Nahum 1:14 Komentář

In this chapter we have, I. The inscription of the book, (Nah 1:1). II. A magnificent display of the glory of God, in a mixture of wrath and justice against the wicked, and mercy and grace towards his people, and the discovery of his majesty and power in both (Nah 1:2-8). III. A particular application of this (as most interpreters think) to the destruction of Sennacherib and the Assyrian army, when they besieged Jerusalem, which was a very memorable and illustrious instance of the power both of God's justice and of his mercy, and spoke abundance of terror to his enemies and encouragement to his faithful servants (Nah 1:9 -16

This chapter begins with the title of the book, showing the subject matter of it; and describing the penman of it by his name and country, Nah 1:1; which is followed with a preface to the whole book; setting forth the majesty of a jealous and revenging God; the power of his wrath and fury; of which instances are given in exciting tempests; drying up the sea and the rivers; making the most fruitful mountains barren, which tremble before him; yea, even the whole world, and the inhabitants thereof, his indignation being intolerable; and yet he is slow to anger, good to them that trust in him, whom he knows, and whose protection he is in a time of trouble, Nah 1:2. Next the destruction of the Assyrian empire, and of the city of Nineveh, is prophesied of; and is represented as an utter and an entire destruction, and which would come upon them suddenly and unawares, while they were in their cups, Nah 1:8. A particular person among them is spoken of, described as a designing wicked man, an enemy to the Lord and his people, thought to be Sennacherib king of Assyria, Nah 1:11; from whose evil designs, yoke and bondage, the Jews should be delivered; and he and his posterity be cut off, because of his vileness, Nah 1:12; and the chapter is concluded with tidings of joy to Judah, who are exhorted to keep their feasts and perform their vows on this occasion, Nah 1:15.

And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee,.... This is directed to Sennacherib king of Assyria, as the Targum expresses it; and so Jarchi and Kimchi; and signifies the decree of God concerning him, what he had determined to do with him, and how things would be ordered in Providence towards him, agreeably to his design and resolution: that no more of thy name be sown; which is not to be understood that he should have no son and heir to succeed him; for Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead, Kg2 19:37; and after him, according to Ptolemy's canon, Saosduchinus and Chyniladanus but the memory of his name should no be spread in the earth; or the fame of it, with any marks of honour and glory, but of shame and disgrace. So the Targum, "neither shall be any memory of thy name any more:'' out of the house of thy gods will I cut of the graven image and the molten image; called "the house of Nisroch his god", Kg2 19:37; where he was slain; and some say that after that it ceased to be a place of worship, being polluted with his blood. Josephus (t) calls it his own temple, where he usually worshipped, for which he had a peculiar regard, and for his god Nisroch; but who this deity was is not certain. Selden says (u), he knew nothing, nor had read anything of him, but what is mentioned in the Scripture. Some of the Jewish writers (w) take it to be a plank of Noah's ark; and Mr. Basnage (x) is of opinion that it is Janus represented by Noah's ark, who had two faces, before and behind; a fit emblem of Noah, who saw two worlds, one before, and another after the flood. Some say Dagon the god of the Philistines is meant, which is not likely; See Gill on Isa 37:38; but, be he who he will, there were other idols besides him, both graven and molten, in this temple, as is here expressed; very probably here stood an image of Belus or Pul, the first Assyrian monarch, and who; was deified; and perhaps Adrammelech the god of the Sepharvites was another, since one of Sennacherib's sons bore this name; and it was usual with the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Babylonians, to give the names of their gods to their princes, or insert them in theirs: here also might be the Assyrian Venus, Derceto, Semiramis, and others: fishes also were worshipped by the Assyrians, in honour of Derceto; and doves in remembrance of Semiramis, said to be nourished by one in her infancy, and turned into one at her death; hence those creatures became sacred in Assyria, and were not suffered to be touched and killed, as Philo observed at Askelon; See Gill on Hos 11:11; and Lucian (y) at Hieropolis in Syria; where, he says, of all birds, they think the dove most holy; so that they count it very unlawful to touch them; and if by chance they do, they reckon themselves unclean that whole day; hence you may see them frequently in their houses conversing familiarly with them, generally feeding on the ground, without any fear; and he also says (z) the Assyrians sacrifice to a dove, and which he must have known, since he himself was an Assyrian, as he tells us; but, whatever these graven and molten images were, it is here predicted they should be utterly demolished. The sense is, that whereas Sennacherib's empire should be destroyed, and his capital taken, the temple where he worshipped would be defaced, and all his gods he gloried of, all his images, both graven and molten, would be cut to pieces, falling into the conqueror's hands, as was usual in such cases; these would not be able to defend him or his, or secure them from the vengeance of God, whom he had blasphemed: I will make thy grave, for thou art vile: the Targum is, "there will I put thy grave;'' that is, in the house of thy god, as Aben Ezra, Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret it; where he was slain by two of his sons, as before observed; and this judgment came upon him by the will of God, because he was a loose vile creature; because he had vilified the true God, and reproached him, as unable to deliver Hezekiah and his people out of his hands. The Targum paraphrases it, "because this is easy before me;'' what the Lord could easily do, make his idol temple his grave; or, however, take away his life, and lay his honour in the dust: or it may be rendered, "I will put upon thy grave that thou art vile" (a); he, who thought to have a superb monument over his grave, and an epitaph inscribed on it to his immortal honour, as kings used to have; this shall be the sepulchral inscription, "here lies a vile, wicked, and contemptible man;'' so Abarbinel. There was a statue of this king in an Egyptian temple, as Herodotus (b) relates, according, as many think, with this inscription on it, "whosoever looks on me, let him be religious;'' though I rather think it was a statue of Sethon the priest of Vulcan, and last king of Egypt. Here ends the first chapter in some Hebrew copies, and in the Syriac and Arabic versions, and in Aben Ezra. (t) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 1. sect. 5. (u) De Dis Syris, Syntagm. 2. c. 10. p. 329. (w) Vid. Jarchi in Isaiam, c. 37, 38. (x) In Calmet's Dictionary, in the word "Samaritans". (y) De Dea Syria. (z) In Jupiter Tragoedus. (a) . (b) , . Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 141.

Once again, dear friends, God has brought us to the Easter season. By his lovingkindness we are once more about to assemble for it. The same God who brought Israel out of Egypt now calls us to the feast, saying through Moses, “Take note of the month of new fruits, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God.” And through the prophet he calls, “Keep your feasts, O Judah; pay your vows to the Lord.” So if God himself loves the feast and calls us to it, it is not right, brothers and sisters, to postpone it or to observe it carelessly. We should come to it eagerly and zealously, so that with a joyful beginning here we will experience a foretaste of the heavenly feast that is to come.

(Verse 14) And the Lord will command against you, your name will no longer be sown: I will destroy the carved and cast images from the house of your God: I will make your grave, for you are dishonored. LXX: And the Lord will command against you, your name will no longer be sown: I will destroy the carved and cast images from the house of your God: I will make your grave, for you are swift; behold, on the mountains the feet of the messenger announcing peace. Therefore, I have placed more emphasis on the Septuagint interpreters, because the second περικοπὴ could not be separated from the first one. In what is said, 'because you have been dishonored,' the fifth edition puts 'because you have been insulted.' The Septuagint translates it as 'because you have been swift,' which is read as Chi Calloth in Hebrew. However, unless you refer it to the feet of the lower chapter, the meaning is ambiguous. Therefore, according to my custom, I will first explain the story and then discuss the meaning of the Vulgate edition. He will command, he says, against you, O Assyria, that what you are about to suffer comes not by chance and without any judge, but, with God proclaiming it, you will endure it. No harvest will be sown from your name any longer: for as soon as Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, he was killed by his own sons. Read Isaiah, and he was killed in the house of his own god which he had entered to worship. For this is what he says, I will destroy your god's house where you had entered to worship (Isa. XXXVII): you will be punished from where you hoped for help. Your tomb will be sculpted and crafted, so that wicked blood may be shed among the altars and cushions of idol worshipers. But join what follows with the Septuagint and earlier interpreters: 'It will not be sown, he says, from your name anymore.' By no means, O heretics, will the souls of the deceived accept the names from your teachings, which they had previously invoked upon their lands, as it is figuratively sung in the forty-eighth psalm. And this very cessation of planting, which used to kill the soul of the planter and then the one in whom he was planting, will be beneficial to you. So the doctrines of errors will die for you. But you, who previously seemed to live for yourself, will die to error, and having died to your own good, you will possess the idols which you worshipped as a tomb. And thus it will happen that from your heart, which was previously the temple of your pretended God, all errors will be removed. But these things will come to you, who once thought contrary to the Lord, when the word of God, which always ascends to the mountains, namely to exalted and lofty souls, comes quickly to you, and the waves of previous errors having been trampled upon, and having been brought into tranquility, it restores peace to you, the sense of faith and understanding. Forgive the lengthiness, for I am not able to summarize both the history and the tropology following either in a brief manner: especially since I am both tortured by the variety of interpretation and compelled to sometimes weave together the coherence of the Vulgate edition against my conscience.

The prophet Nahum (or, better, God speaking through him) says, “I will destroy the graven and molten thing; I will make it your grave. Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that brings peace. O Judah, keep your festivals and pay your vows, for it shall no longer be that they may pass into disuse. It is completed, it is consumed, it is taken away. He is come up that breathes into your face and rescues you from tribulation.” Anyone who knows the Gospels will recognize who it was that came up from hell and breathed the Holy Spirit into the face of Judah, that is, into the face of his Jewish disciples. The words about the festivals are, of course, a reference to the New Testament, in which festivals are so spiritually renewed that they can never “pass into disuse.” The rest of the prophecy too we see realized in that the gospel brought about the destruction of “graven and molten things,” that is, the idols of the false gods, consigned now to the oblivion of the grave.

This chapter opens the prophecy against the Assyrians and their metropolis with a very magnificent description of the infinite justice, tender compassion, and uncontrollable power of God, Nah 1:1-8. To this succeeds an address to the Assyrians; with a lively picture of their sudden overthrow, because of their evil device against Jerusalem, Nah 1:9-11. Then appears Jehovah himself, proclaiming deliverance to his people from the Assyrian yoke, and the destruction of the Assyrian idols, Nah 1:12-14; upon which the prophet, with great emphasis, directs the attention of Judah to the approach of the messenger who brings such glad tidings; and exultingly bids his people to celebrate their solemn feasts, and perform their vows, as a merciful Providence would not suffer these enemies of the Jewish state to prevail against them, Nah 1:15.

No more of thy name be sown - No more of you shall be carried away into captivity. I will make thy grave; for thou art vile - I think this is an address to the Assyrians, and especially to Sennacherib. The text is no obscure intimation of the fact. The house of his gods is to be his grave: and we know that while he was worshipping in the house of his god Nisroch, his two sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, smote him there that he died, Kg2 19:37.

JEHOVAH'S ATTRIBUTES AS A JEALOUS JUDGE OF SIN, YET MERCIFUL TO HIS TRUSTING PEOPLE, SHOULD INSPIRE THEM WITH CONFIDENCE. HE WILL NOT ALLOW THE ASSYRIANS AGAIN TO ASSAIL THEM, BUT WILL DESTROY THE FOE. (Nah 1:1-15) burden of Nineveh--the prophetic doom of Nineveh. Nahum prophesied against that city a hundred fifty years after Jonah.

that no more of thy name be sown--that no more of thy seed, bearing thy name, as kings of Nineveh, be propagated; that thy dynasty become extinct, namely, on the destruction of Nineveh here foretold; "thee" means the king of Assyria. will I cut off . . . graven image--The Medes under Cyaxares, the joint destroyers of Nineveh with the Babylonians, hated idolatry, and would delight in destroying its idols. As the Assyrians had treated the gods of other nations, so their own should be treated (Kg2 19:18). The Assyrian palaces partook of a sacred character [LAYARD]; so that "house of thy gods" may refer to the palace. At Khorsabad there is remaining a representation of a man cutting an idol to pieces. I will make thy grave--rather, "I will make it (namely, 'the house of thy gods,' that is, 'Nisroch') thy grave" (Kg2 19:37; Isa 37:38). Thus, by Sennacherib's being slain in it, Nisroch's house should be defiled. Neither thy gods, nor thy temple, shall save thee; but the latter shall be thy sepulchre. thou art vile--or, thou art lighter than due weight (Dan 5:27; compare Job 31:6) [MAURER].

Judgment upon Nineveh Decreed by God - Nah 1:1-15 Jehovah, the jealous God and avenger of evil, before whose manifestation of wrath the globe trembles (Nah 1:2-6), will prove Himself a strong tower to His own people by destroying Nineveh (Nah 1:7-11), since He has determined to break the yoke which Asshur has laid upon Judah, and to destroy this enemy of His people (Nah 1:12-14).