A revelation about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies. Yahweh is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Yahweh has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan languishes, and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon languishes. The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him. Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. What do you plot against Yahweh? He will make a full end. Affliction won’t rise up the second time. For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble. There is one gone out of you, who devises evil against Yahweh, who counsels wickedness. Yahweh says: “Though they be in full strength, and likewise many, even so they will be cut down, and he shall pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Now I will break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds apart.” Yahweh has commanded concerning you: “No more descendants will bear your name. Out of the house of your gods, I will cut off the engraved image and the molten image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.”
Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, Judah! Perform your vows, for the wicked one will no more pass through you. He is utterly cut off.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The time in which Nahum prophesied cannot with certainty…
The time in which Nahum prophesied cannot with certainty be known. The Hebrews, ever bold in conjectures, say that he discharged his office of teaching under Manasseh, and that the name of that king was suppressed, because he was unworthy of such an honor, or, because his reign was unfortunate, as he had been led into captivity. When any one asks the Jews a reason, they only say, that it appears so to them. As then there is no reason for this conjecture, we must come to what seems probable.
They who think that he prophesied under Jotham are no doubt mistaken, and can easily be disproved; for he here threatens ruin to the city Nineveh because the Assyrians had cruelly laid waste the kingdom of Israel; and it is for these wrongs that he denounces vengeance: but under Jotham the kingdom of Israel had not been laid waste. We indeed know that the Assyrians were suborned by Ahab, when he found himself unequal to resist the attacks of two neighboring kings, the king of Syria, and the king of Israel. It was then that the Assyrians penetrated into the land of Israel, and in course of time, they desolated the whole kingdom. At this period it was that Nahum prophesied; for it was his object to show, that God had a care for that kingdom, on account of his adoption or covenant; though the Israelites had perfidiously separated themselves from the people of God, yet God’s covenant remained in force. His design then was to show, that God was the father and protector of that kingdom. As this was the Prophet’s object, it is certain that he taught either after the death of Ahab under Hezekiah, or about that time.
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He followed Jonah at some distance, as we may easily learn. Jonah, as we have already seen, pronounced a threatening on the city Nineveh; but the punishment was remitted, because the Ninevites humbled themselves, and suppliantly deprecated the punishment which had been announced. They afterwards returned to their old ways, as it is usually the case. Hence it was, that God became less disposed to spare them. Though indeed they were aliens, yet God was pleased to show them favor by teaching them through the ministry and labors of Jonah: and their repentance was not altogether feigned. Since then they were already endued with some knowledge of the true God, the less excusable was their cruelty, when they sought to oppress the kingdom of Israel. They indeed knew, that that nation was sacred to God: what they did then was in a manner an outrage against God himself.
We now understand at what time it is probable that Nahum performed his office as a teacher; though nothing certain, as I have said at the beginning, can be known: hence it was, that I condemned the Rabbis for rashness on the subject; for they are bold enough to bring any thing forward as a truth, respecting which there is no certainty.
I have already in part stated the design of the Prophet. The sum of the whole is this: When the Assyrians had for some time disturbed the kingdom of Israel, the Prophet arose and exhorted the Israelites to patience, that is, those who continued to be the servants of God; because God had not wholly forsaken them, but would undertake their cause, for they were under his protection. This is the substance of the whole.
With regard to Nineveh, we have already stated that it was the capital of the empire, as long as the Assyrians did bear rule: for Babylon was a province; that is, Chaldea, whose metropolis was Babylon, was one of the provinces of the empire. The kingdom was afterwards taken away from Meroc-baladan. Some think that Nabuchodonosor was the first monarch of Chaldea. But I bestow no great pains on this subject. It may be, that Meroc-baladan had two names, and this was very common; as we know that the kings of Egypt were called Pharaohs; so the Assyrians and Chaldeans, though otherwise called at first, might have taken a common royal name. Now Nineveh was so celebrated, that another kingdom could not have been established by the Babylonians without demolishing that city. We indeed know that it was very large, as we have stated in explaining Jonah. It was, as profane writers have recorded, nearly three days’ journey in circumference. Then its walls were one hundred feet high, and so wide, that chariots could pass one another without coming in contact: there were one thousand and five hundred towers. We hence see that it was not without reason that this city was formerly so celebrated.
They say that Ninus was its founder, but this is proved to be a mistake by the testimony of Moses in Genesis 10. They also imagine that emiramis was the first queen of Babylon, and that the city was built by her: but this is a fable. It may have been that she enlarged the city; but it was Babylon many ages before she was born. So also Ninus may have increased and adorned Nineveh; but the city was founded before his birth. Profane authors call it Ninus, not Nineveh; probably the Hebrew name was corrupted by them, as it is often the case. However this may be, it is evident, that when Meroc-baladan, or his son, who succeeded him, wished to fix the seat of the empire at Babylon, he was under the necessity of destroying Nineveh to prevent rivalry. It thus happened, that the city was entirely demolished. Of this destruction, as we shall see, Nahum prophesied.
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. 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 Numbers 14, 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.” Let us now proceed —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 That is, born in a poor village in the…
That is, born in a poor village in the tribe of Simeon.
Read Isa. 13:1.
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The vision or revelation, which God commanded Nahum to write concerning the Ninevites.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Nah 1:1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of…
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.
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The book of the vision] Or, the epistle of the vision. Hence some collect that Nahum went not to Nineveh, as Jonah had done; but sent this prophetic epistle thither, to let them know what should shortly befall them. So Jeremiah sent an epistle to Babylon, Jer 29:1., and Elijah wrote a threatening letter to Jehoram, King of Judah, 2Ch 21:12, before his translation to heaven; and left it to be sent to him by Elisha, or the other prophets, who dared not show themselves in his presence, such was his insolent cruelty, as it is conceived.
Of Nahum the Elkoshite] Elkosh was a small town in Galilee beyond Bethabara, as say Jerome and Dorotheus. Here was our prophet born, and named Nahum, non sine numine, saith Gualther; for Nahum (as Noah) signifieth a comforter; and so he proved, by this book of his, both to the ten tribes now newly carried captive by the Assyrian monarch, and also to the other two tribes, who were shortly after besieged by the same Assyrian, in the reign of Hezekiah; under whom Nahum prophesied. {See Trapp on "Exo 3:1"}
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Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The burden: when the prophets were sent to denounce…
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.
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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.
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Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 9 This title directs us to consider, 1. The great…
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 18:10. 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.
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John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The burden of Nineveh,.... Of the city of Nineveh,…
The burden of Nineveh,.... Of the city of Nineveh, and the greatness of it; see Gill on Jon 1:2; See Gill 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.
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(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.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 The inscription of the book, ver. 1. A magnificent…
The inscription of the book, ver. 1. A magnificent display of the glory of God, ver. 2-8. A particular application of this, to the destruction of Sennacherib's army, ver. 9-15.
The burden - When the prophets were sent to denounce judgments against a nation or city, the word was usually called the burden of that nation or city. The vision - As prophets were of old called seers, 1 Sam. ix, 9, so their prophesies were called visions. Nahum - His name speaks a comforter, but it is God's people to whom he gives notice of the destruction of their oppressors.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Chronological Notes relative to this Book, upon the supposition
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET NAHUM
Chronological Notes relative to this Book, upon the supposition
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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.] משא 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, נחום 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.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15 Nah 1:1. The burden of Nineveh — Of Nineveh,…
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.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The burden - Jerome: “The word משׂא mas's'â', ‘burden’…
The burden - Jerome: “The word משׂא mas's'â', ‘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 God’s 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. Jonah’s mission was a call to repentance, a type and forerunner of all God’s messages to the world, while the day of grace and the world’s 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.
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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 God’s 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.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Burden, or threat. (Worthington) --- Septuagint, "assumption," (Haydock) when…
Burden, or threat. (Worthington) --- Septuagint, "assumption," (Haydock) when the prophet saw in spirit the impending ruin. (Theodoret) --- Allegorically, Nahum is "the comforter" of the just, shewing that God will avenge their cause against Ninive, "the beautiful," and destroy the world, (kosmos, which also means "beautiful,") after which the saints shall reign in eternal glory. (Worthington) --- We have describe Ninive, Jonas i. (Calmet) --- It was overturned first in the year of the world 3257, and again in the year 3378. (Usher) --- Elcesite. Some think that Elcesai was the father of Nahum; but most suppose that it was a village Galilee. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 A Sublime Description of the Attributes and Operations of…
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).
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1 The Burden1 of Nineveh.
The book of the Vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
2 A 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.
3 Jehovah is slow to anger and of great strength,
And acquitting He will not acquit [the guilty].
Jehovah—his way is in the whirlwind and in the tempest;
And clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
And all the rivers he drieth up:
Bashan and Carmel languish;
And the flower of Lebanon droopeth.
5 Mountains tremble because of Him,
And the hills melt away;
The earth heaves3 before Him,
And the globe and all the inhabitants upon it.
6 Before 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.
7 Good is Jehovah, a fortress in the day of trouble,
And He knoweth those, who trust in Him.
8 And with an overflowing flood
He will make an end of her place,
And pursue his enemies with darkness.4
9 What devise ye against Jehovah?
He is about to make an end:
Distress shall not arise twice.
10 For though they are interwoven like5 thorns,
And soaked with their wine,
They shall be devoured like stubble fully dry.
11 From thee came forth
One meditating evil against Jehovah,
Counseling wickedness.
12 Thus 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.
13 And now I will break his yoke from off thee,
And break thy fetters.
14 And 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 Massâ 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 Massâim, Isaiah 13 ff., to which the Massâ 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 נשׂא, [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 : “Massâ 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 נשׂא can signify also, by the ellipsis of קוֹל (properly קוֹל נשׂא, 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 קוֹל, 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. חָזוֹן is, as in Isa_1:1, the nomen acti of חזה, 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 מַשָּׂא, 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 Hengstenberg’s Christology on Zec_9:1 (vol. 3 pp. 380–384. 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 God’s holy wrath and righteous jealousy to the special, approaching manifestation [of God’s 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 קַכּוֹא, instead of קַכָּא, 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 כקם, 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 [אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם] אא 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 b–6) a description of this actuality of God’s 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 (וַיֽיַבִ=וַיַּבְּשֵׁהוּ, 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 (מַלְאַךְ, שֵׁס, כָבוֹד), 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.וָשָׂא 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 צוּ 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; טוֹב is not to be construed with לְמָעוֹז; good for a refuge; which would be a Germanism; but both are coördinate predicates. But He is not good to all (Psa_73:1): He knows them that trust in Him.יִרע 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 שׁטף may be designated as feminine by the suffix attached to מקומהּ.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 כּלה, 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. אֶל frequently, moreover, takes the place of עַל, 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 צרה in Nah_1:7, not very probable.
Nah_1:10. But with a single stroke the trouble ends: in thorns they are entangled [עַד 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.סבאם is not, as the commentators think, a substantive, but the infinitive of the same verb סבא (Isa_56:12), whose passive participle follows; and כִּ 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. מלא is an adverb modifying יבשׁ (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 prophet’s 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 (Hölemann, Strauss): the formula מן יצא 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 God’s 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 prophet’s mind) in the nearest present (Mic_4:9),—all prophetic visions have the ἐν τάχει 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 בית, house, comes the Niph. denom. אֶבָּנֶה a house, i. e., off, spring, is raised for me [literally, I shall be built—C. E.]; so from זרע, seed, comes the Niphal יִזָּרַע, seed springs up [literally, shall be sown—C. 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., Bötticher, and others follow them. [On the other hand, Hitzig, Strauss, and Keil connect מסכה with what precedes, and translate אשיס קבריך “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 massçkhàh are combined, as in Deu_27:15, to denote every kind of idolatrous image. For the idolatry of Assyria, see Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains, ii. p. 439 seq. אָשִׂיס קִכְרֶךָ 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 אָשׂים from the context, it must be pesel umassekhâh; but there would be no sense in “I make thine idol into a grave.” There is no other course left, therefore, than to take קִבְרֶךָ as the nearest and only object of אָשִׂים, “I lay, i. e., prepare thy grave.” כִי קַלּותָ, 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.”
Henderson’s 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).
God’s 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 means—thunderstorm, 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 a–c, 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 b–6.
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 Nahum’s 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. God’s 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 b–6 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 coöperates 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 God’s 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 [auf’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 ecclesiœ 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 Lord’s 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.—מַשׂא; LXX., Αῆμμα; Vulgate, Onus, is derived from נָשָׂא, 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. 380–384, 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 מַשָׂא.
[2][Nah_1:2.—בַעַל חֵמָה, lord, master, or possessor, of burning wrath.
[3][Nah_1:5.—וַתִּשָּׂא הָאָרֶץ, the earth heaves; LXX., Καἱ ἀνεστάλη ἡ γῆ; 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.—עַד, 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 God’s 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] [Keil’s 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 Châsabh, 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 הָשַב עַל is actually used in this sense in Nah_1:11.”
The LXX. have ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον; 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.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–15 jealous--In this there is sternness, yet tender affection. We…
jealous--In this there is sternness, yet tender affection. We are jealous only of those we love: a husband, of a wife; a king, of his subjects' loyalty. God is jealous of men because He loves them. God will not bear a rival in His claims on them. His burning jealousy for His own wounded honor and their love, as much as His justice, accounts for all His fearful judgments: the flood, the destruction of Jerusalem, that of Nineveh. His jealousy will not admit of His friends being oppressed, and their enemies flourishing (compare Exo 20:5; Co1 16:22; Co2 11:2). Burning zeal enters into the idea in "jealous" here (compare Num 25:11, Num 25:13; Kg1 19:10).
the Lord revengeth . . . Lord revengeth--The repetition of the incommunicable name JEHOVAH, and of His revenging, gives an awful solemnity to the introduction.
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furious--literally, "a master of fury." So a master of the tongue, that is, "eloquent." "One who, if He pleases, can most readily give effect to His fury" [GROTIUS]. Nahum has in view the provocation to fury given to God by the Assyrians, after having carried away the ten tribes, now proceeding to invade Judea under Hezekiah.
reserveth wrath for his enemies--reserves it against His own appointed time (Pe2 2:9). After long waiting for their repentance in vain, at length punishing them. A wrong estimate of Jehovah is formed from His suspending punishment: it is not that He is insensible or dilatory, but He reserves wrath for His own fit time. In the case of the penitent, He does not reserve or retain His anger (Psa 103:9; Jer 3:5, Jer 3:12; Mic 7:18).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 1. The title. The first part names the subject…
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.
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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.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 Ch. 1. The superscription
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.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (1) The burden of Nineveh—i.e., the sentence against Nineveh…
(1) The burden of Nineveh—i.e., the sentence against Nineveh (see Isa_13:1, Note). On the names Nahum and Elkoshite see Introduction.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Vers. 1-15. Part I THE JUDGMENT UPON NINEVEH DECREED…
Vers. 1-15. Part I THE JUDGMENT UPON NINEVEH DECREED BY GOD.
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 lhmma here, and elsewhere orasiv , and rhma . 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,
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Ver. 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 date not 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 (Schrader, "Die Keilinschriften," p. 452; Kleinert, in Riehm; Sayce, "Fresh Light," etc., p. 154).
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 hypothesis the ground upon which some scholars and critics locate Elkosh in Assyria is 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" (Sayce, "Assyria: its Princes," etc., p. 22).
(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 miles and 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 cities Nineveh, 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" (Schrader, "Die Keilinschriften," p. 448).
(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) souls a 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 these the levied and selected ones (for war) and the soldiery rather 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.
HOMILIES BY S.D. HILMAN Ver. 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 (vers. 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 ruin the 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. (ver. 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 the 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.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 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 siege the 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 Nahum the 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 passion the 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.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15 The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Nah_1:1.
The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
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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.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Nahum 1
THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD
Nahum 1
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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, ith 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."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv8, 9, 12 CRITICAL NOTES.] Burden] (Vulg. onus), from a word to…
CRITICAL NOTES.] Burden] (Vulg. onus), from a word to lift up, a threatening utterance; some, heavy and full.
Nah_1:2. Jealous], (words from the decalogue), to be warm. Burns against those who hate him (Deu_6:15). The term indicates feeling of injured right, and strong inclination for justice. Furious] Lit. a lord or master of fury: a master of dreams, i.e. a dreamer, &c. Reserveth] Applied to God, sig. to keep or bear wrath (Lev_19:18; Psa_103:9).
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Nah_1:3. Acquit] Clear the guilty (Exo_20:7; Exo_34:7). Dust] Light dust easily raised.
Nah_1:4. Rebuketh] (Mat_8:26).
Nah_1:5.] Fruitful districts fade under his wrath. Burned] Lit. lifts itself as in an earthquake (Psa_89:10), hence to burn as a flame.
Nah_1:6. Abide] Stand up before wrath poured out like fire from a volcano, which rends rocks to pieces (1Ki_19:11; Jer_23:29).
Nah_1:7. Strong] A fortress. Knoweth] Stands emphatically for the knowledge with which God fosters and provides for his elect, and which is experienced by them (Hos_13:5) [Lange].
Nah_1:8. Over.] Judgment by invading armies, sweeps through the land like overwhelming floods (cf. Psa_42:7; Isa_8:7-8; Hab_3:10).
HOMILETICS
THE SERVANT’S BURDEN.—Nah_1:1
In this verse we have the substance and object, the form and author, of the whole prophecy.
I. The nature of the burden. A burden is something heavy and important.
1. The commission from God was a burden. An awful responsibility, a solemn duty imposed upon the messenger. Who is sufficient for these things?
2. The commission was a burden upon the mind of the prophet. He was not reluctant to obey, but its solemnity weighed heavily upon him. He had to threaten judgment upon his fellow-creatures, to be faithful in his threatening, and declare the whole message from God. His duty was a burden. He was deeply sensible of its import, of his own unworthiness and weakness. This is the spirit of all true servants. “A dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.”
II. The form of the burden. “The book of the vision.”
1. It was first a vision to the prophet. He saw what he uttered. He had a commission from God, and spoke in God’s authority. We should always testify what we have seen, and declare what we have been taught. Some speak a vision of their own heart (Jer_23:16); but God’s servants see the vision of the Almighty.
2. Then the vision was recorded in a book. Reason teaches us to write laws and record events in a book. God’s prophets were taught to pen their thoughts in a permanent form for the benefit of future ages. “Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.”
III. The object of the burden. “The burden of Nineveh. Nineveh repented once, but returned to its wicked ways again. The first was a message of mercy, the second one of judgment. If men despise warnings they must expect rebukes. Employed by God to chastise, Nineveh sought to destroy the chosen people. Now God will punish the city, and its last state will be worse than the first. If men return to their former sins because judgment is not executed, if they cease to do the good they once begin, then God will withdraw his promised favour. “If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”
JEHOVAH A JEALOUS GOD.—Nah_1:2-5
wGod’s judgments are traced to God’s jealousy as the cause of them. His honour is injured. His tender feeling for his people is wounded, and though punishment is suspended for a time, eventually it is certain and severe.
I. God’s jealousy is connected with God’s long-suffering. “The Lord is slow to anger.” Towards enemies even God is long-suffering. For one hundred years he had endured the wickedness of the Assyrians. Judgments are often delayed.
1. This delay is not through weakness. “Great in power.” Men cannot execute their vengeance because they lack power. But God has all power, and can accomplish his will at all times.
2. This delay is not remission of punishment. He “will not at all acquit the wicked.” There is a limitation of mercy. He will not clear the guilty, nor leave them unpunished. He is not insensible to violations of his law, nor dilatory to vindicate his justice. Sinners have a respite in love, but not a reprieve in weakness. All who abuse his long-suffering will smart at last. “For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.”
II. God’s jealousy is often provoked to vengeance. “And the Lord revengeth.” Vengeance is a defect, and censured in man. Here it is predicated of God three times.
1. Vengeance is associated with provocation. Slow to anger, he can be provoked. His jealousy has the warmth of love and the fire of wrath. “The coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”
2. Vengeance is associated with mastery. “And is furious,” a master of fury, one who has anger under control. He is Lord of vengeance. “One who, if he pleases,” says Grotius, “can most readily give effect to his fury.”
3. Vengeance is associated with execution. He reserves wrath for his enemies, not because he is angry, but because he is slow to anger. He allows it to accumulate, before execution. But he “will take vengeance on his adversaries.” (a) This execution is swift. He comes in the storm and the whirlwind (Nah_1:3). He sweeps men away swift as the wind. “As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more.” (b) This execution is easy. The clouds are the mere dust of his feet. As man walks upon the dust, so Jehovah tramples upon the clouds, as the light dust of his feet. (c) This execution is mysterious. “Clouds and darkness are round about Him.” His purpose and his agents are often concealed, until they break upon the guilty like a lightning flash. (d) This execution is often terrible. The heavens above and the earth beneath feel the shock of his wrath. The sea is rebuked by his power, and the fertility of the land is consumed by his presence. The mountains quake and the hills melt; all nature trembles beneath his anger. No one can stand before fury like this. The strongest will quail, the hardest will melt. “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Nah_1:1. The Burden. The Bearer. The Destination. “He first defines the object of the prophecy, whereto it looks; then states who spake it, and whence it was” [Pusey].
Nah_1:2. The titles of God rise in awe; first, intensely jealous and Avenger; then an Avenger and a Lord of wrath; the master of it (not as man, mastered by it); having it to withhold or discharge; yet so discharging it, at last, the more irrevocably on the finally impenitent [Ibid.].
The justice and severity of God should be contemplated.
1. As a warning to his enemies to deter them from evil.
2. As a consolation to his people to help them in trouble.
Nah_1:3. Mercy, omnipotence, and justice.
1. The first attribute of God. “Slow to anger.” Because he never smites without first threatening. He is very slow to threaten. When God threatens, how slow he is to sentence the criminal! And when the sentence is signed and sealed, how slow to carry it out! Trace the attribute to its source. Why is God slow to anger? Because he is infinitely good. Because he is great.
2. The connecting link. A great reason why he is slow, because he is great in power. He that is great in power can restrain himself, and is greater than he that takes a city. When God’s power restrains himself, then it is power indeed. If he were less of a God than he is, he would long ere this have sent forth thunders and emptied the magazines of heaven. Bless God that the greatness of his power is our protection.
3. The last and most terrible attribute; He will not at all acquit the wicked. Unfold this first of all, then trace it to its source. God will not acquit the wicked. Never once has he blotted out sin without punishment. Calvary proves the truth of that. The wonders of vengeance in the Old Testament and hell itself are proofs of the text. Trace this terrible attribute to its source. Why is this? God will not acquit the wicked, because he is good. Goodness itself demands the punishment of the sinner. The justice of God demands it. If in Christ, never be afraid of God’s power. If not fled for refuge, then God will not acquit, but punish. Reprieved but not pardoned art thou. Reprieve will soon run out, haste to the refuge [Spurgeon].
Way in the whirlwind. The vengeance of God comes at last swiftly, vehemently, fearfully, irresistibly [Pusey].
Clouds the dust.
1. God hidden in his ways. Clouds are round about him. Deep and unsearchable in his counsels.
1. God powerful in his ways. Treading on the clouds, and making them as dust to his feet.
2. God terrible in his ways (Nah_1:4; Nah_1:6). Not difficult to put the elements in motion to destroy Nineveh or impenitent sinners. Great things to us are small with him. All nature subject to his control.
Nah_1:4-5. The quaking of all things in the presence of an angry God. Celestial and terrestrial agencies subservient to the purpose of God, (a) in punishing the wicked, (b) in protecting his people. “The huge roots of the towering mountains are torn up when the Lord bestirs himself in anger to smite the enemies of his people. How shall puny man be able to face it out with God when the very mountains quake with fear? Let not the boaster dream that his present false confidence will support him in the dread day of wrath.”
HOMILETICS
GOD’S GOODNESS AND ANGER.—Nah_1:6-7
Note two things in these words.
I. Jehovah’s anger.
1. It is real. Human theories of it are not always true. They are got up to persuade the sinner that he has no need to be alarmed for guilt. But God’s words are true—not exaggerations.
2. It is righteous. Not the rage of selfishness nor personal offence; but the anger of a righteous judge against sin, dishonoured right and insulted law. There is nothing in it unjust or arbitrary.
3. It is terrible. Though calm, it is awful and overwhelming. No power or numbers can withstand it. Expulsion from Paradise, the flood, the ruin of Sodom, and the destruction of the ungodly, are specimens.
4. It is inexorable. Nothing can turn it aside or quench it when kindled.
II. Jehovah’s goodness. He is good, and doeth good; kind to the unthankful and unholy.
1. His goodness is sincere. He does not utter words and feelings which are not in him. His words mean what they say, his deeds what they indicate. “God is not man that he should lie.”
2. His goodness is powerful. Almighty goodness. He is able to deliver those whom he loves. Their interests are safe in his hands.
3. His goodness is watchful. His eyes are upon us at all times, expecially in trouble. An unsleeping eye, an untiring hand, never weary of blessing, ever delighting to love and help us.
4. His goodness is unchanging. Without variableness like himself, ever flowing and not ebbing. Not like the tides and the seasons, his heart changes not. But the great day of his wrath will come. Judgment lingers not. He spares in pity, not willing that any should perish. Turn unto him, &c. [Dr. H. Bonar.]
THE TRIUMPH OF FAITH.—Nah_1:7
Here we have a beautiful description of the security and comfort of those who trust in God in the day of distress.
I. God a Protection. Not armies, fleets, and fortresses. All other refuges are refuges of lies. He is the only accessible, impregnable, delightful shelter. II. God a Comfort. “The Lord is good.” Good in himself and to others. His goodness is spontaneous, undeserved, and boundless; consistent with the perfections of his character, and adapted to the wants of our nature. III. God a Friend. “He knoweth.” He not merely perceives and understands; but approves, acknowledges, and takes delight in us. He “takes pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy.” God is our friend. His attitude to us is like that to Abraham: “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Nah_1:7. The Lord is Good. He is essentially—immutably good—infinitely good. The good of all creation is derived from him. “He is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.” But goodness does not appear in its highest forms here. These creatures never forfeited care and kindness. We have rebelled, and as children of disobedience deserve wrath. Yet he spares us, and provides for us—fitted up the world with sights, sounds, and relishes to our appetites. But if the bounties of nature and providence were stopped, we could say, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us,” &c. This ensures every other blessing. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?” This involves every other. He is “all in all.” By him and in him we are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places” [Jay].
The Lord a Stronghold. From whence does this trouble arise? From danger? He is our strength for protection. “The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” “We are more than conquerors.” From duty? He is the strength to assist. If oppressed with a sense of our inability, “our sufficiency is of God.” From affliction? He is our strength to support and deliver. If ho does not release, he sustains and comforts. “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Whatever the nature and degree of affliction, in God we find a “very present help in the day of trouble” [Jay].
Nah_1:7-8. God a refuge to his people, who are safe, happy, and cared for in his protection. God a terror to their enemies, who are overwhelmed with calamities (flood), pursued with darkness, and completely destroyed. God’s people only afflicted for a short time, but of the wicked he will make “an utter end.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Nah_1:1. Burden. He who possesses the virtues required in the care of souls, should not take upon him the priestly office, unless constrained to it; and he who knows he has them not, should not take it upon him, even though he were compelled to it [Gregory].
Nah_1:2. Vengeance. When God sees it necessary to vindicate the honour of his justice to the world, he doth it with that severity which may make us apprehend his displeasure; and yet with that mercy which may encourage us to repent and return unto the Lord [Stillingfleet].
Nah_1:3. Slow. God delays the punishment of wickedness, and does not strike presently, for a glorious manifestation of his holy attribute of patience. His two great attributes of justice and mercy, the full season of their manifestation upon the vessels of wrath and mercy, is at an end at the great day of reckoning [Bp. Browning].
Nah_1:3-4. This passage is so sublime, says one, that it would be difficult to find its equal. May the reader’s heart adore the God before whom the unconscious earth and sky act as if they recognized their Maker, and were moved with a tremor of reverence. “Vain are the attempts of men to conceal anything from him whose word unbars the deep, and lifts the doors of earth from their hinges! Vain are all hopes of resistance, for a whisper of his voice makes the whole earth quail in abject terror” [Spurgeon].
Nah_1:7. He who avails himself of a refuge is one who is forced to fly. It is a quiet retreat from a pursuing enemy. And there are trials, and temptations, and enemies, from which the Christian does best to fly. He cannot resist them. They are too strong for him. His wisdom is to fly into the refuge of the secret place of his God, to rest under the shadow of the Almighty. His strength is to sit still there (Isa_30:7) [B. M. Duncan].
Nah_1:8-12. When God shakes men as dust from under the summer thrashing-floor, the right hand of a man’s strength is as powerless as the left hand of a man’s weakness, and his wisdom is as folly. What avails the wisdom of the apple to make it cling to the bough when it is ripe in autumn time? or the wisdom of the leaf to hold it fast to the stem when the tempest calls? or the wisdom of the tree to make it stand secure when a rock from the cliff comes crashing down through its puny branches? When God sends storms upon men, they must imitate the humble grass, which saves itself by lying down. Therefore it is said, “Humble yourselves before the mighty hand of God, that in due season he may raise you up” [H. W. Beecher].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. There are many terms applied to God in…
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 ζῆλος, 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.
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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.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 God's Vengeance on His People's Enemies. Deliverance for Judah
God's Vengeance on His People's Enemies. Deliverance for Judah
1, 2. Superscription: 'Oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of prophesying of Nahum the Elkoshite.' A. theological introduction describing a theophatty or a coming of Jehovah to judgment. Cp. the brief statements in à similar spirit, Amo_1:2; Mic_1:3, Mic_1:4. The whole should be printed as verse:
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A jealous and avenging God is Jehovah; Jehovah is avenging and wrathful; Jehovah taketh vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserveth wrath for His enemies.
3-6. The prophet sketches the character of Jehovah in terms suitable to his general theme; it is the vengeance of God upon Israel's enemies, who are also His enemies, that we are here invited to consider: Cp. Exo_20:5; Exo_34:14; Deu_4:24. Note the terrible manner of His appearance when He comes to judgment.
3. He is slow to anger, and great in power, yet He will not absolve the guilty, etc.
The Lord hath his way] 'The meaning is not so much that Jehovah uses the whirlwind and storm as the vehicle of His movement as that these commotions and terrors in nature are created by His presence. The splendid words clouds are the dust of his feet, like the others, “the earth is His footstool,” need to be conceived not explained' (A.B. Davidson). The doings of God in history (Psalms 114) and His appearances in nature's most awful moods are mingled in this sublime description of His irresistible strength and impetuous fury.
7-15. Jehovah will completely destroy the enemies of His people.
7. Bead, 'Jehovah is good towards those who hope in Him. A stronghold in the time of need.' An everlasting truth, but particularly appropriate in times of great shaking: cp. Psa_25:3; Psa_37:9. In the following vv. the text is difficult; if we follow AV we must find a reference to Nineveh.
8. The place thereof] If this poem is an original part of the book we expect such references, though it comes abruptly here: cp. Nah_1:14. On this view, the line of thought is the opposition of Jehovah to the proud oppressor and his favour towards judgment, with emphasis laid on the radical nature of the judgment.
9, 10. 'Not twice does He take vengeance on His enemies; He makes a full end of them for ever.' You cannot easily set fire to the damp, closely packed thorns, but the fire of His vengeance will burn them up as dry stubble.
13-15. These vv., along with Nah_2:2, must be grouped together. Read the last of these four vv., as in RV, 'For Jehovah bringeth again the excellency of Jacob,' etc. In these four vv. we have evidently an address to Judah; she is called upon to rejoice over her ancient foe to keep the feasts and carry out the vows made in the days of sorrowful oppression: cp. Isa_52:7. Nah_1:14 is a denunciation of the Assyrian.
The whole chapter is difficult from the linguistic point of view; the technical problems have called forth much ingenuity, but the main outline is clear. Jehovah is coming to judgment; this Coming means a day of terror and darkness for the proud oppressors, but the lowly believers shall find new hope. When freed from narrow patriotism and sectarian bitterness this is a great and abiding truth; behind it there lies a keen faith in the true meaning of history and a righteous order of the world.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 7 Nineveh stands in Scripture as the representative of apostate…
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."
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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")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
CHAPTER 1
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The Purpose of God in Dealing with the Assyrian Oppressor
1. The superscription (Nah 1:1)
2. Jehovah’s 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 Nahum’s 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 Babylon’s 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.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Divine Counsel Concerning the Judgment upon Nineveh.
The Divine Counsel Concerning the Judgment upon Nineveh.
God, who is at the same time the God of the covenant and the almighty Sovereign of the universe, states that He has fully decided to bring about the overthrow and destruction of Nineveh, as the enemy of His people.
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v. 1. The burden of Nineveh, the sentence bringing the threat of Jehovah against the wicked city. The book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite, the term probably indicating that Nahum did not deliver his prophecy in person, but reduced it to writing at once.
v. 2. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth, or, "A God jealous and taking vengeance is Jehovah," as He had stated of old, Exo 20:5. The Lord revengeth and is furious, literally, "An Avenger is Jehovah and a Master of fury," terrible in His wrath. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, His punishment sometimes being delayed, but always inevitable in coming, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies, for it is not weak indulgence that causes His delay in punishing, but an exhibition of His love and mercy, which would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
v. 3. The Lord is slow to anger, long-suffering and patient over against wickedness of long standing, and great in power, His almighty strength becoming evident when He does strike, and will not at all acquit the wicked, those who have shown that they are guilty. The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, which are but instruments and exhibitions of His power, and the clouds are the dust of His feet, they are insignificant before Him, and He uses them as He pleases.
v. 4. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, as when He caused the Red Sea to part before the children of Israel, Exo 14:15, and drieth up all the rivers, since they all are subject to His directions; Bashan, the rich pasture-land east of Jordan, languisheth, and Carmel, the wooded slopes of the mountain overlooking the Mediterranean, and the flower of Lebanon, otherwise a symbol of rich fertility, languisheth, namely, when He withholds the moisture or bids the river go dry.
v. 5. The mountains quake at Him, Cf Amo 8:8, and the hills melt, as at the time of terrible earthquakes, and the earth is burned at His presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein, both men and the irrational brutes.
v. 6. Who can stand before His indignation? before His wrath when it burns freely. And who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? Cf Jer 10:10. His fury is poured out like fire, in a torrent consuming everything before it, Deu 4:24, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. Cf Jer 23:29. But this wrath of God does not strike those who put their trust in Him.
v. 7. The Lord is good, even in the midst of His judgments, a stronghold in the day of trouble, a refuge when distress and misery come upon the believers; and He knoweth them that trust in Him, He has that intimate knowledge of them, that peculiar insight into their needs which guarantees them His help.
v. 8. But with an overrunning flood, a deluge which carries everything before it, He will make an utter end of the place thereof, so that Nineveh would cease to be a city and its very site be used for altogether different purposes, and darkness shall pursue His enemies, a figure of a complete desolation.
v. 9. What do ye imagine against the Lord? Did the people of Judah think that Jehovah was not able to carry out His threat against Nineveh?. He will make an utter end; affliction shall not rise up the second time, for the one blow on the part of the Lord would be quite sufficient, so that the affliction which Judah suffered on the part of Assyria would not arise twice.
v. 10. For while, or though, they be folden together as thorns, braided together or entangled, and while they are drunken as drunkards, though they are drowned in their carousing, in their wine, so that it might seem that fire would not be able to reach them or to affect them seriously, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry. The comparison shows the pride and the boldness which the Assyrians possessed, also in their idea that they were invincible.
v. 11. There is one come out of thee, namely, Sennacherib or one of the other rulers who invaded Judah, that imagineth evil against the Lord, meditating and speaking in this sense, a wicked counselor, one who advised worthlessness, things that were foolish and brought no results. Cf Isa 36:14-20.
v. 12. Thus saith the Lord, Though they be quiet and likewise many, no matter how tranquilly secure and how numerous they are, yet thus shall they be cut down, suddenly disappearing as though mowed down, when he shall pass through, rather, and he passes away, namely, the daring invader who had meditated evil against Jehovah. Though I have afflicted thee, bending Judah down to the ground, I will afflict thee no more, this being a source of consolation to the Lord’s people.
v. 13. For now will I break his yoke from off thee and will burst thy bonds, which the proud invader had laid upon Judah, in sunder.
v. 14. And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee that no more of thy name be sown, that the dynasty of the Assyrian kings should become extinct; out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image, in whom the Assyrians placed their trust; I will make thy grave, for thou art vile, morally unworthy, no longer fit to live and to be in power. Thus the destruction of the power of Assyria was clearly set forth, in outlines that could not be misunderstood.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15 General Information:
General Information:
Nahum describes the destruction of Nineveh in poetry. (See: Parallelism)
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The declaration about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite
These words are an introduction to the entire book. This can be stated as a complete sentence. AT: "This is the book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkoshite, which gives a declaration about Nineveh" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
Elkoshite
A person from the village of Elkosh (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
declare
Nineveh
vision
Nahum
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15 1:1 message . . . vision: This opening, similar…
1:1 message . . . vision: This opening, similar to that of other prophetic books (cp. Obad 1:1; Hab 1:1; Mal 1:1), identifies Nahum as a prophet, one who uttered messages from God. • Nineveh became the capital of the Assyrian Empire sometime shortly after 705 BC and remained so until its destruction in 612 BC. • The name Nahum means “comfort” or “encouragement.” An important theme of his prophecy is that God will bring encouragement to his people through Nineveh’s downfall (Nah 1:12-15; see Isa 40:1).
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