Nahum 1:9
“What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Whatever schemes are devised against the Lord are futile; He will end the threat so completely it will not rise again.
What Does Nahum 1:9 Mean?
The prophet turns to address the plotters directly with a pointed question: what do you imagine against the Lord? Assyria had laid schemes against God's people and, in defying them, against God Himself. The answer is swift. He will make a complete end, and the affliction that has battered the nations will not rise a second time. Whether spoken to Nineveh's confidence or to Judah's fear, the meaning is the same: this oppression has a final expiration.
There is real comfort in the promise that trouble shall not rise up the second time. So much human suffering is the dread that evil will simply regroup and return. Against that fear God sets a word of finality. What He ends stays ended. The plotting of the powerful, however clever, runs aground on the will of the Almighty. This points forward to the deeper promise that one day every form of evil and death itself will be brought to a final end through Christ, with no second rising of what was overcome, and every tear wiped away.