Nahum Epilogue Sermon

Sermon & Translation by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church of Manhattan KS, 23 March 2025

Retrospect on the Date of Nahum

Principle #1 For Interpreting Prophecy: Consider The Messages Of Other Contemporary Prophets

Principle #2 For Interpreting Prophecy: Fit The Prophecy Into God’s Overarching Redemptive Plan

Principle #3 For Interpreting Prophecy: Consider The Sequence Of God’s Work Among The Nations

Read whole book of Nahum!

Nineveh’s judgment-prophecy, the record of Nahum the Elkoshite’s vision:

Yahweh is a super-jealous and avenging God. Yahweh is an avenger and a master of fury! Yahweh is an avenger against His adversaries; indeed He is a grudge-holder against His enemies! Yahweh is long-suffering, yet great in power, and He will certainly not acquit the guilty. As for Yahweh, His way is in the storm-wind and in the tempest, and the clouds are the dust under His feet. When He rebukes the sea, He makes it become dry land, and He dries up all the rivers. Bashan withers, and also Carmel; even the blossom of Lebanon withers! The mountains bucked away from Him, and the hills dissolved. The very earth heaves away from His face, indeed the world and all the inhabitants in it!

Who will stand before His rage? And who will rise up during the fierceness of His anger? His fury is rained down like fire, and the landmark-rocks are broken down by Him. Yahweh is good for a strong­hold during a day of crisis, and He knows those who take refuge in Him. But with a flood passing over, He will make an end of her place, and, as for His enemies, darkness will hunt them down.

What are y’all planning against Yahweh? He is making an end [of it.] The oppressor will not rise up a second time, because they are always bunched briers or like their beer they are imbibing: they will be consumed like fully-dried straw. It was from you that the man who planned evil against Yahweh came forth – the counselor of ungodliness.

Thus says Yahweh, “Although there are peaceful-circumstances, even so there will be many, even so they will be shorn, then he will pass on. Thus will I humble you; I will not humble you again. And now, I will break his carrying-pole from off of you, and I will tear off your chains. And Yahweh will command concerning you, “Let there be no dissemination of your name again. I will cut off carved-image and cast-image from the house of your gods; I will appoint it to be your grave, because you are despised.

See, the feet of an announcer upon the mountains, causing peace to be heard! “Celebrate your feasts, Judea; make good on your vows, because the ungodly will not presume again to pass through you; he has been entirely cut off.”

One who scatters has come up against your front: guard the fort-wall! Monitor the road; tighten belts; marshal extra strength, because Yahweh has turned the arrogance of Jacob like the arro­gance of Israel, for evacuators have evacuated them and have destroyed their pruned-grapevines.

The shield of its mighty-men is red-colored; the infantry men are crimson-clad. The cavalry [comes] with fiery steel-plating since the day it was outfitted, and the /war-horses\ quiver. And, as for the cavalry, they will flash through the streets; they will run to and fro through the plazas. Their appearance is like torches – speeding like lightening-bolts.

He will keep in mind his noblemen; they will be weakened on their way; they will hurry to her wall, and the protective-cover will be set up. The rivers’ gates were opened, and the palace dissolved. Then he will be confirmed-victor; she will be exposed; she will be taken away, even her maids moaning like the sound of doves, beating themselves over their heart. So, as for Nineveh, her waters will be like a pool of waters when they are running away.

Stop! Stop!” but there is not one who will face-about. “Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! For there is no end to the opportunity; there is a load of every thing you could want!”

Vacuousness and evacuating and being evacuated! So the heart melts and the knees wobble and everybody’s sides are in agony, and the faces of all of them collect a blush.

Where is the haunt of lions and the feeding-place itself for the young-lions, where the lion walked to go to the lion-cub, and there was no one to disturb? The lion was one who caught-victims enough for his lion-cubs and strangled some for his lionesses, and filled his caves with victuals and his haunts with dead-victims.

Look at me; I am against you,” declares Yahweh, Commander of armies, “and I will cause your cavalry to burn up in smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions. Furthermore, I will cut loose your victims from your land, and the sound of your messengers will not be heard any more."

Woe to the city of bloodshed! All of it is full of fraud – of misappropriation; no victim gets away. There is the sound of the whip and the rumbling sound of the chariot-wheel and horse galloping and chariot bouncing! There is the horseman raising both the flash of the sword and the lightening-bolt of the spear, then the multitude of the wounded. There is the mass of dead-bodies, indeed there is no end to the bodies. They will stumble over their bodies, because of the multitude of the prostitute’s adulteries. She is a well-favored expert at witchcrafts. She is the one who sold nations by means of her adulteries, and families by means of her witchcrafts.

Look at me; I am against you,” declares Yahweh, Commander of armies, “and I will strip your skirts over your face, and I will show nations your nakedness, and kingdoms your shame, and I will throw abominable-idols on top of you, and I will make a fool of you, then I will set you up as a sight [to see], and it will be that everyone who sees you will withdraw from you and will say, 'Nineveh has been devastated; who will be sympathetic toward her?' Where ever would I seek comforters for you from?

Are you better than No-Amon – the one settled along the rivers, water all around her, the rampart of which was the sea, her defensive-wall being /the water\? Ethiopia was her strength, and so was Egypt, and that without limit. Sudan and Libya were in your alliance.

Even she become an exile; she went into captivity. Even her nursing-babies were dashed to pieces at the head of all the streets. And over her honored men they handled dice, and all her great men were bound with chains. Even you yourself will become intoxicated; you will be disregarded, Even you yourself will seek refuge from the enemies."

All your forts are fig-trees with first-fruits; just let them be shaken, and they will fall into the mouth of the devourer! Look, your people are women in your midst. Before your enemies, the gates of your land are completely open; fire devours your door-bolts.

Bottle water for yourself for the siege. Strengthen your forts. Go to the mud-pit and make a mix with the clay; get a handle on the brick-work. It is there that the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you down; it will devour you like a young-locust. Let it make itself as overwhelming as the young-locust; let it make itself as overwhelming as the swarming-locust!

You have made your merchants more numerous than the stars of the skies. The young-locust has molted and taken wing. Your devotees are like the swarming-locust. Furthermore, your officers are like burrowing locusts that entrench in the walls on a cold day. When the sun has risen, he is withdrawn, and it is not known where his location is.

Your shepherds have gotten drowsy, O King of Assyria. Your nobles have gotten cozy. Your people were panicked upon the mountains, and there is no rallying them. There is no diminishing to your brokenness – [no] weakening of the strike against you. All who listen to the hearsay about you clap hands over you, for upon whom has your evil not had a lasting effect?

Review of Nahum’s Themes

  1. The Sovereignty of God among the nations of the world

  1. The certainty of accountability. God will punish evil.

  1. God’s concern For His People

1The Assyrians conducted quite a few campaigns against Egypt, but Keil was the only commentator I found to diverge from identifying Nahum’s account with Ashurbanipal’s siege of Thebes. Keil identified it with Sargon’s conquests in Egypt in the early 700’s, before Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, during Hezekiah’s reign, comporting with the many commentators advocating for dating Nahum during Hezekiah’s reign.

2cf. M. Barrett: “...most likely it was nearer the time of Nineveh’s fall.”

3Again, assuming No-Amon to be Thebes.

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