God Is A Devastating Enemy – Nahum 3:1-19

We like to encourage believers with the assurance that “God is on our side” – with the corresponding benefits of peace and security and blessing. However, we need to be just as diligent to warn unbelievers about the terrible wrath of God. When God stands against you, the ultimate humiliation and devastation will be severe. God is a devastating enemy – as the City of Nineveh can testify. (Cf. description of the fall of Babylon in Rev. 18)

Key Verse: (:5a) “‘Behold, I am against you,’ declares the Lord of hosts.”

BIG IDEA:
THE DIVINE HUMILIATION AND DEVASTATION OF NINEVEH IS DESERVED, INEVITABLE AND UNAVOIDABLE

I. (:1-7) NINEVEH DESERVES TO BE COMPLETELY HUMILIATED AND TOTALLY DEVASTATED

1. (:1-4) Her Crimes
   1. Wicked Cruelty
      1. (:1) The Denunciation: “Woe to the bloody city, completely full of lies and pillage; Her prey never departs.“
      2. (:2-3) The Devastation: “The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of the wheel, galloping horses and bounding chariots! Horsemen charging, swords flashing, spears gleaming, many slain, a mass of corpses, and countless dead bodies – they stumble over the dead bodies.“

Chisholm: Nahum emphasized the reversal in Nineveh’s fortunes through three subtle wordplays, which are apparent only in the Hebrew text. While Nineveh contained a seemingly “endless” supply of gold and silver (2:9), she would soon be covered with bodies “without number” (3:3). “Piles” of corpses (3:3) would replace her abundant “wealth” (2:9). Because of her “wanton lust,” literally “many harlotries” (3:4; cf. NASB), Nineveh would be filled with “many casualties” (3:3).

2. (:4) Seducing Harlotry: “All because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the charming one, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations by her harlotries and families by her sorceries.“

MacArthur: The nation was likened to a beautiful prostitute who seduced the nations with her illicit enticements.

Boice: Archaeologists have confirmed that the people of Nineveh practiced witchcraft. . . The pantheon of hideous, destructive deities was similar to today’s Hindu pantheon. Most of these were imagined to hate and persecute human beings.

2. (:5-6) Her Disgrace
1. The Ultimate Enemy = the Lord of Hosts – God is a Devastating Enemy: “‘Behold, I am against you,’ declares the Lord of hosts;“
2. The Ultimate Humiliation: “And I will lift up your skirts over your face, and show to the nations your nakedness and to the kingdoms your disgrace.“
3. The Ultimate Desecration: “I will throw filth on you and make you vile, and set you up as a spectacle.“

Boice: No doubt Nineveh had actually treated others in this fashion: exposing their nakedness, pelting them with filth, mocking them in great public spectacle. Now she is to be treated in like fashion. And none will grieve for her, so great have her atrocities been! She is to vanish from history – friendless and unmourned.

3. (:7) Her Rejection: “And it will come about that all who see you will shrink from you and say, ‘Nineveh is devastated! Who will grieve for her?” Where will I seek comforters for you?“

II. (:8-10) NINEVEH WILL SUFFER THE SAME FATE AS THE SEEMINGLY INVINCIBLE FORMER CAPITAL CITY OF EGYPT = NO-AMON

1. (:8-9) Seemingly Impregnable Defenses of No-Amon
   1. Argument from the Greater to the Lesser: “Are you better than No-amon,“

MacArthur: Also known as Thebes, No-amon was the great capital of southern Egypt, 400 mi. S of Cairo. One of the most magnificent ancient civilizations of the world, it was renowned for its 100 gates, a temple measuring 330 ft. long and 170 ft. wide, and its network of canals. It fell to Ashurbanipal of Assyria in 663 B.C. Like No-amon by the Nile, Nineveh was situated by the Tigris River, enjoying the security of conquered nations around her. However, the end would be like that of No-amon.”

2. Geographical Defenses: “Which was situated by the waters of the Nile, with water surrounding her, whose rampart was the sea, whose wall consisted of the sea?“
3. Political Alliances: “Ethiopia was her might, and Egypt too, without limits. Put and Lubim were among her helpers.“
2. (:10) Surprising Humiliation and Devastation
   1. Captivity: “Yet she became an exile, she went into captivity;“
   2. Slaughter: “Also her small children were dashed to pieces at the head of every street;“
   3. Humiliation: “They cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound with fetters.“

III. (:11-19) NINEVEH HAS NO DEFENSE AGAINST THE OUTPOURING OF THE WRATH OF GOD

1. (:11-13) Easy Target — Ripe for Plundering
   1. (:11a) Drunk and Defenseless: “You too will become drunk,“
   2. (:11b) Destined for Oblivion: “You too will be hidden.“

Feinberg: The prophecy that the city would be hidden has been remarkably fulfilled, as is well known. After the destruction of Nineveh it disappeared completely from history. From 1842 on, the Frenchman Botta and the Englishmen Layard and Rawlinson excavated on the site and uncovered remains of this one time magnificent city.

3. (:11c) Vulnerable and Exposed — No Place to Hide: “You too will search for a refuge from the enemy.“
4. (:12) Inviting Fortifications: “All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit – When shaken, they fall into the eater’s mouth.“
5. (:13a) Powerless Defenders – No Strength, No Courage: “Behold, your people are women in your midst!“
6. (:13b) Open Gates: “The gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies; Fire consumes your gate bars.“
2. (:14-15a) Futile Defense
   1. (:14) Sarcastic Pleas for Preparation
      1. Gather Provisions: “Draw for yourself water for the siege!“
      2. Strengthen the Fortifications: “Strengthen your fortifications! Go into the clay and tread the mortar! Take hold of the brick mold!“
   2. (:15a) Scathing Prophecy of Devastation: “There fire will consume you, the sword will cut you down; It will consume you as the locust does.“
3. (15b:-18) Collapse of Leadership
   1. (:15b) No Safety in Numbers: “Multiply yourself like the creeping locust, multiply yourself like the swarming locust.“

Kohlenberger: Nineveh cannot escape locust-like devastation even if they “multiply like grasshoppers!”

2. (:16) No Security in Commerce: “You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven – The creeping locust strips and flies away.“
3. (:17) No Salvation in Government: “Your guardsmen are like the swarming locust. Your marshals are like hordes of grasshoppers settling in the stone walls on a cold day. The sun rises and they flee, and the place where they are is not known.“
4. (:18) Sad Summary: No One Left to Rescue the City: “Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria; Your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered on the mountains. And there is no one to regather them.“
4. (:19) Inevitable and Deserved Humiliation and Devastation: “There is no relief for your breakdown, your wound is incurable. All who hear about you will clap their hands over you, for on whom has not your evil passed continually?“

1. Who are we warning about the fearful vengeance of God? Is there urgency in our evangelistic appeals?
2. Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right in His time and for His glory?
3. What type of false security does the Lord want to expose in the people around us?
4. How dangerous is it to presume upon the forbearance of God?

Boice: at the beginning of chapter 3 the prophet cites Nineveh’s crimes: violence, deception, plunder, and witchcraft. . . . In all the ancient world no single city had matched the Assyrian capital for its calculated cruelty. . . The utter fiendishness of impaling defeated soldiers on stakes, skinning commanders alive, cutting off limbs, noses and ears, putting out eyes, heaping up skulls in the city squares, and burning vast numbers alive was without parallel in the ancient world.

Chisholm: Once more assuming the role of a watchman on the city’s walls (cf. 2:1), Nahum tauntingly urged the Ninevites to make hasty preparations for a siege (v. 14). Of course, such efforts would be futile, for the city would be destroyed thoroughly, like crops before a horde of locusts (v. 15a). In verse 15b Nahum applied the locust imagery, used of Nineveh’s enemies in the first half of the verse, to the city itself. He sarcastically challenged the city to multiply like locusts. Verses 16-17 suggest he was alluding to Nineveh’s numerous merchants, guards, and officials. All of these groups, symbols of Nineveh’s wealth and importance, would desert the city in the Day of Judgment. Like locusts that strip the land and then fly away, the merchants, having exploited the ill-fated city’s economic possibilities to the maximum, would move on to greener pastures. The guards and officials, whose sense of security in Nineveh’s prosperity is compared to locusts’ settling “in the walls on a cold day,” would also disappear.

Feinberg: The prophecy of Nahum, whose chief message is the destruction of wicked Nineveh, closes with the sad word that the people of the city are scattered upon the mountains with none to gather them. This is the sad picture of Israel in the time of our Lord who were as sheep scattered without a shepherd (Mt 9:36). The loving Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, longs for us to gather them to Him through the message of the Cross that there may be one flock, one shepherd.

Kohlenberger: Yahweh is slow to anger – longsuffering. He gives time to consider, time to repent, time to be saved. In the early eighth century B.C., Yahweh moved heaven and earth to save Nineveh and to teach Israel about the nature of His grace and the need for repentance. In the late seventh century, Yahweh again moved heaven and earth to decimate Nineveh and save His people, to teach them of His justice and goodness. Nahum is a book for our time. As we the living, and the martyrs under the altar (Rev. 6:9), cry out to Yahweh to crush the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Amins and all the others (even those uncomfortably close to home) who crush the peoples of the earth and shake their fists at the God of the universe, we can be strengthened by the message that Yahweh “cares for those who trust him, but with an overwhelming flood he will make an end” of His foes in His time (1:7-8).

Morgan: There are limits to the forbearance of Jehovah. But where are they? Full opportunity is granted to every man and every nation, and God will never destroy a nation or a man until full opportunity has been granted. But the rejection of that full opportunity which expresses itself in direct defiance and challenge of God is the limit of God’s patience. Never until a nation challenged God did God sweep a nation away as hopelessly as He swept away Nineveh. There lies the limit of His patience.

Baker: The totality of destruction is compared to that by the grasshopper (see Ps. 78:46; Joel 1:4), which sweeps away all in its path. Assyria is reminded of her merchants (Ezk. 17:4; 27); Rev. 18:11-20), who had multiplied greatly, as is known from the historical records from as far away as Cappadocia in Asia Minor. These merchants are portrayed negatively, comparing in rapacity and transience to the locust swarm.

17. The last mentioned characteristic of the locust, its fleeting presence, is also used to describe Assyria’s guards and officials who disappear at the slightest excuse. Thus the economic (v. 16) and military (v. 17) bureaucracy upon which Assyria depended does not provide the expected support, but rather itself leads in the panicked flight from the invaders.

Related posts:

1. Overview of Nahum: When God is Your Enemy
2. The Intensity And Finality Of God’s Awesome Wrath – Nahum 1:1-15
3. The Divine Sacking Of Nineveh – Nahum 2:1-13
4. Overview of Joel: Repentance and Restoration Contrasted with the Devastation of the Terrible Day of the Lord
5. Ultimate Dominion Of The Messianic Kingdom From Jerusalem – Micah 4