_THE VENGEANCE OF THE LORD_
NAHUM i
The prophet Nahum, as we have seen,[236] arose probably in Judah, if
not about the same time as Zephaniah and Jeremiah, then a few years
later. Whether he prophesied before or after the great Reform of 621 we
have no means of deciding. His book does not reflect the inner history,
character or merits of his generation. His sole interest is the fate
of Niniveh. Zephaniah had also doomed the Assyrian capital, yet he
was much more concerned with Israel’s unworthiness of the opportunity
presented to them. The yoke of Asshur, he saw, was to be broken, but
the same cloud which was bursting from the north upon Niniveh must
overwhelm the incorrigible people of Jehovah. For this Nahum has no
thought. His heart, for all its bigness, holds room only for the bitter
memories, the baffled hopes, the unappeased hatreds of a hundred
years. And that is why we need not be anxious to fix his date upon one
or other of the shifting phases of Israel’s history during that last
quarter of the seventh century. For he represents no single movement of
his fickle people’s progress, but the passion of the whole epoch then
drawing to a close. Nahum’s book is one great At Last!
And, therefore, while Nahum is a worse prophet than Zephaniah, with
less conscience and less insight, he is a greater poet, pouring forth
the exultation of a people long enslaved, who see their tyrant ready
for destruction. His language is strong and brilliant; his rhythm
rumbles and rolls, leaps and flashes, like the horsemen and chariots
he describes. It is a great pity the text is so corrupt. If the
original lay before us, and that full knowledge of the times which the
excavation of ancient Assyria may still yield to us, we might judge
Nahum to be an even greater poet than we do.
We have seen that there are some reasons for doubting whether he wrote
the first chapter of the book,[237] but no one questions its fitness as
an introduction to the exultation over Niniveh’s fall in chapters ii.
and iii. The chapter is theological, affirming those general principles
of Divine Providence, by which the overthrow of the tyrant is certain
and God’s own people are assured of deliverance. Let us place ourselves
among the people, who for so long a time had been thwarted, crushed and
demoralised by the most brutal empire which was ever suffered to roll
its force across the world, and we shall sympathise with the author,
who for the moment will feel nothing about his God, save that He is a
God of vengeance. Like the grief of a bereaved man, the vengeance of an
enslaved people has hours sacred to itself. And this people had such a
God! Jehovah must punish the tyrant, else were He untrue. He had been
patient, and patient, as a verse seems to hint,[238] just because He
was omnipotent, but in the end He must rise to judgment. He was God of
heaven and earth, and it is the old physical proofs of His power, so
often appealed to by the peoples of the East, for they feel them as we
cannot, which this hymn calls up as Jehovah sweeps to the overthrow of
the oppressor. _Before such power of wrath who may stand? What think ye
of Jehovah?_ The God who works with such ruthless, absolute force in
nature will not relax in the fate He is preparing for Niniveh. _He is
one who maketh utter destruction_, not needing to raise up His forces
a second time, and as stubble before fire so His foes go down before
Him. No half-measures are His, Whose are the storm, the drought and the
earthquake.
Such is the sheer religion of the Proem to the Book of Nahum—thoroughly
Oriental in its sense of God’s method and resources of destruction;
very Jewish, and very natural to that age of Jewish history, in the
bursting of its long pent hopes of revenge. We of the West might
express these hopes differently. We should not attribute so much
personal passion to the Avenger. With our keener sense of law, we
should emphasise the slowness of the process, and select for its
illustration the forces of decay rather than those of sudden ruin. But
we must remember the crashing times in which the Jews lived. The world
was breaking up. The elements were loose, and all that God’s own people
could hope for was the bursting of their yoke, with a little shelter in
the day of trouble. The elements were loose, but amidst the blind crash
the little people knew that Jehovah knew them.
_A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah;
Jehovah is avenger and lord of wrath;
Vengeful is Jehovah towards His enemies,
And implacable He to His foes._
_Jehovah is long-suffering and great in might,[239]
Yet He will not absolve.
Jehovah! His way is in storm and in hurricane,
And clouds are the dust of His feet.[240]
He curbeth the sea, and drieth it up;
All the streams hath He parched.
Withered[241] be Bashan and Carmel;
The bloom of Lebānon is withered.
Mountains have quaked before Him,
And the hills have rolled down.
Earth heaved at His presence,
The world and all its inhabitants.
Before His rage who may stand,
Or who abide in the glow of His anger?
His wrath pours forth like fire,
And rocks are rent before Him._
_Good is Jehovah to them that wait upon Him in the day of trouble,[242]
And He knoweth them that trust Him.
With an overwhelming flood He makes an end of His rebels,
And His foes He comes down on[243] with darkness._
_What think ye of Jehovah?
He is one that makes utter destruction;
Not twice need trouble arise.
For though they be like plaited thorns,
And sodden as ...,[244]
They shall be consumed like dry stubble._
_Came there not[245] out of thee one to plan evil against Jehovah,
A counsellor of mischief?[246]_
_Thus saith Jehovah, ... many waters,[247] yet shall they be cut off
and pass away, and I will so humble thee that I need humble thee[248]
no more;[249] and Jehovah hath ordered concerning thee, that no more of
thy seed be sown: from the house of thy God, I will cut off graven and
molten image. I will make thy sepulchre_ ...[250]
Disentangled from the above verses are three which plainly refer not
to Assyria but to Judah. How they came to be woven among the others we
cannot tell. Some of them appear applicable to the days of Josiah after
the great Reform.
_And now will I break his yoke from upon thee,
And burst thy bonds asunder.
Lo, upon the mountains the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings,
That publisheth peace!
Keep thy feasts, O Judah,
Fulfil thy vows:
For no more shall the wicked attempt to pass through thee;
Cut off is the whole of him.[251]
For Jehovah hath turned the pride of Jacob,
Like to the pride of Isrāel:[252]
For the plunderers plundered them,
And destroyed their vine branches._
FOOTNOTES:
[236] Above, pp. 78 ff., 85 ff.
[237] See above, pp. 81 ff.
[238] Ver. 3, if the reading be correct.
[239] Gunkel amends to _in mercy_ to make the parallel exact. But see
above, p. 82.
[240] Gunkel’s emendation is quite unnecessary here.
[241] See above, p. 83.
[242] So LXX. Heb. = _for a stronghold in the day of trouble_.
[243] _Thrusts into_, Wellhausen, reading ינדף or ידף for ירדף. LXX.
_darkness shall pursue_.
[244] Heb. and R.V. _drenched as with their drink_. LXX. _like a
tangled yew_. The text is corrupt.
[245] The superfluous word מלא at the end of ver. 10 Wellhausen reads
as הלא at the beginning of ver. 11.
[246] Usually taken as Sennacherib.
[247] The Hebrew is given by the R.V. _though they be in full strength
and likewise many_. LXX. _Thus saith Jehovah ruling over many waters_,
reading משל מים רבים and omitting the first וכן. Similarly Syr.
_Thus saith Jehovah of the heads of many waters_, על משלי מים רבים.
Wellhausen, substituting מים for the first וכן, translates, _Let the
great waters be ever so full, they will yet all_ ...? (misprint here)
_and vanish_. For עבר read עברו with LXX., borrowing ו from next word.
[248] Lit. _and I will afflict thee, I will not afflict thee again_.
This rendering implies that Niniveh is the object. The A.V., _though I
have afflicted thee I will afflict thee no more_, refers to Israel.
[249] Omit ver. 13 and run 14 on to 12. For the curious alternation
now occurs: Assyria in one verse, Judah in the other. Assyria: i. 12,
14, ii. 2 (Heb.; Eng. ii. 1), 4 ff. Judah: i. 13, ii. 1 (Heb.; Eng. i.
15), 3 (Heb.; Eng. 2). Remove these latter, as Wellhausen does, and the
verses on Assyria remain a connected and orderly whole. So in the text
above.
[250] Syr. _make it thy sepulchre_. The Hebrew left untranslated above
might be rendered _for thou art vile_. Bickell amends into _dunghills_.
Lightfoot, _Chron. Temp. et Ord. Text V.T._ in Collected Works, I. 109,
takes this as a prediction of Sennacherib’s murder in the temple, an
interpretation which demands a date for Nahum under either Hezekiah or
Manasseh. So Pusey also, p. 357.
[251] LXX. _destruction_ כָּלָה, for כֻּלה.
[252] Davidson: _restoreth the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency
of Israel_, but when was the latter restored?