Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold
- The prophecy opens with a description of God in all his vengeful wrath. Although he’s slow to anger, once he gets started, look out. It’s Hulk time.
- He’s good to those who seek him, but his enemies haven’t got a chance; they shouldn’t even bother to oppose him.
- God reassures Judah that he’ll take care of the Assyrians who’ve enslaved them.
- Nineveh may have been rich and powerful, but God has had it with all their killing and destruction.
- He tells Nineveh that he’ll “lift up your skirts over your face” (3:5)—the ultimate degradation metaphor threat in many prophetic books—exposing them to all nations as the despicable, pathetic villains they are.
- The nations will see that their warriors are like (no! no! no!) women.
- Everyone will be overjoyed by Nineveh’s destruction, because everyone’s been oppressed by them.
- The one cheerful verse in the book of Nahum is chapter 1, verse 15, “Look, on the mountains the feet of one who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace!”
- This verse, later quoted in the New Testament, provides the basis of the word “gospel,” derived from the Greek word for “good news.” Of course, in the book of Nahum the good news involves hacking Assyrian warriors to death and taking their women as slaves. And now you know the rest of the story. Good day!