Nahum--Malachi

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching

Elizabeth Achtemeier

• Editorial: Westminster John Knox Press
• Año: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781611644760
• Categoría: Théologie et religion
• Categoría: Commentaire biblique

Elizabeth Achtemeier examines the often-neglected Minor Prophets and explains them as they reflect the church at worship and at work. She sets the Minor Prophets in their canonical context emphasizing the relationship between the message of these prophets and the New Testament. Unique in the use of brief quotations from great preachers' sermons on the prophets, Nahum-Malachi is enriched with the vast insightful store of homiletical interpretation available today.

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.

PART ONE

The Word of the Lord During Judah’s Last Years:

Nahum

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

These three prophets, along with Jeremiah and Ezekiel, share the distinction of proclaiming the word of the Lord during the last half century of Judah’s existence. It was the most turbulent of times. The Assyrian Empire had dominated the ancient Near East for one hundred years, and when that empire fell, an era came to an end. Under King Josiah, Judah enjoyed a brief period of independence and renewal and growth. But Assyria’s rod was quickly replaced, first with that of Egypt and then with that of great Babylonia, and Judah’s life fell victim to the juggernaut of Babylonian conquest.

According to the prophets, all of these events were intimately connected, however, with the will and working of Israel’s God. And it was given to Zephaniah, Nahum, and Habakkuk, in that chronological order, to make clear those connections.

The details of the history of the period can be found in John Bright’s book, A History of Israel, but the following outline is furnished to the reader for quick and easy reference, since none of the prophetic books can be understood fully apart from such historical background.

OUTLINE OF THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF NAHUM, HABAKKUK, AND ZEPHANIAH

Dates B.C.	Events	Prophets/Scripture
745-627 Assyrian Domination of the Ancient Near East
	Assyrian rulers:
745-727	Tiglath-pileser III	740-701 The preaching of Isaiah
726-722	Shalmaneser V
721-705	Sargon II
722/1	Fall of the northern kingdom of Israel; deportation of populace; replaced with aliens.
704-681	Sennacherib	The preaching of Micah in Judah
701	Judah, under Hezekiah (715-687/6), crushed; paid heavy tribute.
680-669	Esarhaddon Manasseh of Judah (687/6-642), a faithful vassal of Assyria.
	Widespread syncretism, idolatry, child sacrifice, injustice, persecution of prophets.
668-627	Ashurbanipal Invasion of Egypt
663	Sack of Thebes	Nahum 3:8
	Power threatened by rise of twenty-sixth dynasty in Egypt under Psammetichus I (664-610), by pressure from Indo–Aryans (Medes, Cimmerians, Scythians), and by revolt in Babylonia.
	Ammon of Judah (642-640), vassal to Assyria, assassinated.
640-609 Rule of Josiah in Judah		Zephaniah chapters 1 and 2
	Assyria begins to totter—rulers are weaklings
627	Josiah comes of age; begins independence movement and expansionist policies; abolishes foreign influences.	626-584 The preaching of Jeremiah
626-605	Rise of Neo-Babylonian empire under Nabopolassar.
625-585	Rise of Medes under Cyaxerxes
622/1	Deuteronomy found during temple repairs; widespread religious reform; abolition of alien cults and priests; centralization of worship at Jerusalem; covenant renewal.	II Kings 22-23; II Chronicles 34-35
614	Medes take Asshur	The preaching of Nahum
612	Fall of Nineveh to Medes and Babylonians	612-609 Zephaniah chapter 3
610	Fall of Haran to Babylonians
609	Assyrians, aided by Egypt, fail to retake Haran. Assyrian Empire finished.
	Josiah killed trying to halt Egyptian Pharaoh, Necho II, at Megiddo.
609-605 Egyptian Domination of Judah
	Josiah’s son Jehoahaz (Shallum) placed on Judean throne; deported to Egypt after three months.
	Jehoiakim (609-598) put on Judean throne: Egyptian vassal and tyrant, forced labor, syncretism, idolatry, persecution of prophets.	The preaching of Habakkuk
605	Egypt defeated by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia (605/4-562)
605-550 Babylonian Domination of the Ancient Near East
604	Philistia (Ashdod) subdued
603/2	Jehoiakim transfers allegiance to Babylonia
601	Babylonian battle with Egypt: Nebuchadnezzar withdraws to recoup; Jehoiakim rebels.
600/599	Nebuchadnezzar busy elsewhere; guerrilla raids against Judah.
598	Death (assassination?) of Jehoiakim; Jehoiachin placed on Judean throne; tribute withheld, owing to Egyptian intrigue.
597	First deportation to Babylonia Zedekiah (597-587) placed on Judean throne
587	The fall of Jerusalem

THE BOOK OF
Nahum

Introduction

“All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Tim. 3:16-17). We give lip service to such an acknowledgment of the authority of Scripture, but in actual fact, we exempt the Book of Nahum from it. Indeed, we often wish Nahum were not in the canon, and the book has been almost totally ignored in the modern church. No lectionary reading is taken from it and no hymn suggests its words, other than the one line from William Cowper’s poem set to music in “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” (“He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm,” cf. Nahum 1:3c.)

Nahum is, in its historical setting, a prediction and celebration of the fall of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, in 612 B.C. Some interpreters have therefore scorned the Book of Nahum, because it seems to be a vengeful, nationalistic expression of Israel’s triumph over an enemy. It is the work of a false prophet, says one. Ethically and theologically it is deficient, writes another.

To be sure, many critics must acknowledge the literary value of the book. “Nahum’s language is strong and brilliant; his rhythm rumbles and rolls, leaps and flashes, like the horse and chariots he describes” (G.A. Smith, p. 90). Nevertheless, few critics approve the message of the book, and many value it simply as a literary masterpiece.

Nahum is not primarily a book about human beings, however—not about human vengeance and hatred and military conquest—but a book about God. And it has been our failure to let Nahum be a book about God that has distorted the value of this prophecy in our eyes. We human beings sometimes want to remain the judges of human history, the sole arbiters of right and wrong, and the last warders of proper conduct. In our role, then, as magistrates over human life, we decide what God himself can and cannot do. We decide that God cannot destroy the wicked—that it is God’s role only to forgive and that, indeed, there are no wicked and righteous on the earth, but that all are equally guilty. Ancient Assyria was no more evil than Judah, is our decree with respect to Nahum; therefore Nahum is deficient in understanding its people’s sin and is an expression only of nationalistic vengeance. A loving God, as pictured in Jonah and in the New Testament, would forgive the sins of Assyria, just as—and this is the final pride—he will always forgive our sins. We dismiss Nahum as inferior to our sense of what is proper.

It is interesting, furthermore, that we have unwittingly used the very tools of scholarship to further our prideful rejection of this prophetic book. The key to the message of Nahum lies in its opening hymn, 1:2-11. This hymn was apparently borrowed by the prophet from an earlier source and adapted by him for his theological purposes. Underlying it are traces of an earlier acrostic hymn, extending at least through verse 8. That is, each line of the hymn begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet and runs from a (’aleph) through i (yodh). But the prophet upset the acrostic progression and inserted his own material, notably in verses 2b and 3a. He also extended the hymn in verses 9–11. It is precisely this hymn, however, or portions of it, that is sometimes removed from Nahum or rearranged. By such alteration, the book is deprived of its theological key.

The entire book now lies before us in order, with remarkable symmetry. The opening hymn, 1:2–11, ends in verse 11 with the address to the enemy: “From your midst came forth one who devised/against Yahweh evil (ra’ah).” The final judgment oracle on Nineveh, 3:14-19, also ends with an address to the enemy in the form of a dirge; and the last line reads in the Hebrew, “For upon whom has not come your continual evil (ra’ah)?” Thus, evil introduced and evil done away form the inclusio of the thought of the book.

Between these two sections, then, stand four judgment oracles against Nineveh: 1:12–15; 2:1–13; 3:1–7, 8–13. Each of these sections ends with a word of the Lord, introduced by “Behold!” (1:15; 2:13; 3:5, 13), and each of these pronouncements of the Lord means salvation for Judah at the same time that it brings judgment on Assyria. Whether this ordered arrangement of the book is the product of Nahum himself or of a redactor is moreover irrelevant, because it is the book as it now lies before us that communicates the message of the one called “Nahum” (comforting, comforter). To try to go behind that to some historical figure bearing the name simply vitiates the message of the book.

Internal evidence in the book places its date sometime between 663 B.C., when Thebes was destroyed (Nah. 3:8), and 612 B.C., when Nineveh finally fell to the Babylonians. Some scholars believe that 1:15 refers to the death in 627 of the great Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal, which marked the beginning of the weakening that led to Assyria’s fall. Others have speculated about the relation of the book to the Deuteronomic reform under Josiah, which began in 621 B.C., and have maintained that Nahum says nothing about the sins of Judah because Judah’s life has temporarily been renewed by the reform. But most scholars place the book shortly before 612 B.C. and view it as an actual prediction of Nineveh’s fall. Certainly the book has that concrete historical setting, but its meaning transcends its historical context and bears a relevance still today.

The book is the only prophetic corpus to have two titles: (1) “A burden (threatening word) concerning Nineveh” (cf. Isa. 13:1; 15:1; 17:1); (2) “The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.” This is also the only prophetic corpus labeled a “book,” but that does not imply that it was originally written and not spoken. “Vision” means simply “prophecy” or “revelation” (cf. Isa. 1:1; Obad. 1). We know nothing else about the prophet. The location of Elkosh is unknown, although the most acceptable traditions place it in Judah and connect Nahum with the tribe of Simeon. Nahum as a person has importance, however, only because of these words of his on behalf of the Lord that have been handed down faithfully to us by Israel and the church.

Nahum 1:2–11

The interpretive riches of this opening hymn are almost beyond enumerating, for we have here only a little less than a complete presentation of the biblical witness to God’s person: the testimony to his covenant love and to his patient mercy; his intimate knowledge of his own and his protection of them; his just lordship over his world and his might in maintaining his rule; his specific but also eschatological defeat of all who would challenge his sovereignty. The God portrayed here is really God, different from all lesser imitations, and different too from those impotent idols that we often project upon our universe.

The force of the hymn can be felt more clearly if the Hebrew word order is reproduced:

A jealous God and an avenger is the Lord,

An avenger is the Lord and owner of wrath,

An avenger is the Lord against his enemies,

and a keeper of anger is he against his foes (v. 2).

The threefold repetition of “avenger” builds to the final “keeper.” But there follows the recognition of the Lord’s long patience with sin, in verse 3a, and the same two thoughts of his mercy and judgment are once again presented side by side in verses 7 and 8.

The God of the Bible is throughout its pages a jealous God, because he has made for himself a people to serve his purpose; and he wills that that people neither stray from his purpose and devotion to him nor be deterred by any enemy from their covenant calling. The imagery of God’s “jealousy” is of his zealous will driving forward toward his goal of salvation for his earth. When any human foes would thwart that drive, God becomes their enemy—an avenger who is master or “owner” of wrath against all challenges to his lordship. That is a threatening picture only to those who want to be their own gods and 8 rule the earth in their own ways, but to those who trust God it is a comfort and an affirmation that he is truly sovereign.

This hymn emphasizes the grace that is to be had from God. “Good is the Lord,” reads verse 7a in the Hebrew order, with the emphasis on “good.” “There is indeed nothing more peculiar to God than goodness” (Calvin, III, 430). Our very term “God” is a shortened form of “good” and is an acknowledgment that all good flows from him. Human beings cannot have goodness in the world apart from God, and God is dependent on no other source for his goodness. His goodness does not depend on what happens to some person or on what our fortunes are. Thus, our Lord, on his way to the cross, could affirm, “No one is good but God alone” (Luke 18:19), because it is the essence of faith that it confesses in any circumstance, “The Lord is good to all, / and his compassion is over all that he has made” (Ps. 145:9). On a bed of pain, faith says, “Truly God is good.” In trouble and affliction and persecution, faith knows God is good—that all his history with his people has been the working out of his good for them and that all the future ahead will be guided by his goodness. So too here, Nahum, at the turbulent end of an age, with kingdoms tottering and armies clashing, affirms, “Good is the Lord.”

Nahum gives two illustrations of the goodness of God. He is “a stronghold in the day of trouble” (v. 7b), & mighty fortress inside whose protecting arms we need not fear though the earth should change and the mountains shake in the heart of the seas (Ps. 46). He gives enduring protection—for strongholds are no temporary camps—from assaulting foes and safety from destruction. He provides the place of peace and quiet conscience midst the raging warfare of hell’s armies. He is the one to whom our Lord on the cross, with the forces of sin and death arrayed against him, could say in confidence as he breathed his last, “Into thy hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46//Ps. 31:5).

God is also good because “he knows those who take refuge in him” (v. 7c), that is, he knows those who rely on him for their life and sustenance and guidance. And God’s knowledge is far more than simply nodding acquaintance, far more than recognition of a name at a distance. God’s knowledge implies intimate care, tender concern, loving communion, like the knowledge of a loving husband for his wife or of a concerned father for his son (cf. Hosea). Indeed, God’s knowledge of those who rely on him goes even beyond that, for he numbers the hairs of his beloved ones’ heads; he knows their needs, their 9 wants, their sufferings. He besets them behind and before and is acquainted with all their ways. There is not a word they speak that God does not know beforehand. There is not a path they have trod with which God is unacquainted or a road they travel of whose end God is not aware. He knows when they lie down and when they rise and is ever present with them. Such is the goodness of God to which Nahum here gives testimony.

But … but … twice Nahum uses that word (Hebrew waw): “but the Lord will by no means clear the guilty” (v. 3b); “but with an overflowing flood/he will make a full end of his adversaries (Hebrew: her place) and will pursue his enemies into darkness” (v. 8). God is enemy of those who defy his lordship; and that too is part of his goodness, for God will not allow evil to triumph in the world. Instead, he will drive it into darkness, pursue it until it disappears into the lifeless realm of chaos and void and nothingness, in short, until it is totally at an end and God’s goodness alone remains on earth.

It is almost incomprehensible that our age has so softened these thoughts of God’s destruction of evil to which Nahum here gives expression. For if God does not destroy the evil human beings have brought into God’s good creation, the world can never return to the wholeness he intended for it in the beginning. To div...