Nahum 3:12-19
12 All your strongholds are fig trees with ripened figs:
If they are shaken,
They fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Surely, your people in your midst are women!
The gates of your land are wide open for your enemies;
Fire shall devour the bars of your gates.
14 Draw your water for the siege!
Fortify your strongholds!
Go into the clay and tread the mortar!
Make strong the brick kiln!
15 There the fire will devour you,
The sword will cut you off;
It will eat you up like a locust.
Make yourself many—like the locust!
Make yourself many—like the swarming locusts!
16 You have multiplied your merchants more than the stars of heaven.
The locust plunders and flies away.
17 Your commanders are like swarming locusts,
And your generals like great grasshoppers,
Which camp in the hedges on a cold day;
When the sun rises they flee away,
And the place where they are is not known.
18 Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria;
Your nobles rest in the dust.
Your people are scattered on the mountains,
And no one gathers them.
19 Your injury has no healing,
Your wound is severe.
All who hear news of you
Will clap their hands over you,
For upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually?
The great city Nineveh of the Assyrian Empire was judged and shaken (Hebrews 12:26-27) in destruction of defeat by the LORD. We who have been rescued from our own sin’s consequences have been given a kingdom which is impossible to be shaken (Hebrews 12:28) or destroyed, however. For those who repent of their evil ways and turn to follow the Lord Jesus Christ by faith have this assurance forever, unlike unrepentant Nineveh who suffered the temporal and eternal results as warned here by Nahum. They were exposed by God to their enemies as instruments in His hand to take them down as a warning to all around. The fire destroyed their city and the sword ended their lives because they had spread like devouring locusts across the land to consume others with their wickedness of immortality, idolatry, and selfish gain at other’s expense. There was no love for God or their neighbors in them and they were held to account. What leaders they had who should have shepherded the people in goodness as after Jonah preached and they repented over a hundred years before, these failed them and were scattered with their royalty, not to be brought back together again. Their kingdom was tried and found wanting as the ungodly kingdom in Daniel 5:27. There would be no healing again for Nineveh. Their wound of rejection was fatal and final because their wickedness was not turned away from and they had infected others with it. Those of the surrounding nations would rejoice at the judgment of God which stopped their persecutors and their evil influence. We also will rejoice at the final judgment (Revelation 18:20, 19:1-2) over those who are the unrepentant enemies of God and His people. This is a warning to the world to repent and trust in God’s deliverance in Christ! Our kingdom of grace and mercy cannot be shaken. Hallelujah!
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