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 1

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

 

The Consuming Wrath of God

2

A jealous and avenging God is the L ord,

the L ord is avenging and wrathful;

the L ord takes vengeance on his adversaries

and rages against his enemies.

3

The L ord is slow to anger but great in power,

and the L ord will by no means clear the guilty.

 

His way is in whirlwind and storm,

and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

4

He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,

and he dries up all the rivers;

Bashan and Carmel wither,

and the bloom of Lebanon fades.

5

The mountains quake before him,

and the hills melt;

the earth heaves before him,

the world and all who live in it.

 

6

Who can stand before his indignation?

Who can endure the heat of his anger?

His wrath is poured out like fire,

and by him the rocks are broken in pieces.

7

The L ord is good,

a stronghold in a day of trouble;

he protects those who take refuge in him,

8

even in a rushing flood.

He will make a full end of his adversaries,

and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

9

Why do you plot against the L ord?

He will make an end;

no adversary will rise up twice.

10

Like thorns they are entangled,

like drunkards they are drunk;

they are consumed like dry straw.

11

From you one has gone out

who plots evil against the L ord,

one who counsels wickedness.

 

Good News for Judah

12

Thus says the L ord,

“Though they are at full strength and many,

they will be cut off and pass away.

Though I have afflicted you,

I will afflict you no more.

13

And now I will break off his yoke from you

and snap the bonds that bind you.”

 

14

The L ord has commanded concerning you:

“Your name shall be perpetuated no longer;

from the house of your gods I will cut off

the carved image and the cast image.

I will make your grave, for you are worthless.”

 

15

Look! On the mountains the feet of one

who brings good tidings,

who proclaims peace!

Celebrate your festivals, O Judah,

fulfill your vows,

for never again shall the wicked invade you;

they are utterly cut off.


Nahum explains more clearly, and without a figure, what he had previously said of darkness, — that the kingdom of Nineveh would be so overturned, that it could never recruit its strength and return again to its pristine state. He indeed addresses the king himself, but under his person he includes no doubt the whole kingdom.

Commanded then has Jehovah, he says, respecting thee, let there not be sown of thy name; that is, God has so decreed, that the memory of thy name shall not survive: for to sow from the name of one, is to extend his fame. When, therefore, God entirely exterminates a race from the world, or when he obliterates a nation, he is said to command that there should not be sown of such a name; that is, that there should be no propagation of that name. In short, our Prophet denounces on the Assyrians a ruin, from which they were never to rise again. And when such a command is ascribed to God, it means, that by the sole bidding of God both nations and kingdoms are propagated, and are also abolished and destroyed: for what is said of individuals ought to be extended to all nations, ‘Seed, or the fruit of the womb,’ as it is said in the Psalms, ‘is the peculiar gift of God,’ (Psalm 127.) For how comes it, that many are without children, while others have a large and a numerous family, except that God blesses some, and makes others barren? The same is to be thought of nations; the Lord propagates them and preserves their memory; but when it seems good to him, he reduces them to nothing, so that no seed remains. And when the Prophet testifies, that this is the command of Jehovah, he confirms the faith of the Israelites and of the Jews, that they might not doubt, but that the Assyrians would perish without any hope of restoration; for it was so decreed by Heaven.

He afterwards adds, From the house, or from the temple, of thy gods will I cut off graven images. It is probable, and it is the commonly received opinion, that the Prophet alludes here to Sennacherib, who was slain in the temple of his idol by his own sons, shortly after his return from Judea, when the siege of the holy city was miraculously raised through the instrumentality of an angel. As then he was slain in the temple, and it was by his murder profaned, I am inclined to receive what almost all others maintain, that there is here a reference to his person: but, at the same time, the Prophet no doubt describes, under the person of one king, the destruction and ruin of the whole kingdom. Gods indeed, did at that time make known what he had determined respecting the empire of Nineveh and all the Assyrians; for from this event followed also the change, that Nebuchodonosor transferred the empire to Babylon, and that the whole race, and every one who assumed power, became detestable. When, therefore, the Assyrians were torn by intestine discords, it was an easy matter for the Chaldeans to conquer them. Hence the Prophet does not here predict respecting one king only; but as his murder was, as it were, a prelude of the common ruin, the Prophet relates this history as being worthy of being remembered, — that the temple would be profaned by the murder of Sennacherib, and that then the monarchy would be soon transferred to the Chaldeans.

When he says, I will appoint thy sepulcher, he connects this clause with the former; for how was it that idols were cut off from that temple, except that that tragic deed rendered the place detestable? For there is no one who feels not a horror at such a base crime as that of children killing their father with their own hands. We know when a proud woman at Rome ordered her chariot to be drawn over the dead body of her father, the road was counted polluted. So also the temple was no doubt viewed as polluted by the murder of the king. Then these two clauses ought to be read together, that God would cut off idols and graven images from the temple, — and then, that the sepulcher of Sennacherib would be there.

He adds, For thou art execrable 220220     
   For thou art become vile. — Newcome.
Because thou art worthless.
— Henderson.

   Execrable, or accursed, which the word sometimes means, seems more suitable to the context. — Ed.
I have rendered קלות, kolut, a thing to be abominated. It may indeed be referred to that history; but I take it by itself as meaning, that Sennacherib was to be abominable, and not he alone, but also the whole royal family, and the monarchy of Nineveh. For it is not consistent, as we have said already, to say, that all these things refer to the person of Sennacherib; for the Prophet speaks of the destruction of the city and nation, and that generally; at the same time, this does not prevent him from referring, as it were, in passing, to the person of Sennacherib.

It must, at the same time, be noticed, that the vain confidence, which the Assyrian kings placed in their idols and graven images, is here indirectly reproved; for we know that idolaters not only confide in their own strength, but that a part of their hope is also founded on their superstitions. Hence the Prophet says, that their temple was to be profaned by God, so that no aid would remain to the Assyrians, to the kings themselves any more than to the whole people. Let us proceed —


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