Scripture Text: Nahum 3:1-7
All who see you will shrink back. They will say, 'Nineveh lies in ruins! Who has any sympathy for her? Who will want to comfort her?' "
Nahum 3:7 (ESV)
In 1839, the Amistad sailed for Cuba with a shipload of African slaves. The captives, led by a man known as Cinque, escaped from their chains and took over the ship. As seen in an award–winning movie, also called Amistad, they then attempted to return to Africa but were captured by the U.S. Navy and imprisoned while the case was investigated. Spain tried to pressure President Martin Van Buren into extraditing the group so they could be tried for piracy and murder, but abolitionists succeeded in having the case tried in the United States. Two years after the original mutiny, the Supreme Court finally ruled that they had been taken captive illegally and were thus free to go.
Justice had been done!
In vivid and intense language, Nahum 3 reiterates the justice of God’s judgment on Nineveh and poetically addresses the reasons for it—which is, in short, their sins. This “city of blood” (v. 1) was guilty of cruelty, pride, idolatry, deceit, and witchcraft, and one gets the feeling that Nahum’s list is a sampler, not a complete record. The Lord’s justice would be poetic: Sins done in private would be made public. Shamelessness would be shamed. “I will pelt you with filth,” said God, “I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle” (v. 6). This may sound extreme, but the literary device of hyperbole (exaggeration for effect) reflects the true heinousness of Nineveh’s sins.
Assyria was not just a superpower, but a sadistic and evil one. History testifies to their bloody cruelties. They are alleged to have cut off enemies’ hands, feet, and noses; gouged out their eyes; flayed or skinned them alive; ripped open pregnant women; beheaded and then burned the bodies in huge piles; and carried out many massacres. Their lust for power is comparable to a lust for sex—the “harlot” (v. 4) is probably Ishtar, goddess of both fertility and war. Given all this, it’s no surprise that no one will mourn the destruction of Nineveh, no one will offer words of comfort. Instead, Assyria’s former victims will rejoice in their liberation (v. 7).
Reflect
1. Have you ever realized how fitting it is for you receive God’s judgment and punishment?
2. Have you truly realized that in Christ, what was fitting for you to receive, He took it and in Him, we receive what we don’t deserve?
3. Have you seen the grace of God in your life?
4. How do you respond to this grace?
Remember
Justice is often about reaping what we sow. Sowing the wind, the Assyrians were bound to reap the whirlwind. We need to remember, though, that God can and does break this pattern with His mercy and grace. He can make it so that “those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy”.
Dear readers, in Christ, God has made it so that those condemned to death can receive eternal life. In Christ, we are recipients of God’s great mercy and that is His grace.
Read
Hosea 8:7; Psalm 126:5; John 3:16-18
Pray
Dear LORD, I deserve Your judgment and punishment and even the whole creation will see this fitting of me. I see Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that in Him I received Your grace and heavenly gifts that I know I am unworthy of. Make my eyes see this always and make my heart beat with eternal gratitude to Your goodness in me. This I pray in His name, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
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