September 3, 2023 - YAHWEH: Destroyer of Evil- Restorer of Creation, Nahum 3

Today we are finishing our series on the Prophet Nahum. We will reflect on Nahum 3 Yahweh – Destroyer of Evil, Restorer of Creation. As we saw in the first two chapters of Nahum, the Lord is slow to anger, but he will address the evil in the world and hold those responsible accountable for their wickedness. This is a big part of why Jesus came to earth: to engage Satan on our behalf, battling for our hearts, souls, and minds and drawing us back to the Father 

Transcript

Yahweh – Destroyer of Evil, Restorer of Creation

Nahum 3

Here’s a quick refresher of the first 2 chapters of Nahum from before my vacation. Years ago, in the time of Jonah, when Nineveh was warned of God’s warning of judgement, they repented and God withheld his punishment. Nineveh had responded with humility, sorrow, and repentance, but as we mentioned last week, Nineveh quickly returned to its barbaric and wicked ways and it seems as if God had no response at all, at least until now. Nahum’s vision began with showing why God is moving again against Nineveh, and how God is going to move against Nineveh. In the culture of the time, it shows the Assyrian people and leaders that Nineveh’s gods cannot protect her. Yahweh, Judah’s God is more powerful, no earthly empire can stand against Judah’s God. Yahweh’s so powerful that he uses other powerful nations to protect and save his people; there is nothing or no-one that’s not under Yahweh’s control or power. We don’t battle the powers by ourselves, the Lord battles for and with us.

The Lord gives Nahum a glimpse in his vision of what the defeat and punishment of Nineveh is going to look like. It’s going to look a lot like the carnage and destruction Nineveh had brought onto so many other nations. Nahum sees, “The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses, and jolting chariots! Charging cavalry, flashing swords, and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses—all because of the wanton lust of a prostitute, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.” The Lord’s justice towards Nineveh is going to be harsh and hard. Her evil is going to be dealt with by the God of justice, the God of Israel who allows evil to survive for only a time before holding the perpetrators of evil and injustice responsible. 

The Lord is slow to anger, but he also doesn’t leave the guilty unpunished. In Nahum, this is about an empire, but this is the comfort and hope that we hold onto for today as well. For those who have had to flee their country due to persecution or violence, the refugee’s hope is that God will hold those responsible for the persecution and violence responsible. For those who have been hurt through domestic violence, who have been violated by someone else and are working through the hurt and brokenness it brings, these are cries to God to not leave the guilty unpunished, to hold those who hurt and destroy others to be held accountable. 

Nahum reveals that the Lord is going to shame Nineveh, to bring them to their knees by revealing who they really are and how their actions have shaped their identity and character. “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame. I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.” Nineveh is compared to a prostitute chasing after power and wealth, selling herself and her soul to whatever it takes to give them what they want. The Lord is now to shame her in public so all the nations will see what the consequences of unfaithfulness to Israel’s God brings you. This vision of Nahum’s is more for Israel than for Nineveh, calling Israel back to faithfulness to God because Israel keeps chasing after the gods of the other nations, wanting to be like them, willing to sell themselves to gain a place of acceptance with them rather than remaining faithful to their own God.

There are echoes here to the purity laws found in Leviticus given to Moses right after God freed Israel from slavery to Egypt. The purity laws are given to the people to remind them that they are in a covenant relationship with Yahweh and expected to keep themselves pure for Yahweh as Yahweh commits himself to a committed relationship with his people. The image of this relationship is slowly revealed to be like that of a husband and wife. This is the point behind the marriage of Hosea and the unfaithful Gomer where the Lord keeps telling Hosea to take his unfaithful wife back as a symbol of Lord’s unconditional love for his people. Paul picks up on this in his letter to the Ephesians, comparing Jesus’ relationship to the church as a groom who loves his wife sacrificially and is making her holy through his love. 

The imagery of warfare and water come up again and again in Nahum’s vision. The vision is fulfilled just a few years later. Historian Michael Barrett tells us, “Nineveh fell to a Medo-Babylonian coalition in 612 BC. The Babylonian Chronicle describes a two-month siege against Nineveh that was ultimately aided by the flooding of the Tigris, which enabled the Babylonian forces to breach Nineveh’s seemingly impregnable defensive walls. Likewise, Nahum links Nineveh’s fall to a flood indicating that the prophet was predicting precisely what Babylon would do.” Another commentator writes, “Traces of dams (“gates,” or sluices) for regulating the supply are still visible, so that the whole city could be surrounded with a water barrier (as referred to in) Nahum 2:8 (Nineveh is like a pool, and its water is draining away, “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one turns back”). Besides, on the east, the weakest side, it was further protected by a lofty double rampart with a moat two hundred feet wide between its two parts, cut in the rocky ground. The moats or canals, flooded by the Ninevites before the siege to repel the foe, were made a dry bed to march into the city, by the foe turning the waters into a different channel: as Cyrus did in the siege of Babylon [Maurer]…. there was an old prophecy that it should not be taken till the river became its enemy; so in the third year of the siege, the river by a flood broke down the walls twenty furlongs, and the king thereupon burnt himself and his palace and all his concubines and wealth together, and the enemy entered by the breach in the wall.”

In the Sunday School room, they have Psalm 20:7 on the wall, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Nineveh depended on their chariots and horses, but the Lord proved more powerful than their chariots, horses, or gods. The Babylonians, who the Lord uses to defeat Nineveh, divert the water from the river Tigris away from the moat so their army could march against Nineveh on dry ground. We hear echoes to when the Lord creates a path through the sea on dry ground for the Israelites to walk to safety and then uses the water to crush the might of Egypt. Egypt trusted in their might, believing the Red Sea has defeated them, until the Lord defeats them using the water of the sea against them while Nineveh trusts in the Tigris to protect them until it didn’t. 

Nahum reminds Nineveh and Israel of the fate of the city Thebes, “Are you better than Thebes, situated on the Nile, with water around her? The river was her defense, the waters her wall. Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength; Put and Libya were among her allies. Yet she was taken captive and went into exile.” Yahweh is warning them to be careful about what or who they put their trust in; unless it’s the Lord, it’s likely to fail you at some point. The Lord won’t fail us. We see the Lord’s commitment to us in Jesus coming to join us here on earth and reminding us of the Father’s commitment to us and the call and invitation to follow him and come close to the Father. Jesus engages Satan and his powers in a battle that we’re so often unaware of, a battle for our hearts, minds, and souls. Revelation, another vision, gives us a picture of Jesus as a warrior going up against the beast, the dragon, and Satan, the unholy trinity, and defeating them and throwing them into the lake of fire.

Jesus comes to save us from the oppression of sin and the chains that sin wraps around our hearts, minds, and souls. Just as Israel was drawn to the gods of the nations around them, and these gods kept failing them and leading them into slavery and oppression, in the same way we are drawn to the gods of our time and the promises they make to free us and bring us riches, pleasure, power, and acceptance, and yet they always fail us at some point, leaving us to deal with the brokenness, the hurt, the rejection, and the feelings of hopelessness and defeat. Jesus came to invite us to repent from following the gods and idols of our day and to follow him and place of trust and faith in him and the Father. To help us with this and experience his healing and restoration, Jesus gives us his Spirit to comfort us, to guide us to Jesus, and remind us of his promises of forgiveness from our sin.