Context No. 3620 of 4322 · Nahum
Context · Reflection
Nahum 3:1-7: in context
1Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery—no end to the prey. 2The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots, 3the horseman charging, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies 4because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft. 5“Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. 6I will throw abominable filth on you and make you vile, and will make you a spectacle. 7It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”
Nahum cries woe over Nineveh, the bloody city, full of lies and plunder, whose streets are heaped with the slain of her endless wars. And God declares, behold, I am against you. When a nation builds itself on bloodshed, deceit, and the plunder of others, God himself becomes its adversary.
The city that terrorized the world will be exposed and disgraced, made a public spectacle, and when she falls the haunting question comes: who will grieve for her? Where shall I seek comforters for you? No one will mourn the fall of the oppressor. There is a sober truth here about violence and cruelty: they may seem to win for a time, but they make God himself their enemy, and they earn no love, only relief when they are gone. A life, or a power, built on harming others has God set against it and no true friends at the end. Better to be small and loved than great and feared, for the God who says I am against you to the cruel is the very refuge of their victims.
Do I build my life on truth and mercy rather than on deceit and the harm of others, remembering that God sets himself against the cruel and becomes the refuge of those they oppress?