The Pulpit Commentary — Nahum — Section 21

Vera. 1, 2.-Great sins bringing gre.at roin. "The burden of Nineveh, The book of the vision <if N ahom the Elkoshite. God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies." But little is known, of Nahum, whose name signifies "Comfort." He was a native of Elkosh; generally supposed to be a Galiliean village. He lived probably in or about th~ year B.C. 650. The burden of hie prophecy is the destruction of Nineveh, which destruction was predicted by Jonah a century before. Nineveh was destroyed about fifty years after this prophecy was uttered, and -so complete was its overthrow that the very site where it stood is a matter of conjecture. The prophecy, though divided into three chapters, is a continuous poem of unrivalled spirit and sublimity, and admirable for the elegance of its imagery. "The third chapter is a very striking description of a siege-the rattle of the war- chariot, the gleam of the sword, the trench filled with corpses, ,the ferocity of the successful invaders, the panic of the defeated, the vain attempts to rebuild the cruwbl.iDg battlements, final overthrow and ruin." The opening words suggest two remarks. L THAT THE GB.EAT SINS OF .A PEOPLE MUST EVEB BBING Ol'ON THEH GREAT BOIN, The population of Nineveh was pre-eminently wicked. It is represented in the Scriptures as a "bloody city," a "city full of lies and robberies; " its savage brutality to captives is portrayed in its own monuments, and the Hebrew prophets dwell upou its impious haughtiness and ruthless fierceness (Isa.. L 7, 8). In this book we ,hav~ its "burden," that is, its sentence, its doom; and the doom is terrible beyond description. It is ever so. Great sins bring great ruin. It was so with the antediluvians, with the inhabitants of Sodom a.nd Gomorrah. It was so with the Jews in the time of Titus. Thirty-seven years after the crucifix.ion of our Lord, the Roman general, with a numerous army, laid siege to their city, and converted it into a scene of the, greatest horrors ever witnessed on this earth. The principle of moral causation and the eternal justice of the universe demal!d that wherever there is sin there shall be duffering; and in proportion to the amount of sin shall be the amount of suffering. "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." .II. THAT THE GREAT BOIN THAT COHES UPON GREAT SINNERS PRESENTS Goo TO THE "VISION" OF MAN AS TERRIBLY INDIGNANT. "God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, aud he reserveth wrath for his enemies," The passions of man are here ascribed to God. In this form of speech the Eternal Spirit is often represented in the Bible as having feet, hands, ears, mouth; but as he has none of these, neither has he any of theae passions. lt i~ only when terrible anguish comes upon the sinner that God appears to the observer as indignant. The God here was the God who only appeared in the "vision" of Na.hum-the God as he appeared to a man of limited capacity and imperfect character. JesUB alone saw the absolute God. "No man bath seen God at auy time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of tbe Father, he hath declared him." The God of Jesus of Nazareth had no jealousy, no vengeance, no fury. He was love. "Fury is not in me, saith the Lord" (Isa. xxvii. 4) If God has anger,  THE BOOK OF NAHUM. 19