God would come out of a difficulty so obvious and so complete: we had forgotten the fire. There could be no universe without fire; there could be no life without fire. Blood is fire; life is fire controlled, inspired, set to work by a sovereign agency. We had forgotten hell. It is a poor ministry that has no perdition in it. It may be a popular ministry. There have been persons who would not go to church because they would not hear the minister pronouncing the punishment or wrath of God against evildoing. They would go to hear the lark. That lark will ruin them. They have got hold of the wrong meaning of that bird’s note. There is not a lark in the whole cage of the firmament that is not praising God. But some persons can only take one view of the singing bird. If that bird could break the harmonies of the universe, the universe would soon find a grave for it Nothing that mars the music can live long; only that which swells the infinite cadence is permitted to enjoy immortality. You have laid cunning schemes; you have made the nights overlap one another; you have doubled back on your own journey so that the detective shall not pursue you; you have laid your plan so skilfully and subtly as to defy detection; you have made a mark here and left a signature there, and you have overturned all natural sequences, and so gone back upon yourself as to roll your life together into a perplexity. Now, say you, what will God do with me? Burn you! You had better know it. But there is one thing you can do which will prevent the burning; you can turn and live “Turn ye, turn ye! Why will ye die?” It is not God burning as an act of vengeance; it is the universe taking up God’s purpose and applying it, and that purpose is that all evil shall be burned. No house can do without its fire, and God’s own voice cannot do without its flame searching, penetrating, disinfecting, everlasting. This is right, this is loving. It is not love that permits the pestilence to wreak under the child’s throat; it is not love that says, The miasma is rising thickly, and the dear child is in its chamber sleeping; open the window, let the miasma have full play. I love my child, and therefore I cannot interfere with the play and scope of this miasmatic vapour. Love says, Burn it, or the child may be killed.
Nahum represents what we have often forgotten, namely, that God controls and directs all history.
“And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown: out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave; for thou art vile” ( Nah 1:14 ).
That is how history is made. We wonder how certain houses have run to nothing. God did it We have said, Where are the great and the mighty who ruled the civilisation of gone ages? The Lord said, “No more of thy name shall be sown”: that seed is done, the crop must be changed. It is thus that God keeps the fields of life going; it is thus that God intermixes the growths of civilisation and progress, so that we belong to one another. The great man has a club foot. He did not want it. No: but that connects him with a certain part of his ancestry that he ought not to forget. The poor man is disabled and humiliated and racked with pain; true: but in intervals he writes for immortality; his thoughts are birds that sing for evermore. He did not want to have that ailing, aching, rheumatic, staggering frame; but God reminds him that he is aristocratically descended by the mind. How often that lineage is forgotten! Is a man descended from some duke who murdered men? Then his remotest scion is supposed to be a gentleman. But is there no lineage coming down from Isaiah and Ezekiel, from the poets, the thinkers, the leaders of the world’s highest thought? On one side of your nature you are as plebeian as the clods you plough; on the other, by your power of prayer you are taken into the masonry of the angels, by your gift of thought you have a chief seat in the assembly of the immortals, by a tender soothing sympathy you are invited to sit with Christ on his throne. There are two lineages: the lineage of the bones, which may come to much or nothing as the case may be; and the lineage of the soul, aristocratic as God. We cannot be engrafted into the lower lineage, but, blessed be that Cross that makes Calvary the pivot of the universe, blessed be that Cross that makes heaven possible to the worst, each of us may be taken into the household of God, may be enfranchised in the Jerusalem that is above, may be set among the stars that shall go out no more for ever. To declare this is to preach the everlasting gospel.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXX
THE BOOK OF NAHUM
The title of the book of Nahum is simply this: “The Burden of Nineveh.” It is committed largely to the prophecy of the destruction of the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The writer is Nahum. We know nothing about him. He mentions not even his father’s name. He simply mentions the fact that he was an Elkoshite. Where Elkosh was is disputed. There is a place in Assyria today called Alkush which the Arabians in the region say contains the tomb of Nahum, but the tradition regarding that only goes back as far as the sixteenth century and it is exceedingly questionable. There is a place mentioned by Jerome in Galilee called Elkesi, and Jerome and a great many other scholars believe that that was the home of Nahum, a little village in Galilee. This is doubted by others, and it has been found that there was a little village down in Judah called Elkesi also and some scholars maintain that Nahum had that as his home and that he lived in Judah. He evidently speaks from the standpoint of a Judean. Other scholars maintain that Nahum was one of the exiles transported from Judah and wrote his prophecy while in exile in Assyria. The reason for that is that Nahum seems to know exactly the fortifications and as we shall see the layout of the city of Nineveh, the siege of which he predicts. This theory is not to be credited at all.
The style of Nahum is the most vivid, perhaps, of all the Old Testament writers. In majesty it almost equals Isaiah. In the rapidity of its motion, its energy, its movement, in the imagination displayed he even surpassed Isaiah. This is one of the finest pieces of literature in all the world. The date of this prophecy is somewhere between 663B.C. & 607 BC.; 663 B.C. being the date upon which Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria destroyed Noamon, or Thebes, the great city in Southern Egypt. To the destruction of that city Nahum refers in Nah 3:8 ; so his prophecy took place after that event, possibly sometime after. It was such an important event as would be remembered for a long time. The destruction of a great city like Noamon would be impressed upon the world. The prophecy must have been written previous to 607 B.C., for that is the date of the fall of Nineveh, and this year marks one of the most important events in the political history of that age. Probably his prophecy comes somewhere between 630 B.C., and 610 B.C., not far from the destruction of Nineveh.
The occasion for the writing of this prophecy is the downfall of the Assyrian nation, with the sack and destruction of the great city of Nineveh. The history of Assyria and Nineveh is a history of conquests, a history of oppression, a history of remorseless warfare of indescribable cruelties, siege upon siege of every city that came in contact with any of Assyria’s possessions. No nation in all the world for two hundred years had rolled its resistless tide of savage warriors across the face of the earth as did Assyria. Not a nation in all the known world but what suffered from her attacks. Eastern Palestine, Northern Israel, and Southern Israel were overrun and deported, and the inhabitants of Damascus and Syria were deported also and scores of other nations and tribes were ruthlessly torn away from home and country and carried into exile. The blood, the agony, the tears, the sufferings, the sorrow which Assyria and Nineveh caused, only God himself could describe.
Not a nation during those two hundred years but that hated, but that dreaded her; not a nation but that cringed and trembled as she approached. And those two hundred years engendered in every nation a hatred that was intense, and almost ceaseless. Israel had felt her terrible hand; so had Babylon and all other Semitic nations. And now at last the Medes north and east of Assyria, gather together their nation, with Cyaxares at their head, and march against her. Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, also comes against her. PharaohNecho in the days of Josiah, king of Judah, marched up to the Euphrates to take Nineveh and secure her boundless treasures. Thus it became a contest, as to whether Cyaxares the king of the Modes; Nabopolassar, king of Babylon; or PharaohNecho, king of Egypt, should conquer this city with its incalculable riches. About 625 B.C. Nineveh withstood a great siege and buried back the Medes. But the country was much depopulated. Her allies were gone; a weak king sat upon the throne. The Medes grew more powerful, and at last about 609 B.C. or 608 B.C. Nabopolassar and Cyaxares came to an agreement. Nabopolassar apparently sent Nebuchadnezzar to meet Pharaoh-Necho and drive him back. He himself held the advances to Nineveh and prevented the allies of Assyria from coming to her relief. The king of the Medes came upon her from the North and the East, and after a siege of two years Nineveh fell, and there was not a nation upon the earth that did not feel a relief and there went up from every people and every heart this one cry, “At last! At last! At last! the old savage lion is dead and we are free.” Nahum voices that sentiment. At last the old lion has gone, as all Europe and, perhaps, America, when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, said, “At last the scourge of the nation is gone.”
The following is an outline of the book:
Title: The theme and author (Nah 1:1 )
I. A verdict of vengeance (Nah 1:2-15
1. The character, majesty, and method of Jehovah (Nah 1:2-8 )
2. His verdict concerning Nineveh (Nah 1:9-14 )
3. His verdict of vengeance on Nineveh, an Evangel to Judah (Nah 1:15 )
II. A vision of vengeance (Nah 2 ) 1. A description of the attack upon the city (Nah 2:1-7 )
2. An inside view during and after the attack (Nah 2:8-13 )
III. A vindication of vengeance (Nah 3 ) 1. The wreck of the city and its causes (Nah 3:1-7 )
2. An example and its lessons (Nah 3:8-19 )
Nahum had a strong and deep conviction that Jehovah is the God who will punish iniquity, and therefore he breaks forth (Nah 1:2-8 ) : “Jehovah is a jealous God and avengeth; Jehovah avengeth and is full of wrath; Jehovah taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” See the accumulated effect of his repetition here. He goes on: “Jehovah is slow to anger and great in power and will by no means clear the guilty. Jehovah hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers; Bashan languisheth, and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.” This is the effect of Jehovah coming down: “The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken asunder by him.”
Now in Nah 1:7 he gives another view of Jehovah, and here is a beautiful text: “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.” How different that is from the other, and how different God’s attitude toward his enemies, and toward those that trust him! “But with an overflowing flood will he make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.” As to his character, he is a God of vengeance, and yet the central fact of his nature is that he is slow to anger. Under the figure of a storm the prophet sets forth the overwhelming majesty of Jehovah. The method of God he describes as “good, a stronghold,” toward his friends, but toward his foes, “He will make a full end.”
Now he speaks against Nineveh (Nah 1:9-14 ) thus: “What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” Imagine what you like, he will make a complete end. The affliction shall not rise up the second time, and it didn’t. “For though they be tangled in thorns, and while they are drunken as with their drink, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” It matters not what your condition, what your defense or how impossible it would seem that you should be destroyed. “There is one gone out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, a wicked counsellor.” We don’t know who that was. Perhaps it refers to the blasphemous boasts of Sennacherib. “Thus saith Jehovah, though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, and will burst thy bonds asunder.” Then he describes how he shall destroy the gods of Assyria, the graven images, and molten images shall be utterly broken to pieces and buried.
Here (Nah 1:15 ) he pictures a runner hurrying with news to Judah and Jerusalem: “Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!” The cry, “Nineveh is fallen,” was the best news that came to the whole world at that time. And Nahum thus voices the feelings and sentiments of ail these nations. “O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.”
The attack of the enemy upon Nineveh is described in Nah 2:1-7 . First, he describes the attack upon the fortifications: “He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face: keep the fortress, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily.” Thus he ironically advised the city to defend themselves against the enemy’s approach. Nah 2:3 : “The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet, the chariots shall be as flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the cypress spears shall be brandished. The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall Jostle one against another in the broad ways: their appearance is like torches, they run like the lightnings. He remembereth his worthies: they stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to the wall thereof and the mantelet shall be prepared.” We can almost see and hear them; the appearance of their chariots is like torches, they run like lightning, as they approach the walls. The enemy now opens the sluice gates of the river which flows into the city and floods it. It is a fact found from excavation that Nineveh was partly destroyed from the water being turned in through the watergates. It is interesting to remember that Diodorus Seculus mentions an old prophecy, that the city would never be taken until the river became its enemy. He moreover declared that during an enemy’s attack the river burst its banks and washed away the wall for twenty stadia. Continuing, Nahum describes the city under the figure of a woman and her attendants. They flee and the enemy captures the spoil.
The inside view of the city during and after the attack is described in Nah 2:8-13 . Here the prophet describes the inhabitants of Nineveh as the besiegers are attacking the walls: “But Nineveh is from of old like a pool of water; yet they shall flee away. Stand, stand, shall they cry, but none shall look back.” Thus Nineveh is described as water which has been gathered in a pool but she scattered in every direction. When the cry is made, Stand! Stand! they flee away and look not back. Now the enemy has entered the city and this is the cry: “Take ye the spoil of silver, take ye the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the store and glory of all the pleasant furniture.” And they did take all the spoil, after which he thus describes her: “She is empty, and waste, and the heart melteth and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all are waxed pale.” They are about to be sacked.
Then the prophet speaks sarcastically, looking at it from the distance, and seeing the old lion in his den thus besieged: “Where is the den of the lions and the feasting places of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion’s whelp and none made them afraid? The lion (that is, old Nineveh), did tread in pieces enough for his whelps and strangled for his lioness and filled his caves with prey, and his dens with ravens.” He is representing Nineveh as a lion in his den, and it was all too true, for thousands and tens of thousands of the hapless inhabitants of other nations were literally strangled, and nation upon nation was seized in order that he might fill his den and his coffers with their wealth. Is it any wonder that the world felt relieved and Jehovah himself gave the prophet a message voicing the sentiment? Then in Nah 2:13 he says, “I am against thee, saith Jehovah, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions; and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.”
Then the wreck of the city is described in Nah 3:1-7 . The fall of the city of Nineveh and the causes thereof, are stated in Nah 3 . In the first three verses we have a description of the sack of the city, thus: “Woe to the bloody city I It is all full of lies and rapine; the prey departeth not; the noise of a whip and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman mounting and the flashing sword and the glittering spears and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is no end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses.” The cruelty and savagery of those two hundred years impressed itself upon all those nations, and these soldiers broke into that city, and as Nineveh had never shown any mercy they showed Nineveh no mercy. Now he goes on with the description of her as a harlot: “Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredom, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold I am against thee, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.” All the nations were interested in her destruction. “And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing stock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?” They bemoaned when Tyre fell, they bemoaned Thebes, they bemoaned Egypt, and John pictures how they bemoaned the downfall of Rome, but they never bemoaned Nineveh.
The prophet cites an example in Nah 3:8-15 . He compares the fall of Thebes, or Noamon, with the fall of Assyria, and says, “Art thou better than Noamon, that was situated among the rivers, that had the waters round about her, whose rampart was the sea?” She had mighty allies, too, Ethiopia and Egypt, and had no end of strength. Now he says, “You are no better than she; she suffered; she was carried away into captivity.” Then he gives a further description of how the country is infatuated and all the outlying fortresses were taken: “Thou shalt be drunken, thou shalt be hid; thou also shall seek strength because of the enemy.” Then he pictures the inhabitants (Nah 3:13 ) : “All thy strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs; if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies; the fire shall devour thy bars.” Then in sarcastic and grim irony he tells the people of Nineveh to go to work and try to defend themselves: “Draw water for the siege, fortify thy strongholds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick kiln. There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm ; make thyself many as the locust.”
Nineveh was the greatest commercial center of the age (Nah 3:16-17 ). He describes her great commercial prestige thus: “Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker-worm spoileth, and fleeth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.” And that is how they all dispersed when the enemy entered the city.
The last two verses close with a grim humor, containing a very significant statement regarding her: “Thy shepherds slumber, O Assyria,” are slumbering yet and will continue to slumber. “Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them,” and they have never been gathered since, and never will be. “There is no assuaging of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous; all that hear the report of thee shall clap their hands over thee.” Everybody rejoiced when she went down. “For upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?”
It must have been sometime before this, perhaps, two hundred years before this, that Jonah was sent to Nineveh to preach her destruction in forty days, and Nineveh repented and was saved, but there was no Jonah to preach to her now. Her time had come, her wickedness was too great, she was past redemption, and in 607 B.C. the city of Nineveh ceased to be forever. Excavators have been digging there, and they have found the remains of this great city, the walls and the whole plan of it.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the title of this book, who the author, what of his family, and what the traditions and theories about him and his book?
2. What can you say of the style of Nahum?
3. What is the date of this prophecy?
4. What is the occasion of this prophecy, and what the relation of Nineveh to other nations?
5. Give an account of the capture and downfall of Nineveh.
6. Give an outline of the book of Nahum.
7. What t is he character, majesty, and method of Jehovah as revealed in this prophecy (Nah 1:2-8 )?
8. What is his verdict concerning Nineveh (Nah 1:9-14 )?
9. How is the announcement of Nineveh’s fall to Judah described (Nah 1:15 )?
10. Describe the attack of the enemy upon Nineveh (Nah 2:1-7 ).
11. Describe the inside view of the city during and after the attack (Nah 2:8-13 ).
12. Describe the wreck of the city and cite the cause (Nah 3:1-7 ).
13. What example does the prophet cite and what the lesson (Nah 3:8-15 )?
14. What says the prophet here of the commerce of Nineveh and her merchants (Nah 3:16-17 )?
15. What is the permanent condition of this great city as described in the last two verses?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Nah 1:1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Ver. 1. The burden of Nineveh ] i.e. The burdenous prophecy, See Trapp on “ Mal 1:1 “ It is a burden to wicked men to be told of their sins and foretold of their punishments, to whom we may not unfitly apply that of the civilian, Perquam durum est, sed ita lex scripta est (Ulpian). It is extremely hard, but so the law is written. If it be so tedious to hear of it, what will they do to bear it? Nineveh had fair warning before by Jonah; and for the present, the unclean spirit seemed to be cast out of her; but he returned soon after, with seven worse, as appears by this prophecy; and so their last state was worse than the former, Mat 12:45 . Their boil, half healed, breaking out again, proved to be the plague of leprosy, Lev 13:18-20 , such as shut them out of heaven. God will do good to those that are good and continue so. But “as for those that turn aside unto their crooked ways” (as all apostates do), “the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity” (as cattle are led to the slaughter, or malefactors to execution): “but peace shall be upon Israel,” Psa 125:5 .
The book of the vision
Of Nahum the Elkoshite
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
burden. Compare Isa 13:1 Isa 27:13. See the Structure, p. 930), and Habakkuk. = A prophetic oracle: or, the prophetic doom of Nineveh, written about ninety (603-514 = B.C.) years before Nineveh’s doom; and while the Assyrian Empire was at its height. The doom of Nineveh came therefore 176 years after Jonah’s mission. The prophecy was addressed to Nahum’s own People, but as a menace to Nineveh.
Nineveh. This heading is not “undoubtedly by a later hand”, as alleged. The words “the place thereof” (Nah 1:8) would be unintelligible without it. Nineveh is not mentioned again until Nah 2:8; and is only hinted at elsewhere (Nah 3:1, Nah 3:18). The Structure below is the best commentary.
vision. Like Isaiah, always one whole. Not written before or separately from, its deliverance.
Nahum = the compassionate, or consoler. The name refers back to Jehovah’s compassion connected with Jonah’s mission eighty-seven years before. Nothing is known of Nahum beyond his book.
Elkoshite. Hebrew. ‘Elkoshi. A village of this name exists to-day, twentyfour miles north of Nineveh (now Konyunjik). See Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains, i. p. 233.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Tonight, let’s turn now to the book of Nahum. Again, just three chapters long and they’re even short chapters. So, we should have a relatively short Bible study tonight in Nahum.
He introduces the subject of the prophecy in the first verse and that is:
The burden of Nineveh ( Nah 1:1 ).
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire. For many years, the records of Assyria were so obliterated that the Bible critics used to say that those references to Assyria were only made up, and that Assyria did not exist except in the imagination of the writers. But, as the Bible critics so often have proved to be wrong, in this case it was also so. Those brilliant men who laughed and scoffed at the Bible and led many people into unbelief because of the dispersions that they cast upon the veracity of God’s word were proved themselves to be wrong in more recent archeological discoveries in which they had discovered, actually, the great city of Nineveh. It is all that the Bible said it was, a huge city, perhaps one of the greatest of the ancient world. Sargon, one of the kings mentioned in the Bible, for so long a matter of scoffing by the Bible critics. The whole annals were found as they uncovered his palace and the records of Sargon. Again, the Bible comes out true, smelling like a rose, and the phony scholars come out as they are, just a bunch of phony eggheads. As Shakespeare said, “Man, poor man, so ignorant in that which he knows best!” So it is the burden of Nineveh.
The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite ( Nah 1:1 ).
Now, we are not helped with Nahum, as far as identity, any place else in the Bible. This is the only place he appears. However, as we read the book of Nahum, it is obvious that he was writing about the same time as did Micah and Isaiah, during the reign of Hezekiah. Because in chapter two he makes reference to the blasphemies of the Rabashak who came as the spokesmen for the Assyrian king Shalmaneser, or Sennacherib. He makes mention of these blasphemies of Rabashak which took place during the time that Hezekiah was king. So, we can place the prophecies of Nahum around 713 B.C., during the time that Hezekiah was reigning in Jerusalem.
Elkoshite is thought by most Bible scholars to be a reference to a little city of El Kosh which was around the Sea of Galilee. Most of the scholars conclude that Nahum came from the region of Galilee.
Now, there is a city where Jesus spent most of His ministry on the Sea of Galilee and it’s called Capernaum or we say Capernaum. But Capernaum means the city of Nahum. So, it is thought by many that that is perhaps where Nahum came from, and the city Capernaum actually took its name from the fact that this is where the prophet had originated. Capernaum. Enough for the background.
The message is that of God’s judgment that is going to come against Nineveh and against the Assyrian empire. A hundred years plus earlier, Jonah had been called to Nineveh. But the people of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah, and Nineveh was spared for another hundred and fifty years or so. But now God is proclaiming the judgment that is gonna come against Nineveh and against Assyria. And it is to fall, not to rise again. He begins his message against Assyria by declaring,
God is jealous ( Nah 1:2 ),
In Zechariah, again we read that God is jealous. The first commandment was, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Now, we, in trying to understand God, can only understand Him in human terms. And even at that we fail to understand completely. Jesus said to Nicodemus, a teacher of the Jews, “If I speak to you of earthly things and you cannot understand them, how could I ever speak to you of heavenly things?”
Now, there are things in heaven of which we don’t even have words. We don’t even have mental concepts. God, being infinite, could not be defined, described, or even brought into our minds except just in part and by human terminology. How can we describe the vastness of God, the character of God, the greatness of God? All we have are human words. But surely all of them come short of really describing God. So, we must use human terms to describe God. Thus, jealousy is a human term. But it is a term that is used to describe how that God does not want your affection to be going to any other idol, any other god, any other ideal.
Now, every man has a god, even the man who claims to be an atheist. For a person’s god is the master passion that governs his life. And whatever is the master passion governing your life is your god. But God doesn’t want any other master passion governing your life. He wants to be the master passion of your life. And if you allow anything else to be as a substitute for Him, He is displeased. His displeasure is described in our human term of jealousy.
However, with God there’s a whole different motive than when we think of jealousy from the human term. For thinking of jealousy from the human term, I become jealous because my territory is being threatened. And jealousy in a human term usually has a selfishness behind it. It is listed as one of the works of the flesh in Galatians five. But because this is the term we have to use to describe God’s displeasure, if you have any other master passion or love that is dominating your life, we have to use the term. But God, in the use of the term concerning God, is His displeasure is because of His tremendous love for you and He knows that you can’t come into what is the best for you as long as you are following after some other ideal or God. And so in the use of it, we must not think of it in the purely human use of the term, which is a jealousy because my territory is being threatened. But God is jealous for you because God loves you so much. He wants nothing but the best for your life, and He knows that if you have any other love or passion above Him, you’re gonna come in second. You’re not going to achieve or attain that which is best for you. And God’s desires towards us, as He declares, are always good. The purpose and the intent of God for your life is good. God is jealous and
the Lord revengeth ( Nah 1:2 ),
Now, God does take vengeance. He declares, “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord.” There is a day of judgment coming. You cannot sin with impunity against God and think that you’ll never have to answer for it. God does not always bring justice swiftly. For the Lord is very patient, very longsuffering, very kind. But many people have misunderstood or mistaken the longsuffering of God as weakness, and they feel that God will not judge. Not so. God will judge and He will bring vengeance and retribution upon those sinners who do not repent and do not turn to Him. Now he is describing God’s attitude towards this wicked, horribly wicked city of Nineveh that is filled with occult practices, fierce, cruel, inhumane people.
and [the Lord] is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies ( Nah 1:2 ).
As we read in Hebrews, “It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of a living God.” Now, there are those who object to thinking of God at all in the terms of judgment or vengeance, or wrath, or anger, and they like to think of God only in terms of love. It is true that God is love. That there is no other love in the universe that can compare with God’s love. We cannot even understand God’s love, it is so far deeper and richer and more complete than anything we experience on the human level.
In a sense, I have a loving nature. But because of my loving nature, I can get very stirred up if those that I love very deeply are threatened. If my children, if my wife are threatened, though I am by nature a loving person, yet I can change in a hurry when there is a threatening situation that would be threatening those that I love so much.
This morning my son-in-law and I, as we were coming out to church, and we were talking about this little girl who was kidnapped yesterday, a little nine year old girl. Of course, so fresh in our mind is this little six-year-old girl up in Pasadena who was so brutally murdered. And always it seems, you just sort of transfer that over to your own child, “What if that was my little girl?” God said vengeance is His, but I’ll tell you, if I would ever catch someone molesting my girls or my granddaughters or whatever, I’m afraid I would not wait for God to take vengeance. As my son-in-law said, “They ought to be shot on the spot when they’re caught.” I said, “I’d be happy to be the trigger man.” It’s not because I’m not a loving person; it’s because I do love that I’m upset that anyone would harm or threaten those that I do love. I love you very much, and some wolf come in and try and rip off the flock, I’ll tell ya, they’d have a David as a shepherd to contend with. Love is not weak. God is not weak. Yes, God is love, but He is also a just and holy God who will bring judgment against sin. Though the judgment may it seem tarry, you can be sure that God will avenge the evil.
The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind [Now he goes into some very descriptive, picturesque kind of poetic speech, “He has his way in the whirlwind”] and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet ( Nah 1:3 ).
What a picturesque phrase, you know, as you came to church tonight and saw those clouds and all, and the dust of God’s feet.
He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth ( Nah 1:4 ).
He can create a drought if He so desires.
The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him ( Nah 1:5-6 ).
Describing the activities of God in a very picturesque way. But in the middle of this declaration of God’s judgment, he then declares, and it stands out in such contrast, he’s just talking about God throwing down the rocks and God being a fire and burning and hills melting, and “Who can stand before His indignation?” and suddenly he just declares,
The Lord is good ( Nah 1:7 ),
That is a basic foundation of theology that we must, all of us, incorporate into our own understanding. God is good. If you don’t know anything else, know that God is good. It’s important that you know that, and that is something that I accept by faith. Believing the word of God, I accept by faith that God is good, because not always would my circumstances indicate that God was good. And Satan is constantly assailing the truth of the goodness of God. And so often, as I’m looking at adverse situations, I’m prone to say, “If God is so good, then why is this happening?” Don’t you hear that so very often from people, “If God is good, why are there so many people starving in Cambodia? If God is good, why does He allow this to happen in the world? Why does He allow a little nine year old girl to get kidnapped if God is good?” There are always those challenges to the goodness of God that are thrown at us. Satan is always challenging that truth. And thus, I need to have that truth deeply, firmly ingrained within me. God is good, that I know.
There is a very interesting Psalm, it’s about the seventy-third Psalm, where the psalmist begins by the declaration, “Truly the Lord is good unto Israel, and unto all those that fear Him.” And he begins that psalm with that basic premise. But then he said, “As for me, man, when I tried to understand the world around me, I was almost wiped out, my foot almost slipped when I saw the prosperity of the wicked and I saw how well they got along. I looked at my own problems and everything else, and here I’m trying to serve God. I’ve tried to have a clean heart. I’ve tried to do the right things, and everybody’s just pushing me down, and I’m in trouble. Here are these guys cheating, lying, stealing, blaspheming, and they seem to have no problems at all. Everything seems to fall in line for them. When I sought to know this,” he said, “it was too painful for me; I almost was wiped out!” Satan can really play games with your mind. Especially in regards to the goodness of God. He challenges that continually. The psalmist said, “I was almost wiped out when I tried to understand it,” he said, “until I went into the sanctuary of God. And, then,” he said, “I saw their end. I was jealous of the wicked; I was jealous of the ungodly man. It seems he has everything, until I went into the sanctuary of God.” And then what happened? His vision was corrected. In the sanctuary of God that nearsightedness was corrected, and he began to get the long view of things. You see, the goodness of God is that which is always challenged by our nearsightedness, when we are only looking at the immediate things that surround us. It is then that I’m prone to challenge the goodness of God. Things are going bad for me today, “If God’s so good, how come things are going so bad today?” See, it’s today, and it’s my hurt right now, and it’s the pain I feel right now. I don’t look down the road; I’m only looking at that which is right in front of my face. “Until I went into the sanctuary of God, and then I began to get things in perspective, and then I began to get the eternal view, and the sight of eternity comes into view, and somehow in that eternal view things begin to balance out.” That’s our problem is that we don’t have the long-term view, and we get confused. Satan can really upset us. But how many of those things as you look back in your own life that you thought were disasters, now as you look at them, you can see the hand of God and realize how important they were for your development, or how important they were even for your future. God put me in some places in the ministry that you just can’t believe. I mean it was just plain tough. Preaching your heart out to twenty-five people and making half of them mad and they don’t show up the next Sunday. People decide to get rid of the pastor by starving him out, withholding their tithes. And in those situations, down on my knees before God, the questions, the challenging of the goodness of God, “God, if You’re so good, why do I have all these problems? Why did You put me here, God, in this place with these people?” And yet, now as I look back on it, oh the invaluable lessons that God was teaching me. How important those lessons that I learned. I could not have the ministry that God has given to me today had I not gone through those experiences. There were things that God had to work out of my own life before He could really use me effectively. And though I cried, and though I just went through torture mentally, yet as I look back, now I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything, for the lessons and the value that they’ve brought to me. As God was working though, I could not see it and I could not understand it. Now I look back and I say, “Oh, the Lord was so good to me!” But I sure didn’t think so at the time. I thought He had forgotten me, forsaken me, and yet, God is good. I need to remember that. Don’t forget that. “And all things work together for good to those who love God” ( Rom 8:28 ). Not only is God good, the prophet said,
[He is] a stronghold in the day of trouble ( Nah 1:7 );
God doesn’t promise that you’re never gonna have trouble. In the book of Job it says, “As sparks fly upward, so man was born for trouble.” Now, I don’t know of anybody who hasn’t had trouble some time in their life. Trouble is just a part of life itself. In Psalms we read, thirty-four, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” Now, somehow we think because we’re righteous we should never have any affliction, everything should go well, after all, I love God and I’m trying to do the right thing, everyone should love me and treat me nice. Nothing evil should ever happen to me because I love God and I’m willing to serve God and I’m wanting to please God, therefore everything should always be wonderful and beautiful around me. Well, it wasn’t so with Jesus was it? Jesus said, “Hey, if I being your Lord, and they haven’t received Me, they persecuted Me… Servant’s not greater than… They’re not gonna receive you. They’re not gonna open up and accept you with open arms. The world’s gonna hate you because you love Me!” You’re gonna have trouble. But whenever the trouble comes, the Lord is a stronghold. I’ve got a place I can run, I’ve got a place where I can find strength, I’ve got a place where I can be protected. The Lord is a stronghold to those that are in trouble. The thing is, if you’re not a child of God, when trouble comes, you have no place to go. But the child of God always has a refuge. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” Then he declares,
and he knoweth them that trust in him ( Nah 1:7 ).
God knows those that are trusting. God knows you, isn’t that great? God knows me. Not only does He know me, and of course, this is just boggling to my own mind, and it’s just, again, that gap between the finite and the infinite, and the ability for… inability for us to really bridge it. But God not only knows me, He’s thinking about me constantly. That just blows my mind. That God would be constantly thinking about me. David said, “And if I should number thy thoughts concerning me, they are more than the sands of the sea.” How I love to go down to the beach and just take and pick up sand and let it run through my hands and watch the little grains make a little pile on the beach there. And as I do, I think, “Every one of those grains of sand there is a thought that God is thinking of me.” Fabulous! Then I look up the beach and I see all those grains of sand. I think, “Oh, God, who can fathom Your love, and Your wisdom, and Your glory, that You should think of me?” How many grains of sand are there in the earth? Someone has estimated there’s ten to the twenty-fifth power. That’s an awful lot of thinking. It’d take an infinite God to have that many thoughts. God is thinking about you. God knows you. God knows the situations that you’re in. God knows the trials that you have. God knows the problems that you face. Really that’s all that I need to be reminded of when I’m in trouble and I start to despair. All someone has to say is, “Hey, don’t worry, Chuck. God knows all about it.” Oh, thank you. I needed that. God knows the way of the righteous. His ears are open to their cries.
Now he goes back to talk about the judgment of God that’s coming upon the Ninevites. He gives this little word of encouragement to the people of God. “You know, you’re gonna see some real problems, the Assyrian forces are gonna come and they’re going to encircle the city, and you’re gonna see God do a work of vengeance upon them. But don’t worry, God is good; He knows those who trust in Him.”
But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies. What do ye imagine against the Lord? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time. [They won’t come back again, they’re gonna get wiped out.] For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry ( Nah 1:8-10 ).
Very interesting prophecy. For when we finally did uncover the history of Assyria, we found that Assyria, that great city, or Nineveh the great city, the capital of Assyria was destroyed by a confederacy of the Medes and the Babylonians. And they got together and they came against the great city of Nineveh. As they came against the city of Nineveh, the army of Nineveh came out against them, and on three occasions just really wiped them out, defeated them thoroughly. They retreated and regrouped and came back again. And after the third time that the army of Nineveh had defeated this invading confederacy of the Medes and the Babylonians, the soldiers, celebrating their great victory over this invading army, went out and went on a big drunken orgy, just celebrating their victory. And while they were drunk, the forces of the Medes and the Babylonians regrouped, attacked again, and caught them in that drunken state and wiped them out. “For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” And that portion of Nahum’s prophecy was literally fulfilled as the forces of Nineveh were destroyed outside of the city of Nineveh. They still had to take the city of Nineveh, but this is a prophecy of the battle outside.
In verse eleven, he is making this reference to the Rabashak who came with his blasphemous letter from Sennacerib, blaspheming the God in whom the Israelites were trusting.
There is one [that is] come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, he is a wicked counselor. Thus saith the Lord; Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. [The angel of the Lord passed through and a hundred and eighty five thousand of them were cut down.] For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder ( Nah 1:11-13 ).
So, the siege that the Assyrians had against Jerusalem was broken when God passed through and destroyed their forces.
And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown: out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave; for thou art vile ( Nah 1:14 ).
Now he leaves the immediate scene, and his prophecy goes into the future, on even future from our present day, into the glorious day of the kingdom of God.
Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! ( Nah 1:15 )
Now, the immediate prophecy was, “When Nineveh falls, oh how great will be the tidings of the messengers that come running with the news that Nineveh’s been destroyed. The world will rejoice.” But yet, it is, in its secondary sense, a prophecy of the future. And you remember Isaiah made a similar prophecy in the fifty-seventh chapter I believe it is, nope, fifty-second chapter, verse seven, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace, that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation. That saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!”
Now, Paul quoted from Isaiah, in Romans the tenth chapter, as he’s talking about, “Whosoever shall,” let’s see… he’s talking about how that, “How shall they believe except they hear, how shall they hear except someone preach? How shall they preach except they be sent, as the scripture says? How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those that bring their tidings of peace.” So, Paul quotes that in Romans the twelfth chapter.
Now, Isaiah and Nahum lived about the same time, and these verses are quite similar as they… as Isaiah is talking of the future age, and Nahum of the destruction of Nineveh and the glorious news that will come.
O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, [Israel of course is already perished, they’ve already been destroyed by Assyria.] perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off ( Nah 1:15 ).
The Assyrians aren’t gonna come back again; they’ve been utterly cut off. Of course, later on the Babylonians came under Nebuchadnezzar and did destroy Jerusalem. But as far as the Assyrians, they’re utterly cut off. Have any of you met an Assyrian lately? They’ve been cut off. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Nah 1:1
INTRODUCTION
Nah 1:1 . . .
When Jonah, about 100 years previous to Nahum, foretold the overthrow of Nineveh the great royal seat of Assyrian monarchy, the city repented and was spared. Now, having fallen from their repentance, possibly deceived by their rise to world domination, Nineveh receives a written warning of irreversible doom. The repentance has not been continued, neither will the reprieve from judgement.
As we see in the introductory part of the Notes on Nahum, Elkoshite has not been identified by modern archeology, although Jewish tradition situates it at the site of Alkosh, some thirty miles north of the present town of Mosul. The tomb of Nahum (traditional) is venerated there by present day Judaism. Jerome located Elkoshite at the site of Helkesei in Galilee, in his commentary on Nahum. This Helkesei is probably present day ElKauzeh between Rameh and Biut Jebeih. The De Vitis Prophetarum, of the Pseudo-Epiphanius, locates Elkoshite east of the Jordan river near Begabor and connects it with the tribe of Simeon. Nestle concluded that Begabor is to be identified with present day Beit Jibrim in southern Israel.
The important words in this verse are burden of Nineveh and vision of Nahum. They constitute a claim to direct inspiration and a positive identification of the author. The word massa (burden) was most frequently used to denote a threatening prophecy. (e.g. Isaiah 30 and Zec 9:12). The idea seems to be that of a burden laid by God upon Nineveh. The word may also mean to utter forth or call, e.g. Psa 15:3 and 2Ki 9:27.
Paul speaks of the beauty of the feet of those who bring Gods good news (Rom 10:15). There is a certain inherent ugliness about a bearer of the message of doom. There are few if any passages in the Bible to match Nahum for sheer hopelessness.
The book of the vision indicates that Nahum saw the destruction of Nineveh before it actually took place. The terror of Gods wrath cannot be aptly described, it must be experienced for its full deadliness to be grasped.
Zerr: Nahum (Nah 1:1) was one of the minor prophets who wrote about 6 or 7 centuries before Christ. Burden is trom an original that means “an utterance,” and is used here to mean that the prophet has something to say about Nineveh. That was the capital of the Assyrian Empire that was still in power as Nahum wrote. But the Lord gave him a vision of the fate of that nation and he wrote about it in his book. Assyria was the empire that had carried the people of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel off into exile. It was God’s decree that such an event should take place, yet He was incensed at the personal satisfaction that heathen nation got out of Israel’s downfall, and of the unnecessary cruelty that was imposed in connection with the case. As a consequence, It was decreed that Assyria in turn should be made to suffer some reverses. The nation finally fell before the Babylonian power.
Questions
Introduction
1. Jonah prophesied to Nineveh about __________ years before Nahum.
2. How do you explain Gods destruction of Nineveh in view of her repentance at Jonahs preaching?
3. What two phrases in Nah 1:1 establish the work as inspired Scripture?
4. God assures His faithful and loyal people of His __________ and at the same time He pronounces His wrath against Nineveh.
5. What had been Ninevehs past dealing with Israel?
6. Comment on the idea that God is a jealous God.
7. Explain Jehovah is full of wrath!
8. In light of Nah 1:3(b)-7 discuss the power of God.
9. What is meant by the overrunning flood in Nahim Nah 1:8?
10. Show how Ninevehs attempts at self-defense were to prove futile.
11. What sort of person was Sennacherib?
12. What was to become of the gods Nineveh worshipped?
13. Discuss (Nah 1:15) Behold upon the mountain.
14. Discuss (Nah 1:15) keep thy feasts . . . perform thy vows.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The prophet preceded the announcement of a verdict of vengeance by a section dealing wholly with Jehovah Himself. As to His character, He is a God of vengeance, and yet the central fact of His nature is that He is slow to anger.
Under the figure of a storm the prophet set forth the overwhelming majesty of Jehovah. The description of the storm moves in two sections: a hurricane on the sea, a simoon over the land.
He finally described the method of God: toward His friends He is “good, a stronghold”; for His foes, “He will make a full end.”
Addressing himself to Nineveh, the prophet inquired, ‘What do ye imagine against the Lord?” This hints at the deepest sin of Nineveh, namely, that she had set herself up wilfully against the power of God. In answer to his own question, Nahum affirmed the irresistible nature of the judgment which must fall on the city, and finally made his central charge against her, “There is one gone forth out of thee, that imagineth evil against the Lord, that counselleth wickedness.” This charge, in all probability, referred to the blasphemous boasts of Sennacherib, chronicled in Isa 36:18-20; Isa 37:10-13. As other prophets had summoned the nations to attend to God’s controversy with Israel, Nahum addressed himself to the chosen people, declaring that the yoke of Assyria would be broken.
The last word in this first section was addressed to Judah. The verdict of vengeance on Nineveh was an evangel to Judah.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Gods Goodness and Righteous Anger
Nah 1:1-15
The native city of Nahum was Elkosh, near the Lake of Galilee. The name Capernaum means literally the village of Nahum. He lived about 150 years after Jonah, who also had been especially concerned with the sins and doom of Nineveh. Though as a Jew he must have dreaded Nineveh, which had already carried Samaria into captivity and was now menacing Jerusalem, he accounted its fate a grievous burden-the burden of Nineveh. We must never speak of the doom of the ungodly, save from a broken heart.
Nah 1:1-8 forms a magnificent preamble combining the goodness and severity of God. His dealings with mankind are wrapped in mystery, but He is good and the stronghold of His saints. In Nah 1:9-15 we see how mad Assyria was to enter into conflict with Jehovah. The fate of thorns in fiercely burning flame is the emblem of their doom. Compare Nah 1:14 with Isa 37:38. When the hour of anguish is past, let us not forget to pay our vows.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Notes on the Prophecy of Nahum
Chapter 1
Faiths Refuge
Search and look, said the prejudiced Jewish doctors, when summarily disposing of the claims of the Lord Jesus, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. We have already seen, in the case of Jonah, that their positive assertion was unsupported by the evidence of Scripture, to which they so coolly appealed. The son of Amittai was unquestionably out of Galilee. There are the best of reasons for believing the same of Nahum. He is called the Elkoshite; that is, a man from Elkosh, or, as it is sometimes written, Elkesi (ver. 1).
It is well known that there was an Assyrian village on the banks of the Tigris by this name; but Jerome states positively, when he retreated to Palestine from the turmoil of an unfriendly world, that he was shown the site of the Galilean Elkosh where Nahum was reported to have been born.
The prophecy of Nahum bears every evidence of having been delivered in the land prior to the death of Sennacherib, and, therefore, at least a century before the destruction of Nineveh, of which it mainly treats. He was in all likelihood contemporary with Isaiah, and uttered his poetic prediction in the reign of Hezekiah. Nahum was therefore, one can scarcely doubt, a Galilean, who came at the call of God from his northern home to speak words of comfort to the trembling people of the south, whose hearts were in fear because of the Assyrian invasion.
The book seems to divide readily into two parts. Chapter 1 presents the Eternal One as the Rock and Stay of those who confide in Him, whatever the danger that threatens. Locally, it was the army of Sennacherib that seemed about to overwhelm them. But God was above all, as was soon made manifest. Chapters 2 and 3 give the destruction of Nineveh, whence the oppressor had come. The description of the siege and breaking up of the guilty city is a masterpiece of dramatic poetry.
It is of interest to note that both the prophets whose Galilean birth we have commented on had to do largely with Nineveh in their ministry. Jonah was used to the repentance of the generation of his day, about one hundred and fifty years ere Nahum declared the final overthrow of the city because its iniquities had reached unto heaven. In that destruction it is easy to see a picture of the future end of the impious Assyrian of the last days, to which attention has frequently been directed in these notes.
Nahum means Consolation; and consolatory indeed are the precious words of cheer which he was inspired to deliver in this first chapter.
Vengeance belongs to God. To the Thessalonian saints Paul writes, It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you. He is ever watching over His people; and while He permits many things for their discipline, He will never overlook an indignity done to His redeemed. He reserveth wrath for his enemies (ver. 2). Note this: the enemies of His people are His enemies. He makes their cause His own. Faith rests on this, and is thus saved much worry and anxiety. Nature would be alarmed and excited, where faith is calm and quiet. Nature sees the Assyrian armies: faith looks up to the God of battles. The entire 19th and 20th chapters of 2 Kings may be read with profit in this connection, as they describe the actual scenes to which the first part of Nahums prophecy refers.
The third verse contains much that is precious for the afflicted soul, as well as a solemn warning for him who hardens himself against discipline. Slow to wrath, and mighty in power, the Lord cannot pass by iniquity. He will not acquit, or hold guiltless, the wicked. Of old, God had declared to Moses that He was merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty (Exo 34:5-7). Full of love as He is-yea, though He is love itself-yet He is also light: therefore sin must be judged. This is where the cross comes in. But even for men who have found forgiveness there, God will not tolerate unjudged evil; and if we judge not ourselves, we must be judged by Him; for when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world (1Co 11:32). Exo 34:6 is for the sinners warning. Nah 1:3 is for the saints comfort. Yet the principle is the same; for whether in the case of men in general, or of His children in particular, His holy eye passes over nothing till all is judged. But if the whirlwind and the storm seem about to overwhelm, and for the believer the sky seems black with clouds, it is sweet to know that the Lord has His way in all that seems so terrific, and at times so arbitrary. The stormy wind but fulfils His word, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. Look up then, dear tried and perplexed soul; for He is just above those heavy clouds of sorrow. As the dust in the distance betrays the approach of the traveler ere the form is seen upon the dry roadway, so the clouds tell of His near presence who knows all thy griefs and comes in love to dry thy tears. At His word the tempest-tossed sea is rebuked and the rivers of woe assuaged, even as of old He dried up the Red Sea and rolled back the waters of Jordan. All creation must own His power, and all elements yield to His authority. None can stand before His indignation nor abide the day of His wrath. Yet He is good, a fortress in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him (vers. 4-7).
What comfort words like these would be to Hezekiah and his people, shut up in Jerusalem, affrighted and taunted by the arrogant Assyrian, polluting the air with his blasphemies against Jehovah!
Little did Rab-shakeh and Sennacherib know with whom the battle was really to be fought. Little could they realize that Jerusalem would flourish long after Nineveh had become a heap of ruins. In accordance with Isa 10:5 to 19, Nahum foretold in vers. 8 to 10 the very manner in which the imperial city by the Tigris was to be destroyed. Profane history gives its testimony in the record of Ctesias that while a drunken feast was going on, the flood-gates of the city were swept away by a sudden rise of the river, and the palace foundations were thus dissolved. The army of the Babylonians, who had been besieging it for some time, entered by the breach made, and burned it with fire while the inebriated inhabitants sought in vain to escape. See chap. 3:11.
Such should be proud Ninevehs end. Meantime one had come from thence, a counselor of Belial, imagining evil against the Lord (ver. 11). This is Gods description of haughty Sennacherib, who may well be viewed as a type of the last great Assyrian, so often contemplated in the prophecies.
But all his boasting was in vain: Jehovah had permitted his invasion as a chastisement for the sins of Judah. He had observed the effect. Hezekiah and his princes were humbled before Him. Now God would act for them. Though He had afflicted them, He would do so no more. The Assyrian hosts were blasted by the breath of His mouth, and Sennacherib himself basely murdered a short time afterward, as ver. 14 declared he would be, by the hands of his own sons. See Isa 37:36-38.
Freed from the danger that had threatened, Judah could keep her feasts in peace, rejoicing in the appointed ministry of cheer sent by Jehovah. His messengers are spoken of in Isa 52:7 in almost the same language. Possibly Nahum and Isaiah feasted together when the enemy was thus destroyed, and enlargement granted to Judah.
Delivered and exultant, they are called upon to perform their vows, for the host that had but a little before struck terror to their souls would pass through the land no more.
Who can fail to see in all this a wondrous picture of the introduction of millennial blessing when the last coalition against Israel has been overthrown, and the Lord Jesus Himself shall descend with feet beautiful upon the mountains to publish peace that shall no more be disturbed!
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Nah 1:2
I. There are many terms applied to God in Scripture, which seem to anthropomorphize His character: The “angry” God; the “repenting” God; the “foreseeing” God. Now, whenever such terms are used, think of them as steps of Divine descent. Through those words, as down a stairway, Divine Majesty descends to us, and infinite relations make themselves known. “Jealous” is the same word as zealous, and both are derived from the Greek word , fire. Zeal is enthusiasm, moral fire; and jealousy-what is jealousy, but love on fire? And is not this the representation we constantly have of God? And is it possible that to us He could be what He is-love-if it were not so? Jealousy is love on fire, and the jealousy of God is love on fire.
II. From our most innocent down to our most corrupt affections, there is danger that in them, in our haste, we forget God. If you love unwisely and vehemently, whatever it may be, you must accept the consequences as a proof of Divine jealousy. God is jealous of sin; and being jealous of sin, He is jealous of all aberrations from Himself. He is jealous of love, of power, of knowledge. See how He is constantly reminding man of his weakness, as He incarnates his strength. And God is constantly absorbing man’s knowledge, love, and power to Himself.
III. We feel that there is no love where there is no fire; but let it burn with the white, not with the red, heat. Christ was love on fire. God so loved the world that He gave Him. The Cross illustrates the jealousy of God.
E. Paxton Hood, Dark Sayings on a Harp, p. 111.
Reference: Nah 1:2.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 256.
Nah 1:8
The text presents us with two great subjects of meditation: the admirable patience of the Divine Being, and the mysterious and awful character of His providential operations.
I. We believe, from the structure of the passage, that it was the Divine patience which the prophet desired to exhibit, and that he added a reference to the power of God, and His punishment of the wicked, in order to guard men against presuming on His forbearance.
The Divine patience is evidently a property which could not be displayed unless there was sin. There was abundant evidence of the Divine goodness before man transgressed; but none of the Divine patience. When our race rebelled, Divine patience instantly displayed itself. Men were not immediately punished; but, on the contrary, were allowed opportunities of repentance, so that it was evident that vengeance might be deferred, yea, finally averted, and that God was a Being who could restrain His anger, and receive back to favour the creatures by whom He had been provoked. We may safely affirm that the reason why long-suffering was exhibited in the instance of men, though not in that of angels, was that Christ had undertaken to be the surety of human kind, and that, therefore, repentance and forgiveness were possible in the case of the posterity of Adam.
II. Consider the remaining portion of the text, in which the prophet speaks of God in these sublime words: “The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.” God has everything at His disposal, and He accomplishes His purposes, and works out the counsel of His own will, through a varied instrumentality; not only through engines that seem worthy of being employed, but through others, that we might have thought unsuited to His ends; not only through the manifestations of gentleness and benevolence, but through the terrors of the hurricane; whether the hurricane that sweeps the firmament, or the far fiercer and sterner of human rebellion. It ought to come home to us as a beautiful truth that it is not in the calm of the sunshine, or in the pleasant breeze, that the Lord is said to have His way, but in those furious ebullitions, those tremendous concussions, which spread terror and ruin far and wide. It may have been a wild tempest which hath swept over you, casting down what you had been long in rearing, and blighting what you have long fondly cherished; but the Lord hath His way in that tempest. It could not have raged without His permission, and He gave that permission because He loved you and wished to do you good.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit. No. 317.
References: Nah 1:3.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii., No. 137; vol. i., No. 36; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 53; Outline Sermons to Children, p. 113. Nah 1:7.-Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 345. Nah 1:10.-G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 157.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Analysis and Annotations
CHAPTER 1
The Purpose of God in Dealing with the Assyrian Oppressor
1. The superscription (Nah 1:1)
2. Jehovahs majesty in judgment (Nah 1:2-6)
3. His people comforted and assured (Nah 1:7-13)
4. The judgment of Assyria and the result (Nah 1:14-15)
Nah 1:1. The burden of Nineveh; it means that there is to follow a weighty prophetic oracle concerning the great world city of Nineveh whose dimensions are given by Jonah, which have been confirmed by excavations. The next sentence gives us the definite information that what follows in the book is the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Nah 1:2-6. It is a sublime description. God is a jealous God. The jealousy of God has for its source the love of His elect people. (See Zec 1:1-21.) For thou shalt worship no other god; for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God Exo 34:14. He is jealous over His people lest they serve other gods. And because He is a jealous God, a holy, a sin-hating God, He must be an avenger of what is against His character. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and reserveth wrath for His enemies. Destructive criticism has invented an infidel theory as if the God of wrath and vengeance were the product of the mind of man, and that Jehovah is some tribal deity, corresponding to the tribal gods of the surrounding heathen nations. Thus criticism rejects the Jehovah of the Bible and invents its own god, rejecting the threatenings of coming wrath and judgment as taught in the Old Testament and in the New in connection with the coming of the Lord, branding these revelations the result of the false apocalyptic teachings of the Jews. God is the God of Love, as much as He is the God of Wrath. He must be that or He would not be the God of Light and Holiness. He cannot afford to let evil go on forever. He is the Lord slow to anger. His patience is great, but He will not acquit the guilty, who continue to sin and do evil. Nah 1:2 and Nah 1:3 describe His righteous government. Then follows a beautiful poetic description of His majesty, a description suited to the finite mind of man.
In whirlwind and storm is His way, And clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea and drieth it up And empties all the rivers. Carmel, Bashan, and Lebanon are thinned out, And the Flower of Lebanon languisheth. Mountains quake before Him And all the hills melt away; And the earth is consumed in His presence, The world and all that dwell therein. Before His indignation who can stand? And who can abide His fierce anger? His fury is poured out like fire. And the rocks are thrown down by Him.
What to the mind of man is more imposing than the towering storm-clouds, and what more terrifying than the onrushing whirlwind, which lays low the forest? Man, the creature of the dust, steps upon the dust of the earth, to which man returns in the hour of death. But Jehovah has the clouds as the dust of His feet. If He arises in His righteous wrath all will be swept before Him, and the mountains, symbolical of the kingdoms of the earth, will quake before Him, and the pride of man will be humbled in the dust. Isa 2:1-22.
Nah 1:7-13. While in the foregoing section God speaks of His own character in dealing with evil, He now gives comfort and assurance to those who trust in Him, that is, to His people. He knoweth them, the comfort all His people have at all times, the Lord knoweth them that are His, and as our Lord said, I know my sheep. For such the Lord is good and a stronghold in the day of trouble. But His enemies will feel His wrath. But with an overrunning flood He will make an utter end of the place thereof (Nineveh) and darkness will pursue His enemies.
In the prophetic application we must look beyond the horizon of Nahums time and the judgment of Nineveh. The day of the Lord brings the final overthrow of the proud world powers, and the remnant of His people will have in the Lord a refuge, while the judgment floods sweep over the earth (see Psa 46:1-11) .
On the ninth verse many expositors have erred in their interpretation. It is also addressed to Israel. What do ye imagine against the LORD? Do you imagine that the Lord is not going to do it? Will He repent of His judgment purpose? No! He who has spoken will make an utter end, and to His people it is spoken affliction shall not rise up the second time.
Then a description of the Assyrian in Nah 1:10. They are entangled like thorns, so that they will find no escape when the judgment overtakes them, while they are drunk with wine in their carousings. Like the dry stubble are they to be devoured. Rab-shakeh, as mentioned in our introduction, is the one who came out of Assyria against Jerusalem with evil imaginations. The better translation of Nah 1:12 is, Though they be strong, and likewise many, even so shall they be cut down, and he (the Assyrian) shall pass away.
The second half of the twelfth verse concerns His people. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. One can see at once that the no more demands a future fulfillment. For, while it is true, the Assyrian did no longer afflict Israel, yet affliction upon affliction has been their lot. But there comes the day when all afflictions will cease. For now I will break his yoke (the yoke of the Assyrian) from off thee (Israel) and I will burst thy bonds asunder.
Nah 1:14-15. The fourteenth verse gives the judgment commandment as to Assyria and Nineveh. They are vile, and the God who declared His character in the beginning of this message, is going to act accordingly.
The result is stated in the last verse of this chapter. Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows; for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off. The prophet beholds how the messengers rush over the mountains with the good news. Judah and Jerusalem are delivered. Peace has come. Praise and thanksgiving are heard in Zion.
We must not overlook the similar passage in Isa 52:7. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! … Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD hath comforted His people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. This was spoken in connection with Babylons overthrow, but its wider application and meaning is future. The overthrow of Babylon and Nineveh did not result in the glorious things spoken of by Isaiah and Nahum. Not then did the ends of the earth see the salvation of God, nor was Jerusalem redeemed, nor God as King enthroned in Zion. It is all yet to come. When that day comes, the messengers will go forth from Jerusalem and declare the good tidings to the nations of the world. The good news of the kingdom will be heralded far and wide, in the beginning of the millennium, and then the abiding, abundant peace will come, so that all the nations see the salvation of the God of Israel. The wicked, opposing powers of the world will then be no more.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Nineveh
Nineveh stands in Scripture as the representative of apostate religious Gentiledom, as Babylon represents the confusion into which the Gentile political world-system has fallen Dan 2:41-43, (See Scofield “Isa 13:1”), Under the preaching of Jonah, B.C. 862, the city and king had turned to God (Elohim), Jon 3:3-10 But in the time of Nahum, more than a century later, the city had wholly apostatized from God. It is this which distinguishes Nineveh from all the other ancient Gentile cities, and which makes her the suited symbol of the present religious Gentile world-system in the last day. Morally, Nineveh is described in Rom 1:21-23. The chief deity of apostate Nineveh was the bull-god, with the face of a man and the wings of a bird: “an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts.”
The message of Nahum, uttered about one hundred years before the destruction of Nineveh, is, therefore, not a call to repentance, but an unrelieved warning of judgment: “He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.” Nah 1:9; see, also, Nah 3:10. For there is no remedy for apostasy but utter judgment, and a new beginning. Cf.; Isa 1:4; Isa 1:5; Isa 1:24-28; Heb 6:4-8; Pro 29:1.
It is the way of God; apostasy is punished by catastrophic destruction. Of this the flood and the destruction of Nineveh are witnesses. The coming destruction of apostate Christendom is foreshadowed by these. (Cf) Dan 2:34; Dan 2:35; Luk 17:26; Luk 17:27; Rev 19:17-21.
burden See note 1, (See Scofield “Isa 13:1”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
burden: Isa 13:1, Isa 14:28, Isa 15:1, Isa 21:1, Isa 22:1, Isa 23:1, Jer 23:33-37, Zec 9:1
Nineveh: Gen 10:11, Jon 3:3, Jon 3:4, Zep 2:13
Reciprocal: Deu 32:16 – provoked 2Ki 9:25 – the Lord 2Ki 19:36 – Nineveh Isa 1:1 – vision Isa 32:19 – the city shall be low Isa 37:37 – Nineveh Jer 28:8 – prophesied Jer 50:18 – as I Jon 1:2 – Nineveh Nah 1:8 – the place Hab 1:1 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
NAHUM: A STUDY
The vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Nah 1:1
It may be affirmed, without fear of contradiction, that the Book of the prophet Nahum is amongst the least known and studied of all the prophetical books of the Old Testament. Why this should be the case it is not so easy to say, for as a poet Nahum occupies a very high place in Hebrew literature. His style is clear, forcible, and picturesque, his diction sonorous, rhythmical, and majestic; and the entire prophecy, which is one connected whole, is thoroughly original, intensely interesting, and indicative of great poetic talent.
Nothing is known of Nahum save what he himself tells us. His name means rich in mercy, or rich in courtesy. He appears to have been a man of some distinction, as the town of Capernaum is generally considered to have received its name from him.
The time when the prophecy was written is also matter of dispute. Internal evidence points to the latter years of Hezekiahs reign. The condition of Assyria in the time of Sennacherib corresponds with the state of things so graphically described in the prophecy, and it is probable that this description was written by Nahum in or near Jerusalem, where he might have seen with his own eyes the valiant men in scarlet, the chariots flashing with steel, and the spears shaken terribly.
I. The picture which he presents to us is in striking accord with the Assyrian sculptures and inscriptions.The luxury and magnificence of the inhabitants of Nineveh are noted, but also he exhibits the Assyrian as a nation delighting in war, constantly engaged in a series of aggressions upon his neighbours. He shows us the army divided into distinct corps, the most important of which are the chariots and the horsemen. He speaks of the flashing sword and glittering spear as the chief weapons, and mentions the movable forts, which we see depicted frequently on the sculptured monuments by those artists who love to represent the favourite habits and practices of the Assyrians.
II. The whole Book contains but one prophecy.There is a unity of aim throughout; and a beautiful sequence of thought is apparent from beginning to end, with only three resting-places, well indicated by the division of chapters.
The prophet introduces his subject to us as a vision vouchsafed to him by the Almighty, and he records what he has seen in the Spirit, for the comforting and strengthening of his people in the midst of their heavy sorrow and deep distress.
What folly, what madness, to fight against the Lord! What plans canst thou, O Assyrian, think out against Him? True, thou hast conquered many nations, ruthlessly demolishing their chief cities, and the gods of these nations delivered them not out of thine hand (Isa 37:12). But these were false gods. Now thou hast to deal with the God of Israel, the very and true God, the only God. He will make a full end of thee. So utter will be the destruction that it will not be necessary to strike a second time. Thine armies shall be consumed like thorn-bushes gathered together for burning. Even though they be drenched, as it were, in their drink, they shall be as stubble fully dry.
Hitherto the prophet had spoken in his own name; now he confirms his statement by declaring that God Himself has so spoken: Thus saith the Lord. The same truths which the prophet declared are now repeated. Though Nineveh be in her full strength, in the height of her power, boasting in her security from harm, trusting in her vast resources and the countless multitudes of her inhabitants, yet she shall pass away, and this passing away shall be through the great affliction with which Nineveh should be afflicted, so great that there should be no need for its repetition.
III. In the midst of judgment the Lord remembers mercy, and therefore turns away for a brief moment from the Assyrian to address words of comfort and consolation to Judah, to strengthen and encourage His oppressed people when the ruin now threatened should become an accomplished fact.He would make all things work together for their good, if they would but put their trust in Him. Ninevehs yoke had been a burden almost too heavy for Judah to bear.
IV. When he had spoken this word of encouragement to Israel, the prophet turns again to Nineveh.He gives the reason why she, who is addressed as the wicked one, shall no more pass through Israel to disturb. She must look to her own defences, she must prepare herself against the invader, for he that dasheth in pieces is even now at hand, his army drawn up in battle-array before her very face. The prophet calls on Nineveh to watch the way, to fortify her power, but he speaks ironically, knowing well that all her preparations should be in vain, because the time for her destruction was at hand. How graphically does the prophet describe the whole scene! All passes in vision before the eyes of his mind. He speaks as though he were an eye-witness of the battle, the siege, and the final assault in which Nineveh became the prey of all those horrors which usually befell in those days a conquered city given over to plunder. He sees in vision the burnished bronze shields reflecting the suns rays, the chariots flashing with steel, the spears shaken and deftly hurled. In vain the Assyrian chariots rush to the rescue; in vain does the great king rely on his worthies; in vain do the best of his warriors man the walls. They can make no stand against the battering-rams of the enemy. The gates yield; the Medes pour in through them; the palace is in the hands of the foe, the queen a prisoner, the people fugitives. A few make a last desperate effort to retrieve the day by throwing themselves in the way of those who had taken to flight. Stand, say they; close up your ranks, citizens, soldiers of a country that has never been conquered. Why yield now? why turn your backs? In vain. They cannot induce them to return. The flight becomes general; the city is taken; the maidens are carried away mourning as with the voice of doves, beating their breasts in anguish.
As the prophet contemplates the ruins, he exclaims, Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions? The questions were asked in amazement, so incredible did it seem that this great Assyrian capital, now in the full tide of her glory and grandeur, the oppressor and corrupter of nations, should so soon become a charred and blackened ruin. Nay, so complete should be the overthrow that the very site would not be known. But Jehovah was against Nineveh. Her iniquities were filled up. The time of her punishment was at hand.
V. The third chapter introduces the reader again into the very midst of the fight.The prophet repeats what he had said in the closing verses of the preceding chapter. He states the cause of Ninevehs downfall, and adds that her fall will be unpitied and unlamented. Again we hear the solemn words, Behold, I am against thee. But there are new features added. As we read we seem to hear the sound of the whips and the rattling of the wheels; we see the horses rushing on to battle, men mounting, swords flashing, spears glittering, and the last decisive stand marked by the number of the slain, the heaps of carcases, and the piled-up corpses. Oh, how vast was the overthrow, and in her distress there were none to bemoan her, none to comfort her. Nay, all that hear should clap their hands, and all who look on her should say, Nineveh is laid waste; who will bemoan her?
Then the author himself, giving expression to his own pitiless thoughts, says, Did not No-Amon perish without mercy and without one to comfort her? She, like Nineveh, was built on the rivers bank, surrounded by water, protected by her very position, the sea forming a rampart, and Ethiopia and Egypt, her allies, close at hand to aid and assist, Put and Lubim likewise ready to help, but all in vain. Art thou then better than No-Amon, which, notwithstanding her strength and the apparently impregnable character of her position, miserably perished? No-Amons fate is an illustration, a prophecy, of thine. Thy shepherds,i.e. the princes and captains of the peopleslumber. They sleep at their posts. The sheep are scattered. There is no hope. So deadly is the wound, there is no assuaging of thy hurt. Instead of this great overthrow exciting pity or causing sorrow, all rejoice. All had suffered, all had been oppressed, for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually? Therefore, all who hear the report of the catastrophe will clap their hands in joy, seeing in thy fall a just retribution of Heaven.
Rev. J. J. Dillon.
Illustration
This is the doom of a city which was proud and overbearing and oppressive. It was not merely with the Nineveh of Old Testament times, it is with cities and communities to-day, that the God of righteousness takes to do. There is much in my native land to fill me with satisfaction and joy. I am glad to be a citizen of Britain, this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea. Surely, mine is the queen of commonwealths and empires. But there is much, too, in my country to awaken in me concern and penitence and misgiving, if I am a Christian man. The greed of gain, the overweening self-reliance, the national sins which inflict so dark a stain, the irreligiousness, the failure to ask in public affairs for the will and commandment of Christ, the forgetfulness of all Gods benefits in the past and in the present: these things should make me blush, and should send me to my knees in confession and prayer. The Lord preserve Britain from the destruction which swept Nineveh away. The Lord sanctify the social and political and commercial life of Britain, that she may be free from Ninevehs unbelief and evil.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Nah 1:1. Nahum was one of the minor prophets who wrote about 6 or 7 centuries before Christ. Burden is trom an original that means “an utterance,” and is used here to mean that the prophet has something to say about Nineveh. That was the capital of the Assyrian Empire that was still in power as Nahum wrote. But the Lord gave him a vision of the fate of that nation and he wrote about it in his book. Assyria was the empire that had carried the people of the 10-tribe kingdom of Israel off into exile. It was God’s decree that such an event should take place, yet He was incensed at the personal satisfaction that heathen nation got out of Israel’s downfall, and of the unnecessary cruelty that was imposed in connection with the case. As a consequence, It was decreed that Assyria in turn should be made to suffer some reverses. The nation finally fell before the Babylonian power.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Nah 1:1. The burden of Nineveh Of Nineveh, see note on Jon 3:3. When the prophets were sent to denounce judgments against a nation, or city, their message, or prophecy, was usually called the burden of that people, or place: see note on Isa 13:1. The book of the vision As prophets were of old called seers, so their prophecies were called visions: of Nahum Nahum, according to St. Jerome, signifies a comforter: for the ten tribes being carried away by the king of Assyria, this vision was to comfort them in their captivity: nor was it less a consolation to the other two tribes, who remained in the land, and had been besieged by the same enemies, to hear that these conquerors would in time be conquered themselves, their city taken, and their empire overthrown. Bishop Newton.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Nah 1:1. The burden of NinevehNahum the Elkoshite. This refers to a village of Galilee, the native place of Nahum, who in point of talent was among the first of the Hebrew prophets. Yet nothing of his work is preserved, except these grand predictions against Nineveh. After Jonahs mission, this city became more prosperous and wicked than before. It obtained a sort of sovereignty over Babylon, became the grand seat of empire in the east, and at the time when Nebuchadnezzar in the first year of his reign joined the Medes, and blotted it out from under heaven, it can hardly be thought to contain less than a million of souls. The Tigris washed and defended its western shore for seventeen miles. The present city of Mosul now stands on the opposite side of the river, northwest of its ruins. It communicates with a bridge; and some say, it was the suburbs of ancient Nineveh, whose early history has already been stated in the Reflections on Jonah 1, 2.
This once great city not only perished, but it is destitute of a historian to recite its glory, and lament its fall. Herodotus says it was taken by the Medes and the Babylonians, and he promised to write a history of the empire, but probably for want of materials he never performed his purpose. Velleius Paterculus writes, that the Assyrians maintained the sovereignty of Asia for seventeen hundred years. Ctesias says, thirteen hundred and sixty; and Justin, thirteen hundred. Sardanapalus was the last of the Assyrian kings, and the thirtieth, or the thirty third monarch who had swayed the sceptre in Nineveh. This man was more effeminate than any woman, and secluded himself in his palace and pleasure gardens with his concubines. Arbaces, lieutenant of the Medes, having gained admission into the imperial presence with much ado, found him spinning with the ladies, and assigning them their tasks. The noble Mede, thinking it a disgrace that so many nations should be subject to so mean a man, threw off the yoke. His example was followed by the Persians and the Babylonians. He was defeated however, in three successive battles. The last of the three was near the city. And while the army of Nineveh were feasting and rejoicing for the victory, the allied armies came upon them unawares by night, routed them while in disorder, and drove them into the city. I think however that Nebuchadnezzar was but a prince when Nineveh fell. Tob 14:15.
The siege, which it appears was once raised, continued till the third year. The king of Nineveh sent to the principal nations of his empire to support him with armies; but they, being all animated with the love of liberty, joined the revolt. And what more signally marks the hand of heaven in the overthrow of the city is, that in the third year there happened an unusual flood, which washed away the walls for the space of two miles and a half. This enabled the assailants to enter the breach, and burn this proud and impenitent city. The credulous king, relying on an old adage, or prophecy, that the city could not be taken till the river became its enemy, deemed all lost; and making a huge funeral pile in his palace, perished with his eunuchs, his wives, and his wealth in the flames. Thus great Nineveh, the rival of Babylon, fell to rise no more. It sunk into neglect and decay, and was ultimately altogether forsaken. Some remains of the modern Nineveh may yet be seen; but Lucien affirms that old Nineveh was so utterly overthrown, that no traces of it remained, and that no one can exactly say where it stood.
The burden of Nineveh; that is, the prophecy, the proverb, or song concerning the fall of Nineveh. The word may properly be rendered burden, because it was a curse. It signifies also to take up a proverb or speech against any person or place. It farther means, to bear or carry a message; and in that sense it agrees with the Hebrew word Sebel to bear, whence the word Sibyl is obviously derived.
Nah 1:3. The Lord is slow to anger, having borne with Nineveh for thirteen hundred years.
Nah 1:8. With an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place. The Tigris actually washed away the walls of Nineveh, as above stated, and thus opened the way for the assailants to enter the city, and make an utter end of the place.
Nah 1:9. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. When the Lord shall punish Nineveh, he will do it once for all, by a final overthrow of the city and empire.
REFLECTIONS.
The fall of the Assyrian monarchy, called by Isaiah the bloody Assyrians, was an event of great moment to the jews, and highly instructive to all nations in regard to the retributions of providence. Hence, the Lord by Isaiah, chap. 10., and by Zephaniah, chap. 2., and here at large by Nahum, invites the church to contemplate the terrible characters of his justice, when an impious nation had wantoned in the abuse of mercy. Besides, prophecy exhibits a thousand instances of the divine care over the church, and enables the faithful to rejoice in the prospect of salvation.
This prophecy is an epitome of a regular epic poem, often sublime, always glowing and coloured in thought, and conducted with great force and beauty in the expression. Addressing a guilty nation, the exordium opens with a grand display of the perfections of God, who approached the Ninevites with vengeance. He is jealous, revengeful, and furious: yet he is slow to anger, having indulged Nineveh with a vast lapse of years between her early crimes, and her protracted punishment. However, as the repentance occasioned by Jonahs mission was but a breathing from the course of crimes, God will by no means acquit the wicked at his bar. His slumbering justice is collecting clouds to approach in the whirlwind of destruction. He who had dried up Carmel in the days of Elijah, and kindled the forest in drought, now came to Nineveh with a torrent of invasion, and literally with a torrent of the Tigris which washed away the wall. How just and striking are the visitations of providence. Nineveh which had invaded so many nations must now be invaded. Nineveh which had oppressed the helpless must now be destitute of help. Nineveh which had removed so many captives must now be removed in turn.
Her fall was aggravated with the severest strokes of irony and satire, in planning the expedition of Sennacherib against Jerusalem and its God. What do ye imagine against the Lord? What, you form plans against heaven! Behold, while your princes are perplexed, and while your army is drunk, the enemy shall rush upon your camp, and your city and your palace shall be as a pile of thorns ready for the torch.
When the Lord speaks terribly to the wicked, he speaks comfortably to the righteous. So verse the twelfth, as Newcome reads, Thus saith the Lord: though the ruler of many waters have thus ravaged and thus passed through, and I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. Now I will break his yoke from off thee. Yea, already behold on the mountains the messenger running with tidings of the fall of Nineveh. Therefore, oh Judah, keep the feasts. Thy worship shall no more be disturbed by the Assyrian; he shall no more blaspheme thy God, and boast of having licked up rivers with his feet. And then, oh Judah, making a pleasing transition from temporal to spiritual deliverance, the feet of thy Messiah will soon appear on the mountains with the glad tidings of his kingdom and his love. Yea, and in the glory of the latter day he will come to convert, or to destroy all thy foes. Then thou shalt keep thy feast; for he will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Nah 1:1. Title.On the name and home of Nahum, cf. Introduction
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
1:1 The {a} burden of Nineveh. {b} The book of the vision of Nahum the {c} Elkoshite.
(a) Read Geneva “Isa 13:1”
(b) The vision or revelation, which God commanded Nahum to write concerning the Ninevites.
(c) That is, born in a poor village in the tribe of Simeon.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
I. HEADING 1:1
The writer introduced this book as an oracle concerning Nineveh. An oracle is a message from Yahweh that usually announces judgment. It is sometimes called a "burden" because it frequently contains a message that lay heavy on the prophet’s heart and came across as a "heavy" message. In this case it is a "war-oracle." [Note: Longman, pp. 771, 786.] This book records the vision that Nahum the Elkoshite received from the Lord.
"Having been founded by Nimrod (Gen 10:8-12), Nineveh had a long history. It was located on the east bank of the Tigris River, which formed the western and southern boundaries of the city. A wall extended for eight miles around the northern and eastern boundaries. The section of the city within the walls was nearly three miles in diameter at its greatest width, and it held a population that has been estimated to have been as high as 150,000. The three days’ walk required to traverse Nineveh (. . . Jon 3:3) is no exaggeration." [Note: Charles H. Dyer, in The Old Testament Explorer, p. 796.]
As noted above, the location of Elkosh is presently uncertain. The two most likely general locations are Mesopotamia or Canaan. I tend to think that Elkosh was in Judah since all the other Old Testament prophets were from Canaan, and Nahum prophesied during the history of the surviving kingdom of Judah (ca. 650 B.C.).
Nahum evidently used "Nineveh," the capital of the Assyrian Empire, to stand for the whole empire in some places as well as for the city in others. In some texts the city is definitely in view, as is obvious from the fulfillment of the prophecy, but in others all of Assyria seems to be in view. It is common, especially in prophetical and poetical parts of the Old Testament, for the writers to use the names of prominent cities to represent their countries. The most frequent example is the use of Jerusalem in place of Judah or even all Israel. This is an example of the common figure of speech called metonymy in which a writer uses the name of one thing for that of another associated with or suggested by it.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD
Nah 1:1-15
THE prophet Nahum, as we have seen, arose probably in Judah, if not about the same time as Zephaniah and Jeremiah, then a few years later. Whether he prophesied before or after the great Reform of 621 we have no means of deciding. His book does not reflect the inner history, character, or merits of his generation. His sole interest is the fate of Nineveh. Zephaniah had also doomed the Assyrian capital, yet he was much more concerned with Israels unworthiness of the opportunity presented to them. The yoke of Asshur, he saw, was to be broken, but the same cloud which was bursting from the north upon Nineveh must overwhelm the incorrigible people of Jehovah. For this Nahum has no thought. His heart, for all its bigness, holds room only for the bitter memories, the baffled hopes, the unappeased hatreds of a hundred years. And that is why we need not be anxious to fix his date upon one or other of the shifting phases of Israels history during that last quarter of the seventh century. For he represents no single movement of his fickle peoples progress, but the passion of the whole epoch then drawing to a close. Nahums book is one great At Last!
And, therefore, while Nahum is a worse prophet than Zephaniah, with less conscience and less insight, he is a greater poet, pouring forth the exultation of a people long enslaved, who see their tyrant ready for destruction. His language is strong and brilliant; his rhythm rumbles and rolls, leaps and flashes, like the horsemen and chariots he describes. It is a great pity the text is so corrupt. If the original lay before us, and that full knowledge of the times which the excavation of ancient Assyria may still yield to us, we might judge Nahum to be an even greater poet than we do.
We have seen that there are some reasons for doubting whether he wrote the first chapter of the book, but no one questions its fitness as an introduction to the exultation over Ninevehs fall in chapters 2 and 3. The chapter is theological, affirming those general principles of Divine Providence, by which the overthrow of the tyrant is certain and Gods own people are assured of deliverance. Let us place ourselves among the people, who for so long a time had been thwarted, crushed, and demoralized by the most brutal empire which was ever suffered to roll its force across the world, and we shall sympathize with the author, who for the moment will feel nothing about his God, save that He is a God of vengeance. Like the grief of a bereaved man, the vengeance of an enslaved people has hours sacred to itself. And this people had such a God! Jehovah must punish the tyrant, else were He untrue. He had been patient, and patient, as a verse seems to hint, just because He was omnipotent, but in the end He must rise to judgment. He was God of heaven and earth, and it is the old physical proofs of His power, so often appealed to by the peoples of the East, for they feel them as we cannot, which this hymn calls up as Jehovah sweeps to the overthrow of the oppressor. “Before such power of wrath who may stand? What think ye of Jehovah?” The God who works with such ruthless, absolute force in nature will not relax in the fate He is preparing for Nineveh. “He is one who maketh utter destruction,” not needing to raise up His forces a second time, and as stubble before fire so His foes go down before Him. No half-measures are His, Whose are the storm, the drought, and the earthquake.
Such is the sheer religion of the Proem to the Book of Nahum-thoroughly Oriental in its sense of Gods method and resources of destruction; very Jewish, and very natural to that age of Jewish history, in the bursting of its long-pent hopes of revenge. We of the West might express these hopes differently. We should not attribute so much personal passion to the Avenger. With our keener sense of law, we should emphasize the slowness of the process, and select for its illustration the forces of decay rather than those of sudden ruin. But we must remember the crashing times in which the Jews lived. The world was breaking up. The elements were loose, and all that Gods own people could hope for was the bursting of their yoke, with a little shelter in the day of trouble. The elements were loose, but amidst the blind crash the little people knew that Jehovah knew them.
“A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah; Jehovah is avenger and lord of wrath; Vengeful is Jehovah towards His enemies, And implacable He to His foes.”
“Jehovah is long-suffering and great in might, Yet He will not absolve. Jehovah! His way is in storm and in hurricane, And clouds are the dust of His feet. He curbeth the sea, and drieth it up; All the streams hath He parched. Withered be Bashan and Carmel”;
“The bloom of Lebanon is withered. Mountains have quaked before Him, And the hills have rolled down. Earth heaved at His presence, The world and all its inhabitants. Before His rage who may stand, Or who abide in the glow of His anger? His wrath pours forth like fire, And rocks are rent before Him.”
“Good is Jehovah to them that wait upon Him in the day of trouble, And He knoweth them that trust Him. With an overwhelming flood He makes an end of His rebels, And His foes He comes down on with darkness”.
“What think ye of Jehovah? He is one that makes utter destruction; Not twice need trouble arise. For though they be like plaited thorns, And sodden as They shall be consumed like dry stubble”.
“Came there not out of thee one to plan evil against Jehovah, A counselor of mischief?”
“Thus saith Jehovah many waters, yet shall they be cut off and pass away, and I will so humble thee that I need humble thee no more; and Jehovah hath ordered concerning thee, that no more of thy seed be sown: from the house of thy God, I will cut off graven and molten images. I will make thy sepulchre”
Disentangled from the above verses are three which plainly refer not to Assyria but to Judah. How they came to be woven among the others we cannot tell. Some of them appear applicable to the days of Josiah after the great Reform.
“And now will I break his yoke from upon thee, And burst thy bonds asunder.”
“Lo, upon the mountains the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, That publisheth peace! Keep thy feasts, O Judah, fulfill thy vows:”
“For no more shall the wicked attempt to pass through thee; Cut off is the whole of him. For Jehovah hath turned the pride of Jacob, Like to the pride of Israel For the plunderers plundered them, And destroyed their vine branches.”