Lessons From Nahum

Jonah and Nahum were two Old Testament prophets whose books were concerned with the city of Nineveh and the Assyrian people.  Jonah preached in the city and they repented.  Nahum predicts their total destruction because the people turned away from God and lived as their ancestors before Jonah’s message.  What lessons can we learn form looking at Nahum’s writing?

We learn first of all the two-sided nature of God.  He is a God of wrath and vengeance.  Nahum 1:3 reads, “The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.”  Consider this in light of Ezekiel 18:4, “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, he shall die.”  God can not ignore sin, it must be punished.

The other side of God’s nature is His goodness to those who “trust” Him.  Nahum 1:7 reads “the LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.”  To “trust” God is to live according to His revealed will.  This Nineveh once did, but turned away.  He is the source of protection and strength for those who trust.

A second lesson concerns the source of true security.  A strong economy bringing in much wealth is no indication of true security before God. Nahum 3:16 reads, “thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away.”  Our nation lives by the measurement of economic strength.  When it is strong all is well.  But is it?  Nineveh thought all was well with their multitudes of merchants and the great revenues that resulted, yet they were on the verge of destruction.

Lesson three is the warning that national military strength is no match against the will of God.  In 3:5 God declares through the prophet, “I am against thee.”  In verses 8-10 God uses the Egyptian city of No (or Thebes) as an example.  She was protected by natural defenses and the nations of Egypt and Ethiopia, “Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity”(3:10).  Any nation which thinks its advanced technology and military defenses can protect it from anything needs to consider the fate of Nineveh.  When the Lord is against a nation it can not stand (see 1:14; 2:13; 3:5).  The true source of power is God.

The fourth lesson is evidence of God’s foreknowledge.  In 2:6, the following prediction is found: “The gates of the river shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.”  Archer in his book A Survey Of Old Testament Introduction wrote, “subsequent history records that a vital part of the city walls of Nineveh was carried away by a great flood, and this ruin of the defensive system permitted the besieging Medes and Chaldeans to storm the city without difficulty” (page 341).

May the Lord’s church learn these lessons and strive to teach them to others.

—Denton Landon