1 The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

2 God is jealous, and the LORD revenges; the LORD revenges, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies.

3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

4 He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers: Bashan languishes, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languishes.

5 The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yes, the world, and all that dwell therein.

6 Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

7 The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knows them that trust in him.

8 But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

9 What do you imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.

10 For while they be entwined together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.

11 There is one come out of you, that imagines evil against the LORD, a wicked counselor.

12 Thus said the LORD; Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.

13 For now will I break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds in sunder.

14 And the LORD has given a commandment concerning you, that no more of your name be sown: out of the house of your gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make your grave; for you are vile.

15 Behold on the mountains the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace! O Judah, keep your solemn feasts, perform your vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through you; he is utterly cut off.

Nineveh

Nineveh stands in Scripture as the representative of apostate religious Gentiledom, as Babylon represents the confusion into which the Gentile political world-system has fallen Dan 2:41-43, (See Scofield " Isa 13:1"), Under the preaching of Jonah, B.C. 862, the city and king had turned to God (Elohim), Jon 3:3-10 But in the time of Nahum, more than a century later, the city had wholly apostatized from God. It is this which distinguishes Nineveh from all the other ancient Gentile cities, and which makes her the suited symbol of the present religious Gentile world-system in the last day. Morally, Nineveh is described in Rom 1:21-23. The chief deity of apostate Nineveh was the bull-god, with the face of a man and the wings of a bird: "an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts."

The message of Nahum, uttered about one hundred years before the destruction of Nineveh, is, therefore, not a call to repentance, but an unrelieved warning of judgment: "He will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time." Nah 1:9; see, also, Nah 3:10. For there is no remedy for apostasy but utter judgment, and a new beginning. Cf.; Isa 1:4; Isa 1:5; Isa 1:24-28; Heb 6:4-8; Pro 29:1.

It is the way of God; apostasy is punished by catastrophic destruction. Of this the flood and the destruction of Nineveh are witnesses. The coming destruction of apostate Christendom is foreshadowed by these. (Cf) Dan 2:34; Dan 2:35; Luk 17:26; Luk 17:27; Rev 19:17-21.

burden See note 1, (See Scofield " Isa 13:1")

God is jealous

The great ethical lesson of Nahum is that the character of God makes Him not only "slow to anger," and "a stronghold to them that trust Him," but also one who "will not at all acquit the wicked." He can be "just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" Rom 3:26 but only because His holy law has been vindicated in the cross.

he knoweth them that trust Psa 1:6; 2Ti 2:19 (See Scofield " Psa 2:12").