Nahum 1

 

God is jealous because He loves us greatly

 

1 The burden of Nineveh: The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. 2 God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; the LORD avenges, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies. 3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea, makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers: Bashan languishes, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languishes.

 

  • Nahum means consolation.
  • God made everything good, good, and very good.
  • Pain and ruin are not what He intended. Evil is the source of it.
  • Jeremiah 31:3 …Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.


5 The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yes, the world, and all that dwell in it. 6 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 stronghold in trouble

He knows those who trust in Him

 

The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knows those that trust in him. 8 But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of its place, and darkness will pursue his enemies. 9 What do you imagine against the LORD? He will make an utter end: affliction will not rise up the second time.

10  For while they are folded together as thorns, and while they are drunk as drunkards, they will be devoured as fully dry stubble. 11 One has come out of you one that imagines evil against the LORD, a counselor of Belial.

 

  • Belial means lawless. Satan is the original lawless one.

 

12  The Lord says this: Though they are in full strength and many, yet they will they be cut off, when he will pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. 13 Now I will break his yoke off you and will burst your bonds in apart. 14 The LORD has given a commandment concerning you, that no more of your name be sown: I will cut off the carved image and the molten image out of the house of your gods: I will make your grave for you are vile. 15 Behold on the mountains the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace! O Judah, feast your feasts, perform your vows: for the wicked will no more pass through you; he is utterly cut off.

 

  • ‘Name being sown” is people talking about them, making them known and famous. It will stop. Not only will they not be famous. They will not exist at all.

 

                                              Nahum 2

 

1 He that dashes in pieces is coming against your face: Man the fortress, watch the road, make your loins strong, fortify your power mightily. 2 For the LORD has turned away the pride of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the plunderers have devastated, and destroyed their vine branches. 3 The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots will be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the cypress spears will be terribly shaken. 4 The chariots will rage in the streets, they will jostle one against another in the broad ways: they will seem like torches, they will run like the lightnings. 5 He will remember his strong warriors: they will stumble in their walk; they will rush to its wall, and the defense will be prepared. 6 The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved. 7 It is fixed! She is stripped and carried away, and her handmaids are moaning like the sound of doves beating their breasts. 8 But Nineveh is like a pool of water in her days: yet they will flee away. Stop! Stop! They will cry; but no one turns back.

 

  • God made all people and all nations.
  • He expects them to honor and obey Him.
  • This is Gods’ judgment against the evil that they chose.
  • Isaiah 5 explains the ‘destruction of the vine branches.’
  • It’s a poem about Israel being God’s vineyard.
  • God planted them with love and goodness hoping for a harvest of love and joy but they turned from Him.
  • Habakkuk 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.
  • Judges 5:8 They chose new gods; then was war in the gates.
  • Micah 5:15 I will take vengeance in anger and wrath upon the nations that have not obeyed me. (NIV)

 

Seize the silver! Seize the gold! There is no limit to the treasure—riches from all precious objects. 10 She is empty, desolate, and waste: and the hearts melt, knees knock, and much trembling is in the whole body, and the faces collect heat. 11 Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion’s cub, and none made them afraid? 12 The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with torn flesh. 13 Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions: and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no more be heard.

 

  • Rulers that devour their people instead of tending them are compared in scripture to beasts (Ezekiel 34).
  • The Lord will rule over all people lovingly.
  • Ezekiel 34: 16 I will seek what was lost, and bring again those driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

 

                                                Nahum 3

 

1 Cries of grief to the bloody city! It is full of lies and robbery; the prey never departs; 2 The noise of a whip, the noise of the rattling of the wheels, of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. 3 The horseman lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: a multitude is killed, a great number of carcasses; there is no end of their corpses; they stumble on their corpses.

 

  • God gives life and He alone has the right to take it.
  • This warning is meant to awaken people and turn them back to their Maker before it is too late.
  • Revelation 1:18 I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

 

The LORD of hosts is against those who turn from their Maker and lead others away

 

Because of the multitude of the whoring of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her whoring, and families through her witchcrafts. 5 Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts; and I will uncover your skirts on your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame. 6 I will cast abominable filth on you, and make you vile. I will make you a spectacle. 7 And it will come to pass, that all those that look on you will flee from you and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will mourn for her? From where can I seek comforters for you?

 

  • Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire.
  • She had much influence over many peoples but left her Maker; that is unfaithfulness or harlotry.
  • he led the people away from their Maker who is the source of life.
  • God’s title ‘Lord of hosts’ reminds that He is sovereign over all the countless armies of angels in the universe.
  • God covers our nakedness with His righteousness if we believe in His Son’s death for our sins.
  • Genesis 3:21 Unto Adam and to his wife also the LORD God made coats of skins, and clothed them.
  • Revelation 3:18 I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white clothing, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see.

 

Are you better than Thebes (No-Amon) that was situated among the rivers, surrounded by waters, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea? 9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were your helpers. 10 Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

 

  • In her great strength Nineveh thought herself invincible.
  • God, through Nahum, reminded her of another great city brought to ruin for her unfaithfulness to her Maker.
  • Micah 5:15 I will take vengeance in anger and wrath on the nations that have not obeyed me.

 

11  You also will be drunk: you will be hidden: you will seek strength because of the enemy. 12 All your strong holds will be like fig trees with the first ripe figs: if it is shaken, they will fall into the mouth of the eater. 13 Behold, your people in the midst of you are women: the gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies: the fire will devour your bars. 14 Draw waters for the siege, fortify your strong holds! Go to the clay, and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold! 15 There the fire will devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will consume you like the locust larvae: make yourself many as the locust larvae, make yourself many as the locusts. 16 You have multiplied your merchants above the stars of heaven: the locusts strips bare and fly away. 17 Noblemen are like the locusts, and your captains as the great grasshoppers that camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun rises they flee, and the place where they are is not known.

 

  • The bars barricaded the gates after it was closed (verse 13).
  • Locust’s strip everything bare and then leave.
  • That’s how merchants are that overcharge. They take all the substance of a man’s work and then move on to a more profitable place.
  • Do we meet our needs by trusting God and working for a living or taking advantage of others?

 

Without God there can be no healing

 

18  Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: your nobles will dwell in the dust: your people are scattered on the mountains and no man gathers them. 19 There is no healing of your fracture; your wound is incurable. All that hear about you will clap the hands over you: for on whom has not your evil flowed continually?

 

  • Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

 

 

 

SUMMARY: Nahum 1-3

 

  • God is jealous because He loves us greatly
  • The LORD is good; A stronghold in trouble
  • He knows those who trust in Him
  • The LORD of hosts is against those who turn from their Maker and lead others away
  • Without God there can be no healing