Nahum 1:6
“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.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →No one can withstand God's righteous anger against evil; it is poured out like fire and shatters even the rocks.
What Does Nahum 1:6 Mean?
The hymn reaches its sharpest point with two questions that expect the answer none. Who can stand, who can endure, when God rises against entrenched wickedness? His fury is pictured as molten fire poured out, and rocks themselves are broken before Him. After the trembling mountains of the previous verse, this drives the certainty home: there is no shelter from God to be found in any created strength.
It is important to hear this as anger against evil, not random rage. God's wrath in Scripture is the steady opposition of holiness to all that destroys and oppresses. A love that never burned against cruelty would be no love at all. The unbearable question who can stand finds its only answer outside ourselves, in the mercy of God. The cross is where that mercy meets that fire, where Christ stood in the place none of us could stand, so that those who trust Him need not face the storm alone but are gathered into the refuge the very next verse offers.