NAHUM - CERTAIN JUSTICE

NAHUM – Certain Justice

Tuesday Morning Bible Study

February 4, 2020, The Year of our Lord

Nahum’s poem/oracle presents the truth that there is a moral law woven into history which works inexorably to a certain climax.  Just as in our study of Amos as a prophet of justice, who decreed God’s justice, Nahum’s prophecy reveals the certain justice of God. 

Perhaps the Holy Spirit turns our eyes to the oracle of Nahum as His testimony of God’s certain justice over evil in the nations of the earth.  It is my persuasion we have seen the perversion of justice in our nation for the past many years. 

Through this past act of sedition against the Office of President of the United States, we the people discovered the millions and billions of aid going to foreign countries has been laundered by American politicians back into their pockets through corrupt business operations.

I turned to Nahum researching a dream I had about a gathering of horsemen.

DREAM GIVEN TO CAROLYN SISSOM 1/30/20: “A governmental committee/caucus of judges were gathered to make serious government decisions.  These beings had the body of men and the face of a horse.  I describe them as horsemen.   One of the horsemen went rogue.”  END OF DREAM.

This was Thursday, the day before the vote in the Senate regarding extending the trial to include witnesses.  The senators are acting as judges through this trial.  We know in Friday’s vote that Mitt Romney and Susan Collins both went rogue.  I am not sure the dream had to do with Friday’s vote or something forthcoming.

My research on the “horsemen” led me to Nahum 3:1-4:

Woe to the bloody city!  It is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departs not.  The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear; and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is no end to their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses.  Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

As you will recall in our study of Amos 7:17, the judgment of a corrupt priesthood and corrupt government was that Ahaziah’s wife would become a harlot, his children would die by the sword and he would die in a heathen land.  Selling a nation to corruption will also open the door for harlotry.  We have all felt strongly that witchcraft has a strong hold over many of our government officials. The spirit of the harlot is in battle with the Holy Spirit as the corruption is being exposed. 

Like a beautiful wanton woman, Nineveh had lured the nations to their death.  And so there comes upon her the ultimate degradation of the convicted harlot, in language almost too violent and vivid to utter. 

Nahum 1:1-3:  The burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum, the Elkshoite.  God is jealous, and the LORD revenges, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies.  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.

The word “burden” is used by prophets to describe the heaviness of their prophecy.  Elkoshite is unknown but Capernaum means: “the village of Nahum.”  The time period of this prophecy is the fall of the capitol of Upper Egypt (664-664 B.C.)  Nineveh fell in 612 B.C.  This prophecy was after the fall of Thebes and before the fall of Nineveh.

The brutal imperialism of Assyria had cursed the lands of the Middle East for almost two centuries when Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) established the great capitol, Nineveh.  The royal Palace had an area of almost 100,000 square feet. When Jonah spoke of Nineveh as requiring three days journey to cross, he had in mind not only the heart of the city, but the suburbs.  Jonah preached to Nineveh about 87 years before this.  Sennacherib was assassinated in the temple of Nisroch by his sons in 681 B.C.  Nineveh was destroyed by the Babylonians in 612 B.C.

The Lord is slow to anger is repeated six times.  His judgment is His justice.  Because He is justice, His acts are just.

This prophecy is an encouragement to all who cry out for righteousness.   Though God’s judgment may seem to tarry, inevitably his justice will move to its overwhelming end.  Nahum’a faith in this is absolute.

Nah. 1:4-6:  The LORD rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers.  Bashan languishes, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languishes.  The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at His presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.  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.

What God Has done in the past, he will do in the future.  He has already rebuked the sea, made it dry and dried up the rivers.  He has sent famine to Bashamn, Carmel and Lebanon.  The mountains have quaked.  The earth has been burned by the fire and men have been destroyed.  This will happen again in the future.  Nahum is declaring facts about the awesome power of God. Nahum reveal God as LORD over nature and of history. 

1: 7-8:  The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knows them that trust in Him.  But with an overwhelming flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

The LORD is tender to those who wait for Him.  Under the shadow of the ruthless empire, the cowering people had waited long.  It can be now said of America that we too had begun to cower in fear under the oppression of our government and media, but a deliverer was raised up.

1:9-11: What do you conspire against the LORD?  He will make an utter end of it.   Affliction shall not rise up a second time.  For while tangled like thorns, and while drunken like drunkards, they shall be devoured like stubble fully dried.  From you comes forth one who plots evil against the LORD, a wicked counselor.

Wicked is one of the harshest terms in biblical language, nearly a curse word.  The term speaks of someone who is utterly worthless.  Dake applies this scripture to the Antichrist.  That would narrow down the place where the antichrist will come from to ancient city of Nineveh.  He also applies it to Sennacherib, but according to my calculations, Sennacherib was assassinated before this prophecy was decreed as a judgment.  Sennacherib invaded Judah in the days of Hezekiah.  Nahum was a prophet during the reigns of Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon and Josiah, kings of Judah and northern Israel.

In 722 B.C. the northern house of Israel was overthrown by the armies of Assyria led by Shalmaneser.  In 586 B.C., the southern house of Judah was overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon).

Nineveh was on the east bank of the Tigress River.  Today the area is encircled by the modern city of Mosul, Iraq in northern Iraq.

1:12: Thus, says the LORD:  Though they are safe, and likewise many, yet in the manner they will be cut down when he passes through.  Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict

The garden city became a graveyard in its beauty and greatness.  Nineveh’s judgment was to be and was complete and final the first time.  There would be no need for a second destruction.  The people of Nineveh would be destroyed as fully dried stubble.

1;13:  Thus, says the LORD:  Though they are safe, and likewise many, yet in the manner they will be cut down when he passes through.  Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more; For now, I will break off his yoke from you, and burst your bonds apart

1:14:  The LORD has given a command concerning you.  Your name shall be perpetuated no longer.  Out of the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the molded image.  I will dig your grave for you are vile.

In our study of Psalm 119:  Command (miswot) expresses the insistent will of a personal God who is LORD.

God is speaking to His people’s enemy, the enemy of Israel.  The nation of Assyria is typified by its capital city, Nineveh.   He not only destroyed the nation’s name, but He removed its power.  The Lord commanded and destroyed their false religious systems with its pagan temples, idols, and disgusting practices.  You are vile:  the only thing to be done with Nineveh was to dig a grave and bury it.  The prophecy literally came true.  The city was destroyed so completely that its very existence was questioned until its discovery by archaeologists in the nineteenth century.

1:15; Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace!  O Judah, keep your appointed feasts.  Perform your vows.  For the wicked one shall no more pass through you.  He is utterly cut off.

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor

Eastgate Ministries Church

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