Nahum 3 Devotional

Cruelty Kept on Account

“There is no healing for your injury; your wound is severe. All who hear the news of you applaud your downfall, for who has not experienced your constant cruelty?”Nahum 3:19 (BSB)

Nahum 3 does not look away. It calls Nineveh a city of blood, full of lies and plunder, and describes its end in hard images: galloping horses, flashing swords, and bodies past counting (3:1-3). The LORD declares that he will expose the city's shame before the nations, and no one will be found to grieve for it (3:5-7). Nineveh is reminded that Thebes, with water for walls and strong allies, still fell (3:8-10). Its fortresses will drop like ripe figs (3:12).

The book ends with a wound that will not heal and with everyone who hears the news applauding, because no one escaped Nineveh's endless cruelty (3:19). This is hard reading, but it shows that God keeps account of what the powerful do to the weak. Their cruelty is not forgotten by him. Because judgment belongs to God, those who have been wronged do not have to carry out vengeance themselves (Romans 12:19). They can leave it with a judge who sees everything.

To think about: Is there a wrong done to you that you have been trying to settle yourself, and what would it mean to leave it with God?