Saturday 5th July
Read Nahum 1:12-14
“This is what the Lord says:
‘Although they have allies and are numerous,
they will be destroyed and pass away.
Although I have afflicted you, Judah,
I will afflict you no more.
13 Now I will break their yoke from your neck
and tear your shackles away.’
14 The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh:
‘You will have no descendants to bear your name.
I will destroy the images and idols
that are in the temple of your gods.
I will prepare your grave,
for you are vile.’” (NIVUK)
The first time God speaks in Nahum it is with a word of comfort for Judah and judgment for Nineveh. This sounds completely sensible at first glance. Yet for the hearers, and for us, there is tension.
For the One who offers comfort is also the One who sent judgment to His own people. In the form of the Assyrians. The Assyrians swooped down upon Israel, conquered them and scattered them throughout the near East. The Assyrians conquered most of Judah also, capturing their second largest city and laying siege to Jerusalem before being reprieved. The Assyrians were an instrument in God’s hands.
How can the judgment be just if they were, as they believed also, the very instrument of justice. When you read their works and even listen to their speeches (cf Isaiah 37) they believed themselves to be the hand of their god judging the impiety of the wicked nations around them. They were religious indeed. They even repented at the words of Jonah! But this very belief, that they were on God’s side, and therefore just and right in all they did, was flawed.
Their sense of importance, their pride, was their downfall. Their name would be wiped out (v14a). Their gods would be wiped out (v14b), they would be wiped out. Our translation finishes with ‘you are vile’, but literally, it is ‘you are lightweight’ (v14c). The king is insignificant compared with Yahweh – no royal treatment for Assyria, just an unmarked grave.
The responsibility of individuals sits alongside the sovereignty of God.
