Nahum
Notes
Transcript
Background
Background
First we look to what we’ve already studied. Jonah went and preached doom and destruction to Ninevah. They responded as he feared they would with repentance and were spared.
Now however the Assyrians, whose capital is Ninevah, would not repent this time. They had already fulfilled God’s will in the destruction of the Northern Kingdom in 722BC. We already read about the prophecies that this would happen in several prior books. At this point it has already happened and Nahum writes to the people of Judah who will see the destruction of the people who oppressed their people. It is a blessing to them that this destruction will come to their enemies and that God fulfills his promises of cursing those who curse Israel. The destruction of Ninevah comes just before the fall of the Southern Kingdom, Judah, to the Babylonians. Of course by this point they had been virtually ruled by the Assyrians for a hundred years. Judah under Ahaz sought protection from Assyria and in “rescuing” Ahaz and the southern kingdom. This is how the Northern Kingdom falls. Lets read that quickly.
So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me from the hand of the king of Syria and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.” Ahaz also took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king’s house and sent a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria listened to him. The king of Assyria marched up against Damascus and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir, and he killed Rezin.
When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details. And Uriah the priest built the altar; in accordance with all that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus, so Uriah the priest made it, before King Ahaz arrived from Damascus. And when the king came from Damascus, the king viewed the altar. Then the king drew near to the altar and went up on it and burned his burnt offering and his grain offering and poured his drink offering and threw the blood of his peace offerings on the altar. And the bronze altar that was before the Lord he removed from the front of the house, from the place between his altar and the house of the Lord, and put it on the north side of his altar. And King Ahaz commanded Uriah the priest, saying, “On the great altar burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering and the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. And throw on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice, but the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” Uriah the priest did all this, as King Ahaz commanded.
And King Ahaz cut off the frames of the stands and removed the basin from them, and he took down the sea from off the bronze oxen that were under it and put it on a stone pedestal.
This “rescue” resulted in the next hundred years of Judah as a vassal of Assyria where Baal worship reigned.
Now, the timeframe for this book has to be before the fall of Ninevah which happened in 612BC but it also had to happen after the fall of Thebes mentioned in Chapter 3 (vs 8-10) It was the capital of Egypt. That city fell in 663BC to the Assyrian army.
As we always like to do we’ll look to the name of the prophet and see if it adds anything to what we understand here. Nahum comes from the root word that means to comfort, and indeed Nahum is a comfort to his people in this prophecy that declares the coming destruction of Nineveh.
This book is also the most poetic of the minor prophets. It’s also the only one that calls iteslf a book. One commentor notes Nahum is the poet laureate of the minor prophets. I’ll try to avoid getting overly bogged down talking about all the poetic things but I’m sure some will still get mentioned.
With the large introduction to the book, do we have any questions so far?
An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.
We see as I mentioned in our introduction this is the book of the vision, this apparently isn’t the written account of what he preached or taught somewhere. Like in the case of Isaiah or Hosea who received a word or vision from the Lord and went out to tell people and we have their words and actions recorded.
In the first chapter, which we’ll tackle tonight, it speaks to the character of God.
Verse 2 begins the real poem.
Nahum 1:2–3 (ESV)
The Lord is a jealous and avenging God;
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and keeps wrath for his enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
These two verses all speak to who God is. There is not contradiction but contrast to the compliments of God’s character here. Jealous, avenging, wrathful AND slow to anger, great in power, not leaving the guilty unpunished. Some of this rings a familiar bell with Exod 34.4-7
So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
So we begin like we began with the giving of the law. A monumental moment in Biblical narrative. This rings our memory bells to pay attention and make us remember as we meditate on the word. This is who God is as our sovereign Lord just and might God. Even the language of the last half of verse 3 helps bring this in which points to God’s sovereignty even over nature but also uses the cloud imagery we see in Exodus. But unlike the gods of the nations that oppressed them or lured them into sin who claim great things about their idols, our God is one who acts.
He rebukes the sea and makes it dry;
he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither;
the bloom of Lebanon withers.
The mountains quake before him;
the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who dwell in it.
Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.
The I AM is also the He Does. We use language again to remind us of the Exodus as the Red Sea was dried up but also the things that have been judgment in Israel before, droughts that even affected the most lush and green areas of Israel. The earthquakes that happened and wrought destruction, and the shift of the whole world to be under the thumb of the Assyrian power, and soon it will be thrown in upheaval again to be put under the power of a Babylonian empire. Who, or what can prosper when it’s against God? Nothing - not man, nation, or mountain.
This God who is the I AM and who does all his holy will shows this in how he regards His people and is protective of them.
The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he knows those who take refuge in him.
But with an overflowing flood
he will make a complete end of the adversaries,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
What do you plot against the Lord?
He will make a complete end;
trouble will not rise up a second time.
For they are like entangled thorns,
like drunkards as they drink;
they are consumed like stubble fully dried.
From you came one
who plotted evil against the Lord,
a worthless counselor.
We have to take note here that even though I’ve made it clear we’re talking against Nineveh here as the conclusion to Jonah it has yet to be mentioned. I don’t think that was an accident. This was left intentionally vague because while it applies to the Assyrians it applies to all the adversaries of God. In fact this language lines up very similarly with the language Isaiah uses when he’s talking about Babylon who will take the people into captivity but ultimately be overthrown themselves because they treat God and His people as adversaries.
Next the Lord addresses Judah
Thus says the Lord,
“Though they are at full strength and many,
they will be cut down and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no more.
And now I will break his yoke from off you
and will burst your bonds apart.”
We have a very common phrase that we’ve seen very often “Thus says the Lord.” It gets us to make sure we’re paying attention and this one is one of deliverance that brings comfort as a message.
As we keep reading there “they” again is vague but we take it to mean the Assyrians as becomes clear and named as Nineveh next chapter. In addition to dealing with “them” God say he will not afflict Judah anymore. It was Assyria who did the afflicting but God is taking credit for it. I mean after all he told the Northern Kingdom he was going to judge them by destroying them and the understanding was that would happen through Assyria, and it did somewhere 50-100 years before Nahum is set. In all things God is sovereign. We must look to God if we love and trust in Him for all things to be worked out for good. We cannot see that end from here, we do not know how it works out. There is a hundred years of oppression, I’m sure many lives from beginning to end occured without seeing God’s promise fulfilled but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be or that God wasn’t faithful. God always does his holy will.
Then, a message to Nineveh or maybe the Assyrian King directly… presumably because we only get the pronoun you.
The Lord has given commandment about you:
“No more shall your name be perpetuated;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
the carved image and the metal image.
I will make your grave, for you are vile.”
Very clear here that the name of Assyria or the king thereof will not continue on and the idols will be struck down.
In conclusion we have verse 15 which is a message of the Gospel. - good news
Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him
who brings good news,
who publishes peace!
Keep your feasts, O Judah;
fulfill your vows,
for never again shall the worthless pass through you;
he is utterly cut off.
Even though we have 2 chapters to go We’ll have to come back around to this verse. It is the pinnacle of the book. It points us to victory and a Messiah who comes in peace. This uses a bit of Isa 52:7 language “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”” from a hundred to a hundred fifty years before.
This call to keep the feasts may seem strange at that time for those who had remained faithful and were being oppressed and unable to sacrifice in a desecrated temple. But Nahum believed in the promises of God, and called the people who were faithful to treat the promises like history. That’s what it means to trust in the Lord. Enjoy feasts in the oppression? Yes, live as though the kingdom is here now, for in a sense it is.
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