Christ in Nahum

Nahum 1 sets the whole and unbroken character of God before the reader at once, and refuses to let any part of it go. He is jealous , He revengeth , He is furious , He will not at all acquit the wicked (vv. 2-3); and in the same breath He is slow to anger, and great in power (v. 3), and - the line the whole book turns on - The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him (v. 7). The holiness that burns against evil and the goodne…

Nahum 2 is a single, hammering vision of the fall of Nineveh - the capital of Assyria, the most feared war-machine of its age, the empire that had carried away the northern tribes and stood over the nations like a lion over its prey. Nahum sees the siege as though it were already upon the city: the watchman’s cry, keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong (v. 1); the warriors in scarlet and the chariots that run like the lightnings (vv. 3-4); the river-gates…

Nahum 3 is the long, sober close of a book about the end of a tyrant. The capital of Assyria is named for what it was - the bloody city… full of lies and robbery (v. 1) - a power that grew fat on conquest, that selleth nations through her whoredoms (v. 4), whose cruelty had passed continually upon everyone in its reach (v. 19). And the verdict is that such cruelty comes at last to an account. From the beginning Scripture holds that bloodshed is answered: Whoso shedd…