“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.” - Nahum 1:2

NAHUM - III

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The beginning of the Word of prophecy in Nahum is quite unlike any of the other prophecies in the Old Testament. We have just cited the very first line of it for our study this week… which is noteworthy all by itself. Can you say why?……

Bible scholars will say, these are the first lines of a poem/hymn, (verses 2-10) are quite different from the rest of the prophecy in Nahum (they are a unit) and are a “broken acrostic” (you can see -some- regularity in the way half the letters of the Hebrew alphabet appear in v2-10). All true statements, but we will ask to dig a little deeper….

The prophecy IS UNIQUE in beginning with a statement about the —character — of the LORD and HIS enemies!!

Don’t believe us ? Ok, here is verse 1 of the PROPHECY, ( The actual FIRST words of the LORD, not the introduction to them…) ——- for each prophet preceding and succeeding Nahum, in Chronological order….post Solomon….

- [[ Elijah, and Elisha were before Jonah, but they don’t have their own books ]]

- Jonah : “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.” 

- Amos ( concerning Syria ): “The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.

- Hosea ( against Israel ): “And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.” 

- Micah (concerning Samaria and Jerusalem) : “Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.”

Nahum: ( our text )… the last prophet to deal with Assyria, then later prophets started warning Israel, about themselves and about Babylon….. all …broadly..around the same time period..

- Zephaniah ( concerning judgment on Judah & Jerusalem) : “I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.”

- Joel ( of a famine/and dark days to come to Judah and Jerusalem): “Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?”

- Habbakuk ( to doubters) : “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.” 

- Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordainedthee a prophet unto the nations.”

- Ezekiel: “Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.”

- Daniel is a v different book…. but written during Ezekiel’s time…. and then post Babylon/ Reconstruction we have the books of 

- Haggai - “Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built.”

- Zechariah - “The LORD hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.”

- Malachi - “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.”

- …… closing out the OT prophets…..

All the prophets spoke to warn a people… Nineveh, Syria, Babylon, Israel, Judah, Jerusalem…. but only in Nahum do we find a very strange characterization of the LORD. Jealousy. Revenge. Revenge. Fury. Vengeance.Wrath….. even if you say words like jealousy could be interpreted in a positive sense, there is no mistaking the meaning of the others!

And here are v 3-10 to complete the picture…

“The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is —-burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. —Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies. What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time. For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.” - Nahum 1:3–10 (KJV)

It’s a poetic portrait of someone you don’t want to make mad at you. But what would make someone, that is so powerful, yet SLOW TO ANGER, that angry?

BABYLON …… great immorality, associated with commerce flowing across many rivers, and making kings and princes drunk with power and wealth, while she herself drinks the blood of martyrs and fills up her cup with deliberate transgressions against the divine order.

Nineveh and Babylon are types. The issues affecting them are the same issues affecting Israel & Judah, because they are all going down the same wicked paths, joined at the hip in their philosophy and cultural practices. 

Ultimately, this is a picture of the universe as well ( … “ yea the world and all that dwell therein” … ) divided into two distinct classes of people…. Them that trust in him, and his enemies….. 

“David himself said in the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Until I put Your enemies beneath Your feet.” ’

The fall of Nineveh was with a flood, with fire… we pray for the ending of this world system, for “He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.”

Hallelujah !