Saturday 19th July
Read Nahum 3:14-17
“Draw water for the siege,
strengthen your defences!
Work the clay,
tread the mortar,
repair the brickwork!
15 There the fire will consume you;
the sword will cut you down –
and it will devour you like a swarm of locusts.
Multiply like grasshoppers,
multiply like locusts!
16 You have increased the number of your merchants
till they are more numerous than the stars in the sky,
but like locusts they strip the land
and then fly away.
17 Your guards are like locusts,
your officials like swarms of locusts
that settle in the walls on a cold day –
but when the sun appears they fly away,
and no one knows where.” (NIVUK)
The Assyrian empire was founded in the heart of the fertile crescent. Sitting between two reliable rivers flowing from the mountains of southern Turkey the sun-soaked plains responded to irrigation and created thriving communities centred on trade and commerce.
One of the ways in which this fecundity was managed by Yahweh seems to have been through locust plagues. Locust plagues are still difficult to manage nearly 3000 years later. In ancient times they would simply fly through landscapes stripping the fields bare leaving nothing behind. The wealth consumed in days.
In using the imagery of the locust plague Nahum makes clear the fate of Nineveh. Though they multiply like locusts their economic power and their stable rule is just as ephemeral. God is in the business of scattering wealth. Are we?
