Context No. 2813 of 4322 · Nahum

Nahum 2:1-13: in context

1He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily! 2For the LORD restores the excellency of Jacob as the excellency of Israel, for the destroyers have destroyed them and ruined their vine branches. 3The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished. 4The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the wide ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings. 5He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place. 6The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved. 7It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her servants moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts. 8But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one looks back. 9Take the plunder of silver. Take the plunder of gold, for there is no end of treasure, an abundance of every precious thing. 10She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale. 11Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked with the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid? 12The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled prey for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill and his dens with prey. 13“Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.”

Nahum sees the fall of Nineveh, the capital of the brutal Assyrian empire, and paints it in racing images. The attacker comes up; chariots rage in the streets like torches and lightning; the river gates are thrown open; the palace melts away; the city is stripped of its silver and gold and left empty, void, and waste, every heart melting. Then the haunting question: where now is the den of the lions?

Assyria had been a predator among the nations, a lion filling its den with the spoil of others, and for generations no one could make it afraid. Nahum's word is that the predator's own turn has come. God is not indifferent to empires that devour the weak. Behold, I am against you, says the LORD. The den that seemed untouchable is emptied out. This is judgment poetry, and its comfort is aimed at all the peoples Nineveh had crushed: cruelty does not get to reign forever.

Do I believe that the powers which seem to devour the weak without consequence will finally answer to God?

Sources

Nahum 2:13: "Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of Armies."
Nahum 1:7: "The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him."
Psalm 9:9: "The LORD will also be a high tower for the oppressed; a high tower in times of trouble."