Nahum 1:9-2:1
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Nineveh’s Judgment and Judah’s Restoration
9 What do you plot against the Lord,
the one about to bring total destruction?
No opponent rises a second time!
10 [a]Like a thorny thicket, they are tangled,
and like drunkards, they are drunk;
like dry stubble, they are utterly consumed.
11 From you has come
one plotting evil against the Lord,
one giving sinister counsel.[b]
12 Thus says the Lord:
though fully intact and so numerous,
they[c] shall be mown down and disappear.
Though I have humbled you,
I will humble you no more.
13 Now I will break his yoke off of you,
and tear off your bonds.(A)
14 The Lord has commanded regarding you:[d]
no descendant will again bear your name;
From the house of your gods I will abolish
the carved and the molten image;
I will make your grave a dung heap.
Chapter 2
1 At this moment on the mountains
the footsteps of one bearing good news,
of one announcing peace!(B)
Celebrate your feasts, Judah,
fulfill your vows!
For never again will destroyers invade you;[e]
they are completely cut off.
Footnotes
- 1:10 Thorns (Is 34:13), drunkenness (Lam 4:21; Na 3:11), and burning stubble (Ob 18) are all images of the judgment of God’s enemies.
- 1:11 From you…giving sinister counsel: addressed to Nineveh, the capital city of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who besieged Jerusalem ca. 700 B.C.
- 1:12–13 They: the enemies of Judah. You: Judah. His yoke: the dominion of the Assyrian king over Judah.
- 1:14 You: the king of Assyria.
- 2:1 For never again will destroyers invade you: prophets are not always absolutely accurate in the things they foresee. Nineveh was destroyed, as Nahum expected, but Judah was later invaded by the Babylonians and (much later) by the Romans. The prophets were convinced that Israel held a key place in God’s plan and looked for the people to survive all catastrophes, always blessed by the Lord, though the manner was not always as they expected; the “fallen hut of David” was not rebuilt as Am 9:11 suggests, except in the coming of Jesus, and in a way far different than the prophet expected. Often the prophet speaks in hyperbole, as when Second Isaiah speaks of the restored Jerusalem being built with precious stones (Is 54:12) as a way of indicating a glorious future.
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