Nahum 3
“WOE to the city of blood!” This was Nineveh’s character as seen, not alone by men, but by God Himself. Evil in its two usual forms was there, — the city was “full of lies”, and “robbery”, or rather violence. (See Genesis 6:1111The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. (Genesis 6:11)). The same characteristics are becoming more prevalent now, as time passes, though not yet in as pronounced a form as foretold in the prophetic Scriptures for the period following the Church’s removal to glory, and before the Lord’s appearing and kingdom.
“The prey departeth not” refers, no doubt, to the keeping of captives, as, notably, the ten tribes of Israel who were never permitted to return to their home land. (2 Kings 16:9; 17:69And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him: for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it captive to Kir, and slew Rezin. (2 Kings 16:9)
6In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. (2 Kings 17:6)).
To the account of Nineveh’s siege and capture given in chapter 2, verses 2 and 3 add expressive detail, from the cracking of the charioteers’ whips to the vast multitude of the slain. What a scene of carnage it must have been! Verse 4 refers to the idol worship, and the related practice of sorcery, among the Assyrians; they had many gods, and sought to spread their false and deceiving beliefs wherever they could.
Jehovah of hosts, Who had formerly spared Nineveh when He saw that they turned from their evil way (Jonah 3:1010And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. (Jonah 3:10)), was now against the city, and with full reason. Was it better than “populous No” (Thebes, a noted city of Egypt, situated on the Nile which here as elsewhere is called “the sea”)? Thebes had been captured by the Assyrians, it is thought under Sargon. (See Isaiah 20). The city afterward suffered at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and still later from Cambyses the Persian.
In chapter 1 (verse 10) drunkenness is spoken of as the state of the Ninevites when overthrown, and verse 11 of our chapter bears out the same thought. Apart from the figurative use of the term, it is an interesting fact that the beginning of the end of Nineveh’s siege was a surprise attack by the besiegers during a drunken feast of the gods in the camp of the Assyrian soldiers.
When Nineveh fell, it was an easy prey; the sword and the torch destroyed people and city (verses 12, 13, 15, 17, 18). So will it be when the King of glory comes, and all dominion is given into His hands; then shall the proudest and the cruelest of the enemies of God’s people be as Nineveh at its capture. Nineveh perished forever in the day of its overthrow by the Medes, and there will be no return to the rule of unregenerate man when the Lord shall have set up His authority in the earth.
The prophecy of Nahum throws much light on the character of things in the last days (now near), and upon the judgments which will be executed in the earth. The Assyrian of the last days, whom Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah in particular speak of, will fall after the Lord’s coming, though his capital city will not be Nineveh. While in Nahum’s prophecy, the king has not a large place, the judgment of the city forecasts his own doom, as what is said of its cruelty, its corruption, etc., is descriptive of him.
ML 05/23/1937