Never forget God is watching

Nahum Chapter 3

Many rulers in the Old Testament times were evil and very cruel, but the Assyria kings took it to a new level.  The time of the prophet Nahum was from 675-610 B.C., but we need to look at the total time line of the Assyrian Empire, in 800 B.C.  This was not the best of times for the Assyria Empire, it was in decline and God sent Jonah to Nineveh to preach repentance.  It should be noted that God often used pagan armies to bring judgment on Israel as is seen by the fall of Samaria in 725-722, where 28,000 Israelites were led into exile. 

As we begin reading the first three verses of chapter 3, it may require understanding that it’s pay back, that the judgment is in accord with what they have done to others.  “Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder—no end to the prey!  The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!  Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end—they stumble over the bodies!”  This is the account of when the Medes and Babylonians laid siege to Nineveh and after two months it fell.  The blood was the people of Nineveh, and the Babylonians stacked their corpses just as they had taken great pleasure in doing to the cities and Nations that they had conquered.  I took this note from HCSB Study Bible page 1542 note 3:19; “Assyrian rulers were infamous for their cruelty.  Ashur-nasirpal II {858-824 B.C.} flayed captive kings alive and papered city walls with their skin.  Impaling some on stakes, he gouged out their eyes and severed their hands, feet, and other body parts.  Nahum’s contemporary Ashurbanipal boasted of similar atrocities against the Egyptians.  He also tore out the tongues of rebels who were uttering blasphemies against his god.  He pulled a rope through an Arab king’s jaw and chained him like a watchdog at a city gate.” 

We often talk about a bad hair day or we wish that we could have a do over, but it matters not what your role is from king to peasant, you do not want to hear the words of verse five spoken about you.  “Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness

and kingdoms at your shame.  I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.  And all who look at you will shrink from you and say, “Wasted is Nineveh; who will grieve for her?”  Where shall I seek comforters for you? (Nahum 3:5-7 ESV)   

Many of the rulers took off, those who gave orders to do cruel acts to those they captured escaped, this was what Nahum saw and reported; “Your princes are like grasshoppers,

your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold—when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are. (Nahum 3:17 ESV)

When evil encompasses you, never forget God is watching, and He is on the side of those who evil is attacking, and judgment is coming for them.  Nineveh was burned to the ground and was never rebuilt.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice