Nahum 1:1-15--God's Wrath Against Nineveh

Nahum 1
English Standard Version

1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.

God's Wrath Against Nineveh
2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God;
    the LORD is avenging and wrathful;
the LORD  takes vengeance on his adversaries
    and keeps wrath for his enemies.
3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power,
    and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
    and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
    he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
    the bloom of Lebanon withers.
5 The mountains quake before him;
    the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
    the world and all who dwell in it.

6 Who can stand before his indignation?
    Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
    and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
7 The LORD is good,
    a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
8     But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
    and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
9 What do you plot against the LORD?
    He will make a complete end;
    trouble will not rise up a second time.
10 For they are like entangled thorns,
    like drunkards as they drink;
    they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
11 From you came one
    who plotted evil against the LORD,
    a worthless counselor.

12 Thus says the LORD,
“Though they are at full strength and many,
    they will be cut down and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
    I will afflict you no more.
13 And now I will break his yoke from off you
    and will burst your bonds apart.”

14 The LORD has given commandment about you:
    “No more shall your name be perpetuated;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
    the carved image and the metal image.
I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

15 Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him
    who brings good news,
    who publishes peace!
Keep your feasts, O Judah;
    fulfill your vows,
for never again shall the worthless pass through you;
    he is utterly cut off.

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The book of Nahum is only three chapters, but, as promised when talking about the book of Jonah, it wraps up the story about the city of Nineveh and what happened to the people there (and why it took us so long to find any remnants of that massive city that would seem like it should have been easy to find).  Actually, for years, the city and people of Nineveh were mocked by secular archeologists who refused to believe the prophecies of the book of Nahum as an explanation for what happened to that city and culture.  Yet, we have recently found the city, destroyed exactly as the book of Nahum prophesied.  This should be a lesson to anyone who points to a yet undiscovered civilization as evidence against the Bible as every time this has happened in the past, the Bible has been right and the critics have had to eat crow (or move on to something new and pretend they never took their position).

The people of the northern kingdom have been crying out for the LORD to avenge them, and the LORD tells that that He has seen everything, is jealous of them and will avenge them.  Those who are His adversaries will feel His wrath.  His eye is on all people, including those that think they are far off from Him and call Him their enemy.  Though His eye is on His people to protect and bless them, His eye is on His enemies to account for all their evil and make sure they get a just punishment.

The LORD is the same one who can cause the Red Sea to dry up so His people can cross and dry ground and cause the Egyptians to become stuck in what had been dry ground and the sea closed in on top of them.  What was a mighty empire fell in a single day because they hardened their hearts and mad the LORD hand His people their enemy.  This is the same LORD who dried up the Jordan River so that His people could cross over into the Promised Land and defeat all of the Canaanite to bring judgment upon them.  He will once again move heaven and earth if necessary to save His people--this time from an even greater enemy.

Will any stand before Him in His Day of Wrath and survive?  Only those who belong to the LORD can be saved from the fury of His wrath.  Not even the mighty people of Nineveh are strong enough to oppose Him.  However, isn't it good to know that if you belong to the LORD, you have nothing to fear from Him?  In that Day, it will be the day of their salvation, not a day of wrath and judgment.  He will put an end to all the adversaries of His people and they will never again live in fear of either war or exile.  The wicked can only live in a fantasy land compared to that of a drunkard pretending that the Day of LORD will never come, and they surround themselves with foolish counselors that tell them the lies that they wish to hear.  Therefore, that Day of Judgment will come as a surprise to them.

The LORD is not impressed with the might or size of the army of the Ninevites.  They day is coming when the LORD will no longer afflict Israel and will set them free, but when that day comes, judgment will already have come for Nineveh, and they will have been utterly destroyed.  No more will people speak of them or their gods (this was true and why it was so hard for the archeologist to believe that they had been the great and powerful civilization mentioned in the Bible).  The nations would see how vile the people of Nineveh were and would celebrate the judgment that the LORD was bringing upon them (some of them not thinking that they were probably worthy of similar judgment and many of them likewise would be destroyed).

The day is coming when there will be a message of peace and blessing spread through the Beautiful Land again.  It is now the responsibility of the people of Judah (whom this message is given to) to keep the worthless men from the outside out and to expel the worthless men from within. This is to be a sign of how such worthless men are cut off from the LORD, His blessing and His kingdom not just in the here and now, but in an eternal sense.