Nahum 1 · NIVAC

Original Meaning

Vengeance (1:1–3a)

“NAHUM” (NAḤUM) MEANS “comfort.”2 Reading verse 2, where Yahweh’s vengeance is mentioned three times, the reader wonders, “For whom is the comfort intended?”3 This oracle “concerning Nineveh” is not simply for the Ninevites. It is also for Israel, who has suffered extensively at their hand.

The book begins with an acrostic wordplay, using the letters of the first half of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence to begin each half-verse. The main irregularity is that the first and second letter sequence (aleph and bet) is interrupted theologically by three half-verses (1:2a, b, 3a), which describe God. Nahum begins by declaring Yahweh’s name five times, with descriptions of three of God’s attributes: “the LORD is jealous” (1:2), “the LORD is slow to anger” (1:3), and “the LORD is … great in power” (1:3; see also 1:7, “the LORD is good”).4

(1) Yahweh is “jealous” and “avenging.” The participle “avenging” (noqem) describes what he does in reaction to the sins of Nineveh. These are difficult words for many readers. Yahweh is not vengeful by nature, yet his vengeance is mentioned three times in this opening verse.5 His vengeance is a response of his jealousy to particular circumstances. He does take vengeance, but he is not vengeful in character. His wrath is a circumstantial response to those who destroy what God loves. Three expressions provide the context of Yahweh’s vengeance in this verse: “jealousy” as an attribute of Yahweh, “filled with wrath,” and “against his enemies.”

What is it about Yahweh’s jealousy that causes him to respond to his foes with vengeance and wrath? What is it about his enemies that causes him to respond wrathfully? The word “jealous” (qanaʾ ) is also sometimes translated “zealous.” It comes from the name or title God gives himself in Exodus 34:14, where he says he is yahweh qanaʾ and el qanaʾ (“jealous LORD” or “jealous God”). The context is that God has just delivered his people from Egypt by his intervention in history and nature, in order to make them a blessing to all nations. In response, however, they have given credit to the golden calf (see also Ex. 20:5; Deut. 5:9). That makes God “jealous.” The human failure to acknowledge the true God is idolatry. Such idolatry reveals a God who is “jealous” of his name and his people. (For Christians the event of the golden calf would be similar to thanking our “lucky stars” that we are saved from sin and death in Christ.)

Praise for the deliverance of one’s life belongs to God. Unlike a teenager’s jealousy, God’s jealousy has an ultimate grounding in his self. The word qanaʾ also means “possession” (in its noun form). It means that God is rightly jealous because his people “belong to” him. He has “paid for” or “purchased” his people, even though they (or their enemies) pretend that they do not belong to him.

God’s jealousy is thus based on two fundamental claims: God has made us, so we rightly belong to and should love our Creator; and God has purchased us with his acts of deliverance, so we rightly belong to the one who has saved us. When any enemy “steals” or oppresses Yahweh’s people, God’s heart is pained with a perfect jealousy. The phrase that Yahweh “maintains his wrath” (noṭar, Nah. 1:2) comes from a word related to gardening. To maintain wrath means to persist against weeds that choke a vine and against foxes that eat the grapes. God persists in this way for the sake of the Judean remnant.

The declaration of Yahweh’s avenging is expanded by strong reinforcing statements that proceed from his jealous nature. These statements further our understanding of the vengeance of God. The following diagram of verse 2 demonstrates how God’s jealousy (on the one side) and his response of wrath against the sin of his foes (on the other side) are the setting and context for God’s avenging actions.

The LORD is a jealous God→	avenging
	takes vengeance→is filled with wrath
	takes vengeance→on his foes/against enemies

The expression “is filled with wrath” (baʾal ḥemah) means “one who has mastered wrath.” He is not possessed by wrath but controls wrath as its master and uses it for his purposes. The phrases “on his foes” and “against his enemies” can be more graphically translated, “those who are hostile toward him” and “those who are personally antagonistic toward him.” The words “foes” and “enemies” imply that Yahweh takes Nineveh’s endless cruelty toward Judah as a personal attack on himself.

(2) Yahweh’s second attribute is given in the predicate adjective in 1:3a: “The LORD is slow to anger.” This can also be translated “patient in anger.” Yahweh’s slowness to anger against Nineveh seems to stand in contrast to his jealousy for Judah. We might expect his jealousy for Israel to lead him to quickness of anger. Yet formerly, when Israel was the object of Yahweh’s anger, his slowness was an extension of that jealousy. He waited, without punishing, in hope that they would return to him through the pleading of the prophets.6

The expression “slow to anger” is an excerpted quotation from Ex. 34:6 and is paired with another from Exodus 34, that he does “not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7). God’s slowness to anger is always in the context of his redeeming work, begun in the Exodus. An ancient reader who knew the Exodus story would immediately connect this phrase to its beginning in that story.7

(3) Yahweh’s third attribute is also in 3a: “great in power.” Nahum assures us that although God’s vengeance against Nineveh has not come more quickly, his power is not in question. The nature of this power is explained in the 1:3b–6.

Three words that sound alike in Hebrew serve to encapsulate the first three verses: naḥam (“comfort,” 1:1), naqam (“avenging,” 1:2), and naqah (“unpunished,” 1:3). Nahum’s oracle brings comfort to those who have suffered untold atrocities by announcing vengeance on those who have been exempt from punishment for their crimes. The saying “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” (Deut. 32:35; cf. Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30) is well known. Here in Nahum is an expanded oracle concerning this vengeance and the way the jealous Creator carries it out.

The Way of the Creator (1:3b–6)

Bridging Contexts

THE THEOLOGY OF Nahum is closely connected to God’s crucial self-description to Moses at Sinai. The two main similarities are in italics:

Exodus 34:6–7: And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.”

Nahum 1:3: The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.

In Nahum 1:3 the prophet describes the God of the Exodus in a briefer format. He is “slow to anger,” meaning he delays punishment of the wicked, hoping for their repentance. His slowness does not mean that the unrepentant guilty are acquitted. Within the broader context of God’s reputation, Nahum celebrates that the consequences for Nineveh’s sins will no longer be delayed. The time is up. Its hundred-year run of domination and two hundred and fifty years of arrogant violence are finally over.

The differences between the quotations above (Ex. 34 and Nah. 1) are also apparent. Nahum does not mention the compassionate and gracious God who abounds in love and faithfulness and forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin. This does not mean, as many commentators erroneously conclude, that Nahum does not consider these as attributes. Any ancient reader would know that “slow to anger” is a kind of biblical shorthand that recalls the full Exodus text. Nahum’s oracle is not, of course, about compassion for Nineveh. That compassion was extended, at God’s insistence, through Jonah, who ran away precisely because he did not want Nineveh to receive it (Jonah 4:2). Nahum mentions God’s compassion (“slow to anger”) briefly, not because he does not believe in it but because the consequences of sin cannot be delayed forever.

Another erroneous conclusion made by some interpreters is that God’s slowness to anger and its compassion are extended to Israel, but the consequences of guilt are for the nations. The broader biblical context again does not support such a reading. The original warnings of consequences were for Israel at Sinai. The law is full of such warnings. The compassion of “slowness to anger” is also extended to Assyria and to the nations.14

Two audiences, two voices. Within its social and political context the message of Nahum 1 is consistent with the tradition of Exodus 34. It makes two claims about God. (1) The minor theme is for the violent who are listening. In compassion to the wicked, Yahweh is slow to anger, longing for the repentance of his human creation. God’s compassion for the arrogant and violent leads him to relent from a strict swift justice against them (see comments on Jonah 3:10). God struggles with this in a classic Hosea 11 text, where he says he will destroy a wicked Israel, but is struck with anguish at the thought of their destruction.

(2) The major theme in Nahum is comfort for the threatened Israelites and the surrounding cultures, as in Nah. 3:7b: “Who will mourn for her? Where can I find anyone to comfort [naḥam] you?” In comfort for the violated, Yahweh will not remove the consequences of guilt from the unrepentant wicked.

These two truths are voiced throughout Nahum 1 like a duet, although the comfort in wrath is muted and relies on a wider biblical context. This minor theme is found in these texts:

1:3a: The LORD is slow to anger and great in power.

1:7: The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.

1:15a: Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, O Judah.

The major theme of comfort for the cruelly treated is seen in these verses

1:3b: The LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet.

1:8–9: But with an overwhelming flood he will make an end of Nineveh; he will pursue his foes into darkness. Whatever they plot against the LORD he will bring to an end; trouble will not come a second time.

1:15b: No more will the wicked invade you; they will be completely destroyed.

The goodness of God undergirds both themes. Elizabeth Achtemeier offers five ways in which God (a shortened form of the word “good”) is declared “good” in Nahum.15 The central verse is Nah. 1:7: “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.” It offers the first two ways God is good: because he is a refuge in troubled times and because he knows those who seek him. Yahweh’s goodness also means that he “will not leave the guilty unpunished” (1:3). Goodness does not always entail the forgiveness of evil deeds or the removal of their consequences. God’s goodness is also found in the fact that vengeance belongs to Yahweh. Because “the LORD takes vengeance” (repeated twice in 1:2), the faithful are not left responsible for it (Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30).

Finally, God is good in that he is “slow to anger” (Nah. 1:3), seeking Nineveh’s repentance through Jonah and allowing more than one hundred years of Assyria’s barbarism before declaring an end. “God is exceedingly slow to anger, because he is exceedingly great: it is the little cur that yaps at every threatening noise; the lion waits and seems to doze.”16

Reasonable objections to God’s goodness as the theme of a book as violent as Nahum are raised by at least one commentator.17 The claim that God is good in Nahum runs against modern ethical and philosophical categories as well as a basic human desire to define God according to our own impulses. This may explain in part why it is so little read today. Nahum challenges deeply held assumptions about the nature of goodness.

Three objections are commonly voiced. (1) How can God be associated with the (pagan) Babylonian army and its violence against Nineveh? Using violence against the violent cannot be “absolutely good.” Human experience tells us that war and what we would call war crimes of the ancient Near East diminish the perpetrators. God is implicated by his association with the Babylonian army. As long as God is measured against human experience and against human measures of “absolute” goodness, the problem will remain. God is in some way implicated in every death in history, good and bad. The claim of goodness in Nahum is simply that God is good to those who trust in him. This is not a claim to absolute human goodness. “I will prepare your grave, for you are vile” (1:14), he says to Nineveh. If God is a warrior and a destroyer, the definition of absolute human goodness cannot apply to God. God is not a human.18

It should be noted that God did not “intervene” in Nineveh’s fall to the Babylonians and Medes in 612 B.C. Assyria’s demise was the combined result of corrupt internal government and culture and the rise of the Babylonian military might in the south. God did not take “special” action to destroy Nineveh. Nahum simply declares that God’s avenging is accomplished through these events. The issue is that Yahweh claims to work through human political agency at all, since all human agency is corrupt to some degree. By “absolute goodness” (a category of philosophical ethics) standards, God can only be good by refusing to participate in the human world through human agency!19 To say that God can’t be “absolutely good” by our standards is an inside-out argument in relation to a living God. Only a God that doesn’t fit our philosophical categories can be a true God and not a theological construct.

(2) The second objection is that innocents (e.g., children) die in the fall of Nineveh. How can God be declared “good” and claim responsibility for the death of children? The forty-seven short verses of Nahum do not address the question of the death of the innocent (as in the Gen. 18 conversation between Abraham and God concerning the innocent in Sodom). Nor does it address God’s call to his enemies for reconciliation (as in Jonah 4). Nahum is part of a Bible that does speak to these problems in both Old and New Testaments (consider Job or Christ’s sufferings, or the martyrs of Revelation).

The problem of the suffering of innocent people is not answered in Nahum, but it may be raised in relation to other texts that do grapple with the issue (Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes). Nahum does address God’s commitment to bring to an end those who systematically and consistently oppress the innocent. His commitment to protect and vindicate the innocent is beyond question (see Ex. 22:21–24). God will overcome his enemies either by making them his friends or through apocalyptic judgment (Matt. 24; Mark 13). The innocent will ultimately be his responsibility.

(3) The final objection asks: Doesn’t God also love the wicked (as in Jonah 4:11), since they are also his creation? How can they be reconciled to him if he destroys them? Nahum does not engage this discussion, but stands at the end of a long-suffering negotiation (Nah. 1:3a; see the introduction, “Historical Context”), in which Nineveh has turned back from reconciliation (Jonah stands two books earlier in the canon). In the end, God’s historical bias is toward those who are oppressed.

God’s decision to identify with a human agent (Babylon) to destroy Nineveh means that he does sully his hands in history, even if he hesitates with a hundred years of “slowness to anger.” He implicates himself even in the death of infants. Some oppressors are so systemically evil that God is willing to participate in the desolation of the entire culture. Yahweh is really God in taking responsibility for these deaths. No human can claim that responsibility and maintain “goodness.” Only the true God can do that and guarantee justice, even for the innocents.

Only a God who can make this claim, who can enter human history and the ambiguities of human life, can be God of all life and death. This kind of god cannot, by definition, be a god who measures up to the “absolute goodness” of human philosophical categories that are built on the certain limitation that no person could kill an innocent and be just at the same time. When God declared that he would enter into human history, he gave up the possibility of pleasing all philosophical definitions of “absolute power” of purity and goodness. That decision eventually would lead God to his own scandalous death. Only his “God-ness” caused that innocent death to rise above human scandal.

The divine warrior. The most common interpretation of Nahum 1 is that Nineveh is a symbol for all evil, especially in the form of extreme nationalistic arrogance (see the introduction to Jonah, “The Terror-Mongers of Nineveh, Assyria”). God’s vengeance is not simply directed at Nineveh but is a prophecy for the end of time, confirming the promise of divine justice.20 God’s power and justice stretch from the beginning of time in the first chapter (1:4: “He rebukes the sea”; cf. Gen. 1:9–10) to the end of time (Nah. 1:8: “He will pursue his foes into darkness”). God’s claim to ultimate victory is a call to repentance to live under his kingship in love rather than in violence.

The theme of Yahweh as a warrior for justice who judges evil and causes the cosmos to shake (1:2–8) can be traced through the Old and New Testaments.21 The divine warrior’s trajectory begins in Exodus 14 with the destruction of the Egyptian army in the sea. God’s judgment is turned against Israel for priestly corruption in 1 Samuel 4. The northern ten tribes experience his wrath in their deportation in 722 B.C. Nahum’s word against national evil is next with Nineveh destroyed in 612 B.C. Yahweh wars against Judah in their deportation in 586 B.C. In Zechariah 14:3–5 Yahweh comes forth to fight for his faithful people in days yet to come. In Jesus’ day many expected the Messiah to be this warrior.

Jesus’ warfare, however, was not nationalistic but against human bondage to sin, death, and the evil one (Matt. 11:2–6; Mark 3:20–30; Luke 4:18–21). His crucifixion and resurrection gave a new understanding and perspective on the ultimate love behind the warrior’s use of force (Eph. 4:7–13; 6:10–20; Col. 2:8–15). Revelation 19:11–21 describes the final necessary battle of the Lord as warrior, triumphing over evil once and for all.

When we see Nahum 1 as part of this broader historical trajectory, its military imagery becomes a pressing call to take refuge in the cross of Christ as an expression of the warrior’s love for us. Jesus is a dying warrior, for our sake and for our deliverance. To live in the world of the divine warrior means suffering defeat alone and without a reference, or suffering death with reference to Christ’s dying warrior love. It means dying with him now, in defeat of our own rebellion, or without him later, in defeat of the same.

Creation and the Creator’s “slowness” to anger. God’s power (“slow to anger and great in power,” Nah. 1:3) may be questioned by those who do not understand his way in the world. From the perspective of the believer in Judah who has felt the cruel oppression of Nineveh, perhaps through the loss of a child or a spouse to death or slavery, Yahweh’s “slowness to anger” certainly raises questions of faith. Nahum declares that although Yahweh is slow to anger, he is also “great in power” and “will not leave the guilty unpunished” (1:3). He continues to explain the slowness of his power and punishment by describing the “way” of Yahweh. This “way” is the way of the Creator. He works in, with, and under what we call “forces of nature.” His way, Nahum says, is through his creation: the wind, storm, and clouds (1:3); the sea, rivers, and seasons (1:4); and earthquake and torrential rains (1:5).

As the Creator, Yahweh is master of both order and what looks like disorder: storms, dry rivers, quaking earth, and terrified people. Nahum’s word of hope is that God is in control, even when creation seems to be working against us. He calls us to consider whether we have caused “his indignation” (Nah. 1:6) or whether we are simply seeing his power at work. In 1:6 the question “Who can withstand his indignation?” is similar to the familiar question of Malachi 3:2, “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.” Its creation themes are echoed in Revelation 6:16–17: “They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’”

Contemporary Significance

TWO COMMON RESPONSES to Yahweh’s avenging are present in the opening verses of Nahum. Those who have suffered violence may find that God’s vengeance brings them comfort. God’s goodness in the midst of catastrophic events may strike a sympathetic chord. Others may be horrified at God’s wrath and the violence of his judgments. Life experience deeply influences how these verses are heard and interpreted.

Comfort for survivors. One response is to be surprised and comforted to hear that God becomes angry at all. Many believe that God does not care about the genocides and wars of the twentieth century, or that God does not take enough vengeance on the wicked. There are times when the wicked prosper (“Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” Jer. 12:1; cf. Ps. 94:3). Some might wish that God would act more quickly and not be so “slow to anger” (Nah. 1:3). Nahum declares that though God is slow to anger, he is full of wrath over ongoing cruelty. God’s anger is not essentially punishing, but restorative. His wrath comes against everything that destroys life.

God is slow to intervene in hope that even the perpetrators of evil will repent and seek life (Jonah 3). Yet, in human society the unfortunate course of violent action is sometimes necessary. The American Civil War was a horrific event in which over 600,000 people were killed. It nonetheless ended the intolerable institution of slavery and preserved the country’s unity. Today that war is both celebrated and grieved for its human cost.

This first response may be twisted to a false conclusion. The comfort of God’s wrath for survivors of horrific events is Nahum’s context. To extend this to all believers in opposition to “infidels,” however, is a distortion of the meaning that serves only the reader and not the “good news” of God (Nah. 1:15). Nahum is not for isolated use in the teaching of the church. When it is taught, it must be read in conjunction with similar prophecies against God’s people, in order to preclude the possibility of arrogance against one’s enemies. Even within Nahum (1:12), Yahweh reminds Judah, “I afflicted you.” The necessary awareness is that Judah does not take its own vengeance but that Yahweh uses another agent to exact justice. The same God who in the flesh said, “Love your enemies,” also said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 32:35; Matt. 5:44; Heb. 10:30).22

Can God still be good? The second common response is offense at the notion that God is portrayed as wrathful at all. Isn’t God a God of love? How can a loving God take vengeance? Some Christians consider Nahum and other difficult Old Testament texts obsolete in light of the goodness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. They may wish to preserve God’s reputation by “sanitizing” it. In order to deal with the God revealed in Scripture, it is necessary to read further and deeper into the nature of the love behind God’s wrath.

(1) One wrong application of God’s wrath is its use by adults to modify behavior in children. They have confused their own personal anger and God’s agonizing love. The terrible result is that many children have come to associate God’s wrath with their experience of angry adults playing “god.” The truth of the matter is that God is a God of love, whose wrath is a response to evil actions that continually distort and hurt the helpless. God’s wrath is directed at those systems of rule that make victims of his children. A deep and sad irony is evident in those who reject the wrath that is intended to be their deliverance.

Yahweh’s goodness (Nah. 1:7) is no simple or two-dimensional goodness, in which all evil is out of sight. It is set between verses 6 and 8 so that we can see that God’s goodness is not tame or domesticated but is a powerful goodness that will bring justice to the world. Nor is it an abstract goodness, for it reaches to those who trust in him, providing a “refuge in times of trouble.”23

(2) The second response may also be twisted to a false conclusion. The wrath of God in Nahum is a response to a specific problem of cruelty in Nineveh. Wrath is not an abstract attribute of God but is a response to human evil intentionally causing human suffering. The twentieth century was the most violent century in the history of the world. Genocides from Europe to Cambodia and from the former Soviet Union to Africa pock our history. God’s wrath must always be understood in the context of current events. The facts and conclusions are twisted when the cruel historical realities against which God is responding in wrath are left out of the conversation. God’s wrath is always delivered against the sociopolitical oppressors of the helpless.

God’s love is behind his wrath (see God’s inner struggle in Hosea 11). Anyone who has lived in a community where violent actions flourish unchecked or where law is not upheld knows the necessity of the exercise of power to check cycles and structures of evil (even in “good” people). God’s vengeance is an exercise of power to stop the devastating conflagration of Nineveh’s cruelty against which no human power in the ancient world had been able to stand.

Nahum is not for everyone. Nahum raises more questions than answers for many readers. For example, “Why does God speak so violently?” (Nah. 3:4–7). But if Nineveh was so evil, why was God so slow to punish them? Why did God afflict Israel with Assyria in the first place (1:12)? In short, why does God allow and use violence in the world? Nahum does not attempt to answer these questions in its forty-seven verses. The wisdom literature of Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes does struggle with these issues, and the New Testament offers a new possibility for God’s people in dealing with violence.24

Nahum, however, is silent on these issues. The prophet simply describes Nineveh’s cruelty and God’s response of anger. He announces the end of Assyria’s reign of terror in the ancient Near East. He does not hide the fact that innocents suffer in such affliction (Nah. 3:10; cf. Ps. 44:17–26). The only glimmer of an answer within the book is found in the creation language of Nahum 1:3b–6: God uses natural means to accomplish his work in history. This means justice is generally done with the broad strokes of natural events, politics, and national power (see “The way of Yahweh in natural events,” below). Innocents are often unjustly injured in such events. In the midst of these broad shifts Yahweh gives one personal word: “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him” (Nah. 1:7).

Is there a double standard for violence (the use of force) in Nahum, one for us and one for God? Some readers are most troubled by the “avenging” language of Nahum, as Jesus commands believers to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute them (Matt. 5:44). Yet it is clear that God will take vengeance. Not only is God described as avenging three times in Nah. 1:2, but chapter 1 is replete with references to God’s destroying (1:3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15). How is it that God does not abide by the same counsel he gives?

The apostle Paul did not have any trouble with this double standard. He understood the difference between God and human beings:

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:19–21; see Lev. 19:18; Prov. 25:21–22).

God takes vengeance precisely because God is God and we are not. God can be trusted, because of his goodness, to execute wrath and mercy justly. Without this trust in God as the real Lord of creation, the human potential for good and evil cannot be understood. If we rely on ourselves for vengeance, God knows that our imperfection will cause the fire of our wrath to consume us as well. God has provided a way for us to escape that conflagration and realize our potential for good by taking our vengeance against others into himself. He has even taken others’ just vengeance against us into himself. The God of Nahum is Paul’s God: In both cases God takes responsibility for the violence, and his people are not involved.

In Nahum we are asked to trust that God’s goodness is not altered by his use of the Babylonian army. This is, of course, a mystery that we must accept. In the New Testament we are asked to trust in the sufficiency of God’s dying as an act that can save a violent world from destruction. This too is a mystery to be believed.

The way of Yahweh in natural events: creation and politics. A sage perspective is offered in Nahum that remains timelessly valid for us. This paraphrase of Nahum 1:3b–6 (especially when read aloud) draws out the perspective of awe in the way of Yahweh in nature. For Nahum, the forces of politics and nations are an extension of nature (human beings are simply a part of the creation). The destruction of Nineveh, like the rise and fall of nations today, belongs to a larger vision of God’s power displayed in “natural” events.

Yahweh’s way is known in the wind of the storm and in the tempest. Clouds are like dust on his feet. By his restraining word the sea-tide goes out. All the stream-beds become dry for lack of rain. The fruitful countryside of Carmel and Bashan fade and the blossoms of Lebanon wither in the dry season. Because of him the mountains are shaken by earthquake. Hills dissolve in heavy rains. In contemplating these ways, all the earth, and all who live in it, may respectfully tremble at his creating presence. If this is Yahweh’s way in the earth, who will be able to stand when God is offended by arrogant actions? Who will stand up when his anger is kindled? His fury flows like fire and by him rock-walls are shattered.

Nahum invites us to share two perspectives that are not always evident today. The first is that the rise and fall of political powers (e.g., Babylon’s destruction of Nineveh) can be understood in the context of a natural disaster (“rock-walls are shattered”). God does not use a supernatural means to destroy arrogant nations, but natural events. Five natural metaphors describe Nineveh’s end (with an overwhelming flood, into darkness, entangled among thorns, drunk from their wine, consumed like dry stubble [Nah. 1:8, 10]). In each case Nineveh’s experience of the good creation is a disaster because of her opposition to the Creator and the creation.

The second perspective is that Yahweh’s presence and activity in the world (his “way”) may be better understood through the practice of observing and describing the environment. This is exactly what Nahum does in order to communicate his message. God’s way can be seen in “natural” events so we can learn the power and glory of this presence.

Perhaps the most difficult sentence in the book is this one: “Although I have afflicted you, O Judah, I will afflict you no more” (Nah. 1:12b). Yahweh takes responsibility for Judah’s affliction by the Assyrian military presence. This common (but uncomfortable) Old Testament pattern is seen also in Hosea. “When I please, I will punish them; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin” (10:10). Then God says, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?… My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim” (Hos. 11:8–9; cf. Ezek. 18:31–32). The prophets acknowledged God’s hand in humanity’s political circumstances.

Not every case of affliction or suffering in the world has a personal link to sin. (Jesus cautions the Pharisees against this perspective in John 9:1–3.) Not every case of affliction comes from Yahweh’s hand. In every case of affliction, however, we speak to Yahweh that God might be glorified. Whether the case of affliction calls for repentance, protest against another’s sin (through lament and a call for justice), or seeking comfort and healing for something that cannot be undone, God may be glorified.

Whatever the circumstance in history, believers have looked to God, in repentance (Jer. 14:19–20), in protest (Ps. 13:1–4; 35:15–17; 74:1–10), or for comfort. C. S. Lewis drew on this perspective when he said that pain is God’s megaphone. With it he gets our attention and draws us into a conversation with himself about our specific circumstance. Poet John Donne invited Yahweh’s affliction as a cure for his own arrogance: “Batter my heart, three person’d God … That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow mee and bend / Your force to breake, blowe, burn, and make me new.”25

When the problem is arrogance, as it was with Nineveh, we would do well to join John Donne. Donne was familiar with the New Testament tradition of Nahum 1:6, which was reframed in the wrath of the Lamb at the final judgment. His prayer is that the return of the Lamb would be good news for him.

Who can withstand his indignation? Who can endure [stand] his fierce anger? His wrath is poured out like fire; the rocks are shattered before him. (Nah. 1:6)

They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” (Rev. 6:16–17)

Through belief in the death and resurrection of the Lamb, the good news of peace with God is declared to all nations. Judah is called to celebrate festivals in Nahum 1:15 (“Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace! Celebrate your festivals, O Judah, and fulfill your vows”). Peter interprets this call in light of Jesus’ resurrection and his vision at the house of Simon the tanner:

I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. (Acts 10:34–35)

Paul too includes those who speak to others of this good news in this celebration in Romans and Ephesians:

And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom. 10:15)

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. (Eph. 6:14–15)

Original Meaning

Vengeance (1:1–3a)

“NAHUM” (NAḤUM) MEANS “comfort.”2 Reading verse 2, where Yahweh’s vengeance is mentioned three times, the reader wonders, “For whom is the comfort intended?”3 This oracle “concerning Nineveh” is not simply for the Ninevites. It is also for Israel, who has suffered extensively at their hand.

The book begins with an acrostic wordplay, using the letters of the first half of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence to begin each half-verse. The main irregularity is that the first and second letter sequence (aleph and bet) is interrupted theologically by three half-verses (1:2a, b, 3a), which describe God. Nahum begins by declaring Yahweh’s name five times, with descriptions of three of God’s attributes: “the LORD is jealous” (1:2), “the LORD is slow to anger” (1:3), and “the LORD is … great in power” (1:3; see also 1:7, “the LORD is good”).4

(1) Yahweh is “jealous” and “avenging.” The participle “avenging” (noqem) describes what he does in reaction to the sins of Nineveh. These are difficult words for many readers. Yahweh is not vengeful by nature, yet his vengeance is mentioned three times in this opening verse.5 His vengeance is a response of his jealousy to particular circumstances. He does take vengeance, but he is not vengeful in character. His wrath is a circumstantial response to those who destroy what God loves. Three expressions provide the context of Yahweh’s vengeance in this verse: “jealousy” as an attribute of Yahweh, “filled with wrath,” and “against his enemies.”

What is it about Yahweh’s jealousy that causes him to respond to his foes with vengeance and wrath? What is it about his enemies that causes him to respond wrathfully? The word “jealous” (qanaʾ ) is also sometimes translated “zealous.” It comes from the name or title God gives himself in Exodus 34:14, where he says he is yahweh qanaʾ and el qanaʾ (“jealous LORD” or “jealous God”). The context is that God has just delivered his people from Egypt by his intervention in history and nature, in order to make them a blessing to all nations. In response, however, they have given credit to the golden calf (see also Ex. 20:5; Deut. 5:9). That makes God “jealous.” The human failure to acknowledge the true God is idolatry. Such idolatry reveals a God who is “jealous” of his name and his people. (For Christians the event of the golden calf would be similar to thanking our “lucky stars” that we are saved from sin and death in Christ.)

Praise for the deliverance of one’s life belongs to God. Unlike a teenager’s jealousy, God’s jealousy has an ultimate grounding in his self. The word qanaʾ also means “possession” (in its noun form). It means that God is rightly jealous because his people “belong to” him. He has “paid for” or “purchased” his people, even though they (or their enemies) pretend that they do not belong to him.

God’s jealousy is thus based on two fundamental claims: God has made us, so we rightly belong to and should love our Creator; and God has purchased us with his acts of deliverance, so we rightly belong to the one who has saved us. When any enemy “steals” or oppresses Yahweh’s people, God’s heart is pained with a perfect jealousy. The phrase that Yahweh “maintains his wrath” (noṭar, Nah. 1:2) comes from a word related to gardening. To maintain wrath means to persist against weeds that choke a vine and against foxes that eat the grapes. God persists in this way for the sake of the Judean remnant.

The declaration of Yahweh’s avenging is expanded by strong reinforcing statements that proceed from his jealous nature. These statements further our understanding of the vengeance of God. The following diagram of verse 2 demonstrates how God’s jealousy (on the one side) and his response of wrath against the sin of his foes (on the other side) are the setting and context for God’s avenging actions.

The LORD is a jealous God→	avenging
	takes vengeance→is filled with wrath
	takes vengeance→on his foes/against enemies