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CHAPTER 14
NAHUM
ZEAL, POLES AND POLISH
Coming to Nahum, we find where Amos emphasises and expands, attests and invests the past with many concepts, and the future, with many outcomes, dwelling on aspects with an emphatic brush, here there is in style, a complete contrast.
It is a time where emphasis is required to do justice to the love, mercy and zeal of God, so that here there is brevity of wit, there are barbs that sing as they strike, touches which guide the galloping horse of history, as notably in Nahum 1:15, which evokes the vast sacrificial treasure chest of Isaiah, and has one looking into that, with just a few words (cf. Isaiah 52:7).
God gives the prophet Nahum to speak not only pithily, but with a memorable incisiveness that permits not shades of light, for darkness is not mitigated by waffle as man so often permits himself, nor is light allowed to be diffused. Thus we find in Nahum 14, the Lord declaring this: "I will dig your grave, for you are vile."
Here we see accounts of battles to come, with emphasis on the results, on power to clash, with testimony of charring as the outcomes, focussed in the supremely emphatic case of Nineveh, come like massive ocean breakers, pounding till their task is quite done. Thus, speaking of the outcome for that bustling, hustling, cruel city of Nineveh, capital of an empire of oppression, now reduced in vision to the coming desolation supreme, we find in v. 19, this epitaph:
"All who have news of you,
Will clap their hands over you,
For upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually ?"
ZEAL FOR THE HEIGHT
The prophecy begins with a burden against Nineveh, a weight of impending judgment, so that, as with Germany's outcome at the end of World War II in the case of Berlin, and Japan's for opportunistic collusion with Hitler in a world scenario of brutality and suffering with SUCH lovely ideals (Himmler's were said to be utopian also - it is just that if you seek a haven by harassment and folly, the means conduct you to their own end), as in all these cases, the result is sure. It may be fatal or fateful, but it comes.
We read that when the time comes, in wrath, the Lord "avenges". indeed He RESERVES wrath for His enemies, when outcome time arrives, and the incidentals have all been thrown into the stew and cooked long ... "Slow to anger" though He is, when it is justly and adequately aroused, the point is inescapable: HE will "not acquit." Pardon ? that is another depth, another dimension, and in this phase of human arrogation of divine powers, derogation of the dignity of deity and the fear of God in the festering self-will of man, there is no acquittal.
Meanwhile, we learn (v.2), that God is "jealous". The term signifies an underlying depth, zeal and honour, keenness and love of purity, concern and desire for what is good without compromise, the beautiful without blotchiness and there is an elevation in it for the fulfilment of spiritual potential (such as was so aborted in the case of the prodigal son of Luke 15).
As in Hosea, where much of the entire book deals with the actions of God with use of marital or adulterous imagery for exposition, and in Ezekiel 16 and 23, and in the New Testament very explicitly in Ephesians 5, there is a recurring theme. It is that of a wife (figure for Israel) and the husband (figure for the Lord), with a number of felicities in this choice of expository device.
Thus biblically a husband CARES for his wife, seeks to protect her, cherishes her (going back before perversions became in a besotted generation, de rigueur, flaming in rebellion against the word of God as specified in Romans 1), longs for her, delights in her welfare and rejoices in her presence, when the thing unfolds like a flower, matures like a crop, and children like a harvest, adorn the blessed holiness of the house. If you want to understand the Bible, and to please God, this being spiritual, there is no way to go if you assume current antipathy of much culture and invasively attribute it to Him, to His word, commands, designs, witness and ways. These are largely contraries.
Israel became, as we have seen in the preceding Chapter, very derelict in its relationship to its 'husband' in the days of Amos; but the Gentiles leave NOTHING behind in their insolent arrogance against God! It is almost as if they had, in the main, a hypnotic compulsion: Any way you went wrong, they sing to Israel, we will do, it if not double it! Just you watch and see!
As we also have seen, a new hatred of Jewishness and Israel is coming back to the earth, like a second crop, so that if possible. God might be provoked the more. The blatancy of the provocation makes it look as if studying the history of the ancient lapses in Israel, students of this are now in the Gentile arena, trying to refine methods of making their ways even more provocative, and on the whole, doing quite well in this negative blasting of the word of God, by their example.
Again, if HE who made the stars and the rules of their procedure, man and his mind, logic and its structural necessity in the running of things, will and its power to love or to rebel, both used with profundity by mankind: if HE makes a contractual promise, a personal covenant with a man and a race for His own often exhibited purposes (cf. Isaiah 43:21, Genesis 12, 15, 17, 22), as in the case of a highly disciplined Israel, then is man, in scope like an immoral microbe in the midst, to contest it! Is he to try to infect what has been disciplined, and bully what has been blighted, however many millions of the Jewish race were summarily executed by one of the chief nations, Germany, and repeatedly harassed and rumbled with pogroms and other repressions, by another, Russia. Nor is this by any means all!
Certainly in increasing measure lately, modern man is doing this, and continues to drive harder and harder bargains, if possible with that very nation disciplined (as the Gentile nations will soon be as in Micah 7 and Ezekiel 37-39, Isaiah 2, Revelation 19) by God, but now brought back as promised to Abraham so definitively (Genesis 17), not only without earthly time limit, but with continuation as a major clause while time lasts. Such is the testimony relayed whether in Deuteronomy or Micah, in Isaiah or Ezekiel, in Luke 21:24, and almost pervasively to the place as appointed. God has a point in Israel where it was set, in dealing with its delinquencies of old, in having the nation kill the Messiah, to turn this into a sacrificial door for the penitent who believe God (as in I Corinthians 2:7ff.).
He is not about to revise His deep and long plans, with all the applications made continually in prophet after prophet. Force may fire enemies for a time, but to faith is revealed outcome. But what obsesses so many who deal so diligently to dispossess Israel, now even the USA seeking more divestment, as if someone to whom you extended a hand, cut it off, and then someone else suggested you should shake now with the other. What kind of a peace mission is that ? when the one who sought to DELETE, in genocide, this Israel, is to be dealt with, while many in its midst, will not even recognise Israel.
It is a fateful error, but words do not correct it, but seeking for the divestment of even more! Do they imagine there is some automatic pilot control in history, as if the aeroplane has dived once and so must ALWAYS dive! as if God disciplined Israel so heavily, and yet had nothing else in store, despite emphasis to the exact opposite as in Jeremiah 30-33, Micah 4 and 7. To be sure much has been done to try to delete this, but it stands; and on the other hand, to magnify it beyond what is given; but this too fails (II Peter 2:18, Jude 16, Ezekiel 29:3, 31:5ff, Daniel 4:13-18). What remains is the word of God itself, which will, as always, be fulfilled precisely.
The exile was specified in return for chronic failure in Leviticus 26, but so is the return*1. God had a point, a people, a plan, and it involved numerous elements, provisions and data concerning developments. All of these in the case in view, are being fulfilled in bursting like buds in closeness (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9), and the outcome of the assault on Israel which is to come, from impenitent brigands is also shown with much clarity. It is one of the chief symptoms of arrogant wickedness that it loves to arrogate, as did Napoleon, Stalin (take Poland at the outset, re World War II, for example, and then Eastern Europe, and thrive on the spoils), as did Japan (China a morsel), as did Mao (now the cry is, How terrible for Taiwan not to succumb, this tiny repository of the anti-Communists who fought much in the war with Japan while Mao's army tended, by report, to conserve themselves and even betray the Nationalist cause DURING the war).
Russia is now smacking its lips with the deceitful and deceptive manner of dealing with part of the Ukraine*2, as if not content with the vile and vicious, the murderous and all but genocidal assaults on that land during Stalin's intimidatory, repressive and mass murdering time of speciously subtle tortures, such as death by labour and by slow starvation, it must now bring in a fresh sickle for that nation. What is the name of the sickle ? by its works, it appears to be this: Totalitarian rule by a pseudo-religious culture where force is a foremost function, and direction a chief thrust. What of human life ? what of the God who made man not to be tyrants, but to love truth and follow Him ? What of promises made, such as the undertaking for the PROTECTION of the freedom of the Ukraine BY RUSSIA not long ago, in return for the removal of nuclear weapons from the Ukraine ? What indeed!
For all this kind of casuistry and contention, cruelty and oppressoin, at its worst, Nineveh serves as an illustration, when it comes to the judgment phase. Indeed, this it did to the point that the remains of that vast and imposing metropolis were LOST and not found for centuries, in the desert type environment. Just as it was a primary exhibit, so was Babylon, as was Tyre, and many were the warnings to them all (cf. Ezekiel 26-32, Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 50-51). The humbling of the might and splendour of Egypt permanently, this also was a foretold outcome, meticulously fulfilled (Ezekiel 29:15-16).
Nahum, then, is bringing to the sharpest point of pithy focus the case of Nineveh, and its message is now in focus, as we select various points for concern, such as above, that of the term "jealous".
What then of this in summary ?
In short, God in His dealing with what He has made, and the more especially with what has had any special relationship with Him, is concerned as a good husband might be for the purity, loveliness, godliness, goodness, beauty of spirit and excellence of heart of his 'wife'. In other words, it is the use of implicit imagery, spread out broadly as in Hosea and Ezekiel 16 and 23, but here CONDENSED into ONE WORD. That is the term 'jealous'. Thus this is a use of a much propounded piece of imagery, and has as little to do with the main point, as it would be, if reference were to be made to having no spot (as in Ephesians 5), as if this were something for a physical cosmetician to look at. When imagery or a parable for that matter, is in view, you have to look through it to the point being made. If it is a figure, then you see where the comparison lies; if it is a prediction, you take the figures as they are meant, to adorn and make vivid, but keep to the contextual aim and thrust.
If in any contract, a figure of speech is used when you are making a stated series of purpose-driven undertakings, we neither ignore the vivid impact nor confuse it with the oint in view beyond imagery, for which that is a mere emphatic device. Where however the imagery is in the very midst as an overall device, then that becomes the milieu, and the rush of reality is not only not voided by such graphics, but is as is meant for the same, seen to make it the easier to remember, and in another sense, the more unforgettable.
Thus in this case, the concepts of ZEAL and CONCERN and CHERISHING and ZEST AND QUEST FOR THE BEST, all are involved, and it is spiritual analogy which is doing service, here in one word, "jealousy", which might almost in sense be rendered, if the word existed, by "zealousy". It is a zeal for the heights and the wonders, the glorious potential brought back from burning in the fire, as waste, to its free fulness in the presence of the loving God of creation, whose love also, is not romantic (this is a figure at times also), but a cherishing for abundance of life (John 10:10), in a happiness which has no meaning without holiness, for in that state, it is a bubble in a stream, waiting for the first snag or wind.
DEGRADATION FOR THE DEPTHS
The ambience, perspective, relationships made clear, in the negative area, the subsidiary character of 'nature' of the creations of God relative to His complete power and purpose is addressed. Let there be a whirl-wind. The Lord is over it, and USES it to gain His desire. It may be specific, as in the case of what may have been an asteroid on the Assyrian camp in the day of Hezekiah, or some other transcendent seeming but clearly physical events; or else it may be generic.
That is, the LACK of all intervention in a given situation may be the WAY CHOSEN. In that respect, it can be to show (cf. Psalm 1), that if you insist on ignoring the personal Maker of your very personal being, then He may CHOOSE to let you experience your environment AS IF it were all, so that you can find what that is like to experience! He can turn the way of the wicked upside down by acting, or not acting; but He leaves sufficient time for the angry choices against Himself, to bear fruit and for the fruit to be tasted, very often. It is instructive, as if trying to drink acid!
That is the laboratory of life; not for Him to find out what He has made, but for man to find out what happens when you use or misuse it, and to reflect on the obvious (Romans 1:17ff.), which frequently mankind in general is MOST reluctant to do, even to the point of death. It is also on the more splendid, to which many refuse or fail to look, but which some discover, to their amazement, zest and delight, calling quest completed! (cf. Acts 26:19ff.).
Similarly, then in verse 3, we find that "He rebukes the sea and makes it dry," as for an exceedingly important short time in the case of Israel's exodus from Egypt, and now visibly with the Caspian, to a large extent. Likewise He may "dry up all the rivers", as drought afflicts, in the sort of scenario, sometimes, found in Amos 4, as shown in Chapter 13 above. The God without whom as eternal, there is no basis for anything, unless you just trifle with definitions and make all from nothing, with no one to work and nothing to be worked with, no system for chance, and no chance for systems, since nothing HAS NOTHING: He is active at will, and watches at will, as also noted in the preceding Chapter.
What then are we told ? It is this. The flower of beauty may wilt, the mountains shake, as does happen, as may man's defiant reliance on the ridiculous notion that 'nature' having made itself from nothing, will continue to do the decent thing. But nature is not decent, it is not even personal. When man seeks to dissociate the personal, his own epitome, from its individuality, he merely falls into empty reductionism*3, as if the rich should say, I am really bankrupt, a tilt at truth. But God involves personality in the personal, and brings hope as an agent of control, to the wandering. When you find the logical and personal answer, your hope is not mere emotion towards the future, but a grounding in reality which looks forward with a complete confidence, for it is literally this or nothing, and nothing is absurd as a source for anything, including nothing testable or functional or with a testimony!
Many simply does not and CANNOT deal without God, for on every side the causative consequences (known as results) are apparent, and subverting the logical necessity of adequacy as producer both for extancy and law, is just a drug induced delusion. The drug has a name: it is self-will and irrationality, SWAI.
PROTECTION FOR THE LORD'S PEOPLEOn the contrary, and the rapid movement of the text from desolation to protection (different groups!) makes the impact clearer, when the contrary querulousness and unfaithful fussing with other gods (!;14) is not in view, and when such vicious vagaries as are common with the nations do not invite and incite wrath, then what a glory is there!
It is rather like saying this, on some farm where the man's cattle are forever breaking into the domestic garden and trampling it: WHEN you keep out those cattle, oh what a glory are the flowers, what delight in found in the shrub perfumes, what a feast of avine life, what a fiesta of borders and a thrill of ordered beauty is there! But it is far more. It is when Israel is showing zeal in its TASK (you work on earth for God, as an eternally saved sinner, it really IS work!), as a testimony to His truth and mercy, when sincerity meets goodness and grace meets obedience, THEN what a grandeur of kindness and a fascinating fatherly care is available. To miss this is like missing a place on the last rocket to leave a racked earth, with no more to come!
How does the Lord, in Nahum, pithily put this ?
"The LORD is good,
A stronghold in the day of trouble,
And He knows those who trust in Him," Nahum 1:7.
The MAKER of persons understands them, and is Himself personal, having made them in His own image in the case of mankind. He is not keen to GAIN from man, but to give; not to secure grace, but to dispense it, and when on this earth, evil and arrant persons seize power and persecute - the norm, then He has his own ways of protection FOR THE WORK IN HAND, as for commandos in battle. It may involve wounds (on HIS mission, He was wounded as in Isaiah 53, for our transgressions), and death, belittlement and bashing, ludicrous slanders in which my own enemies seem to specialise rather than entering the ring; but HIS protection is there as at Dunkirk, as at the Exodus, as when the Rising Sun tried to shine to the East of Australia around the time of the Battle of Midway.
If to death it is, as with the five missionaries to the Aucas, who provide an example. Thus these seem so justly famed, their heavily educated minds and dedicated lives in striking willingness amid ignorance and misplaced follies in their field, so THAT in itself is a work to show how the endued and empowered can sacrifice willingly that those not so blessed might find the gift of God. Through the Gospel, the aim is to bring to the source of spirit, the beauty of peace with God and the fountains of grace, not in ignorance and guesswork, or illicit visions without foundation, but to bring to accord with the God of all truth, whose Bible leaves all competitors so far behind in objective, evidential testimony*4, that it is as if they had not entered the competition at all. So in the love of Christ were they sent, and so in that self-same love did they come (cf. Colossians 1:24).
But what of the stronghold and of the suffering ? What is crucial is kept, what is spiritual is maintained, what is pure and precious is delivered; but as with Stephen (Acts 7), in the process what is passing in this world, may be shed as a snake sheds its old skin before finding in place, a newer and more beautiful thing. With the Christian, eternal life already given (Ephesians 1:11), thus becomes readied for a new form, as in Christ, which is far better (Philippians 1:22-23), it awaits with all the other people of the Lord, Christ's return for the resurrection (Revelation 6:9-11).
It is indeed as in Luke 21:18 with Matthew 10:30-39, when these are related to Matthew 10:21-22. The things that matter in the kingdom of heaven are not meat and drink (Romans 14:17), pay rises and bonus for peril (Acts 14:22), but the objectives lie in bringing the word and wisdom of God to man, His place for peace and pardon in Christ Jesus, even while in droves they move away, galloping like whinnying stallions in a mix of desperation, irritation, consternation and determination, as they break into the barbed wire of immorality. Maybe meanwhile they also lurch into dreamy gods and deadly ones, concoctions of the mind, illusions amid fatality (Jude, II Peter, II Timothy 4).
In this, many are even blatantly daring to REDEFINE morals, often as the exact opposite both of what is visible and functional and through Christ commanded. In this, what often is obviously mere indulgence, like lolly-sucking kids, who refuse to learn, can become a requisite for accommodation and approval, on no grounds and for nil reason. That is, first in line, they seek permission so to behave, and then, seek NO permission for those who do not desire the formal acceptanace or institutionalisation of such things, seeking to clamp their mouths and condition their speech, if not indeed, to impoverish their wallets.
The battle axe of loud mouthings and vacant reason, like an unrestrained machete, is swung about as if the very dynamism and the fear, should replace thought, realism and what has been proved so often that mere hatred appears to drive the moral mutation! (cf. SMR, TMR, Deity and Design ... for example).
But this is not surreptitious! there is a program to seize the reins of government, institute wickedness as a regime, and make protest and divergence, diversity and practicality illegitimate, cause for complaint and withering assault. What had once sought permission to exist, now seeks to remove permission to speak from what it assaults verbally, while baking gods of dream without substance, like poisoned macaroons in the ovens of heated imagination and desire. This is so far from mere postulation, that it came within a small margin of taking over in Australia, before the last election, when not only indebtedness that will challenge Australia ever to repay was engaged as with a stuck accelerator at times, but freedom expression was within an inch of its life! While no political party is anywhere near perfect, whatever and whoever indulges in such themes becomes a peril to the nation. In this, there lies a paragraph from the book of totalitarianism.
Such governmental perversity has had made exemplars over the millenia since Christ, but whatever the method of blighting the truth and seeking to counter Gospel relevance and application, HIS soldiers are servants not greater than their Master, and while not following in the inflammatory oratory of hate as often found and propounded in the name of Islam for example, yet they suffer as with ordered zeal, they show the love of Christ even where opposition by violence, having no rational answer, simply seeks to kill them (John 16:2, 15:20-21).
It may start with the loss of their liberty, of their good names, continue in miseducation of the young, and then branch out into legal jousts in which those who disagree with the new immorals, are to be instructed. This too nearly happened, when appointed prelates of the people would have instructed those needing, as in China so in Australia, re-education, on what was required by the 'community', by this new communal religion, despite its prohibition in this land, even in the Constitution! Thus lands - and the USA moves in a similar direction - once famed for prizing liberty and valuing individuality, even assisting the flow of the knowledge of Christ, readily move to an antithetical posture.
When such nations so move, then they can join the mass of others, as if to turn man into a swarm of insects, buzzing out their shame in moral shambles and a hatred of God so intense, it is like a strong magnetic field, seeking to attract and control every particular particle (also known in this case, though more and more speciously, as a person)!
From all this, God by His Spirit and through His word, and in His providence, sometimes dramatically as with Peter (Acts 12:1ff.), sometimes with suffering conjoined (as with Paul so often - I, II Corinthians 4), protects; and though suffering be excruciating, yet the joy of the Lord is a shield and His control even as the most hideous leaves its testimony, even at times in delusive grandeur (cf. I Peter 4:14). One recent illustration is found in the work, The Heavenly Man, relating to China and a character called Brother Yun, edited by Paul Hattaway.
THE TWO POLES
Indeed, when we come to Nahum Ch. 1 verses 11 and 15, there are two poles. In the one case, from the corner of evil, we read:
"From you comes forth one who plots evil against the LORD,
a wicked counsellor."Evil is the basis, but Nineveh and through this the Assyrians, are the example and focus in view (as in Nahum 1:1). Currently this would relate to Iran and Iraq.
Indeed, more may come from the same source, as in Micah 5 where following the revelation of the rejection of Christ, God incarnate then to come, there is coverage of assault forces seeking to control Israel, as of action by the Lord to prevent this, as also in Isaiah 30, where in the midst of eschatological events (30:29-33 cf. Isaiah 2 and 24), rebuffs from the Lord to such take-over efforts are noted.
What Nineveh, the capital of old of Assyria, stands for is exposed, in its searing search for evil counsel and control, as one pole in the situation. The opposite pole is then shown with that deft touch, put in contrast in Nahum 1:15. What does it say ? It is this:
"Behold on the mountains,
the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace."Now Nahum was written less than a century or so before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.. This is known since the fall of Thebes was then past, and that of Nineveh yet to come. Therefore at the time of its writing, the justly famed Messianic Message of Isaiah was already long out, and this short reference is an unmistakeable reference to it. In this way, in a touch, in a moment, there is the other pole, the pole not only of goodness and righteousness and truth and peace, but of pardon and truth, glory and reality, of God at work, on the road to Calvary and beyond.
In a way, it reminds one of a water-colour, in which deft strokes in a moment bring before the eye such atmosphere and objects amid it, that it is a marvel. The two poles are there, destructive and to be destroyed, constructive and to bring in the Kingdom of God by HIS taking action to save; for He IS mighty to save, and He has become incarnate that desperate man might become freely booked on the passage to glory, where by birth he fits, but from which through sin, he flits.
Then we are back as in Nahum 2:2 (like Jeremiah 18:21-28 esp. vv. 25-26), as in terms of Jeremiah 33:19-26, to the arena of restoration and eventual consolidation, confirmation and even conversion to Christ freely flowing in the nation of Israel (as in Zechariah 12:10-13:1), where goodness and mercy stream like rivers of gold, and pardon comes like seas of glory, oceans of majestic splendour. Here the Personal One cares for, indeed CHERISHES His own. You see that facet in Ephesians 5:29, where it is like someone cherishes his body, but THIS body is that of the Lord, who cherishes it. It is He Himself who is faithful even to the uttermost individual; and He knows not some ludicrous theory, but HIS OWN SHEEP, who hear His voice, and they know Him, not some empty ritual of anointing Hitler with a Heil, or Stalin with the blood he shed, of millions (John 10:27-28). The entry here is by grace to a place prepared (as in John 10:9), and the power to snatch, as illustrated internationally in Putin*2 snatching the Crimea using guile, craft and power without glory at the national level, is annulled (John 10:29-30).
NOTE
See in this connection, concerning Israel, such sites as:
Great Execrations, Great Enervations, Greater Grace Ch. 4,
His Time is Near Chs. 4 and 10.
Concerning the application of the term, see such Chapters as:
Department of Bible ... Vol.2, Ch. 6 (foundational - the place, integrity and purpose of imagery),
Department of Bible ... Vol. 5, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, and Vol. 1, Ch. 10,
Vol. 6, Ch. 12,
Why Not Believe the Lord's Christ! Ch. 5,
SMR Appendix A,
Galloping Events Ch. 8, *2,
Bay of Retractable Islands ... Ch. 19,
See Department of Bible ... Vol. 5, Ch. 8, and Vol. 6, Ch. 3.
See It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 9 for example.
See for example:
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS
Bible or Blight,
Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God.