The Heavy Word Against a Bloody City Text: Nahum 1:1
Introduction: The Comfort of a Terrible God
We live in a soft age, an effeminate time that wants a soft god. Our generation has manufactured a deity made of marshmallows and good intentions, a divine therapist who would never raise his voice, a celestial grandfather who pats us on the head regardless of our rebellion. And because this is the god of modern evangelicalism, a book like Nahum is largely a closed book. It gathers dust because it presents us with a God who is a jealous and avenging warrior, a God who is furious with His enemies, a God who will by no means clear the guilty. In short, it presents us with the God of the Bible.
The name Nahum means "comfort" or "consolation." This is a staggering irony if you are a Ninevite. For them, this book is not comfort; it is unmitigated terror. But for the people of God, for Judah, who had been bled white by the brutalities of the Assyrian war machine, this book is a profound comfort. And this is a principle we must grasp with both hands: the comfort of the saints is directly proportional to the terror of the wicked. If God is not a holy terror to His enemies, He cannot be a true comfort to His people. A god who is safe for everyone is a savior for no one. A god who will not judge evil is not a good God.
The book of Nahum is a sequel of sorts to the book of Jonah. About 150 years earlier, Jonah had gone to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, and preached a message of impending doom. To Jonah's great consternation, the Ninevites repented. From the king on his throne to the beasts in their stalls, they humbled themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and God relented. But that repentance was short-lived. A few generations later, Assyria was back to its old tricks, only this time with more skill and enthusiasm. They were the ISIS of their day, masters of psychological warfare, known for their breathtaking cruelty, flaying prisoners alive, making pyramids of human skulls, and deporting entire populations. They had sacked the northern kingdom of Israel and were a constant, menacing threat to Judah in the south.
Into this geopolitical nightmare, God sends Nahum with a word. It is not a call to repentance this time. The day for that has passed. It is a declaration of war. It is a formal announcement that the Judge of all the earth is mounting His war chariot, and He is coming for Nineveh. This is not a prophecy about the ebb and flow of human empires. This is a theological statement about the character of God. This book is a portrait of a God who is good, and because He is good, He is a God of wrath.
The Text
The oracle of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
(Nahum 1:1 LSB)
An Oracle, A Burden (v. 1a)
We begin with the description of this prophecy:
"The oracle of Nineveh..." (Nahum 1:1a)
The Hebrew word for "oracle" is massa, which can also be translated as "burden." This is a heavy word, a weighty pronouncement. This is not a word that can be trifled with or taken lightly. It is a burden that the prophet Nahum must carry, and it is a burden that will crush the city of Nineveh. This is God's official, legal indictment against a wicked and bloody city. An oracle is a divine communication, a direct word from the throne room of heaven that cuts through the noise of human opinion and political punditry. In a world drowning in information, we must learn to distinguish the timeless, weighty Word of God from the fleeting chatter of men.
This burden is specifically "of Nineveh." God is not speaking in vague generalities about evil. He is naming names. God's judgments are specific and targeted. He is the sovereign Lord of history, and He deals with nations, not as abstract entities, but as corporate persons with real moral guilt. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the global superpower of its day. It was a city of immense wealth, military might, and architectural splendor, with walls so thick that chariots could race upon them. It was, in the eyes of men, invincible. But no wall is thick enough to keep out the judgment of God. No empire is too big to fail. God raises up nations, and God casts them down. Our God is not a celestial bystander; He is the governor among the nations.
This oracle against Nineveh is therefore a profound comfort to the people of God. It tells them that their suffering is not meaningless and that their oppressors are not ultimate. The tyrants and bullies of this world have their day, they strut and fret their hour upon the stage, but they are on a leash. And the hand that holds that leash is the hand of the God of Israel. He sees, He knows, and He will act in His perfect time.
A Book, A Vision (v. 1b)
The verse continues by describing the nature and source of this message.
"...The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite." (Nahum 1:1b)
This oracle is not just a spoken word; it is written down. It is "the book of the vision." This gives it permanence and authority. This is not some private religious experience Nahum had. It is a public document, a fixed record of God's unalterable decree. By having it written, God is ensuring that when the judgment falls, precisely as Nahum describes, there will be no doubt as to its source. It is so that men will know that Yahweh, the God of Israel, has done it. The written nature of prophecy is a testimony to God's sovereignty over time and history. He declares the end from the beginning, and what He declares comes to pass.
It is a "vision." This means that the prophet was made to see the reality of this judgment. This was not the product of Nahum's geopolitical analysis or his poetic imagination. He was given a divine revelation, a window into the council chambers of heaven. He saw the coming destruction of Nineveh as an accomplished fact. This is why the prophets can speak with such certainty. They are not predicting the future in the way a weatherman does; they are reporting what God has already determined to do and has shown them.
Finally, we are introduced to the human instrument: "Nahum the Elkoshite." We know almost nothing about this man. His name means "comfort," and he is from a town called Elkosh, the location of which is now lost to history. And this is precisely the point. The prophet is not the focus. His personality, his backstory, his credentials, they are all secondary. He is simply the vessel, the messenger. The power is not in the man, but in the God who sent him and the Word he carries. God delights in using obscure men from forgotten towns to announce the downfall of mighty empires. He does this so that no flesh should glory in His presence, and so that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.
So, as we stand at the threshold of this prophecy, we are confronted with a heavy word, a written vision, delivered by an unknown man. It is a word of terrifying judgment for the enemies of God, and because of that, it is a word of profound comfort for the people of God. It reminds us that history is not a random series of events but a story being written by a sovereign and righteous God. And in this story, prideful, bloody cities do not have the final say. He does.