The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt, and the earth is upheaved at his presence, and the world, and all that dwell therein.
Nahum opens with a portrait of God Himself, not with Nineveh's crimes. Here the ground itself shakes — so are these real mountains or a figure, and is such a God a terror or a comfort?
The whole passage sets out the qualities of God as the One who governs the earth. The name Jehovah carries that sense, and the mountains are a figure:
So here, in what concerns His government of man on earth, Jehovah shows Himself in certain qualities. This deserves attention. Jehovah is that special revelation of God meant for His people, as the One who governed them… "The mountains quake at Him" — of course a figure. The word "mountains" points to the great seats of power on earth.
(Kelly quotes an older translation: "quake at Him" and "the earth is burned at His presence." The ESV has "quake before him" and "the earth heaves before him.")
The verse just before says the clouds are the dust of His feet. That contrast shows what the shaking means for human pride:
What is more imposing to the mind of man than towering storm clouds? What is more terrifying than the rushing whirlwind that flattens the forest? Man, the creature of dust, walks on the dust of the earth, and to that dust he returns in the hour of death. But Jehovah has the clouds as the dust of His feet. If He rises in His righteous wrath, all will be swept before Him. The mountains stand for the kingdoms of the earth, and they will quake before Him. And He will bring the pride of man down into the dust.
The same chapter calls Him slow to anger, yet the world melts at His approach. That is no contradiction. The delay is what makes the day ahead so serious:
It is a solemn thought that, however great His patience, a day is coming which will prove that He does not put up with evil. Yet it is also a comforting thought. God's vengeance is the world's deliverance from the oppression and misery of the yoke of the enemy and of lust. Then it may flourish under the peaceful eye of its Deliverer. No doubt He has long allowed evil to go on. He is not impatient, as our poor hearts are. He is slow to wrath — a wrath all the more terrible because it is the justice of One who is never impatient.
This part of Nahum is an alphabet poem. Each line starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But the pattern does not hold, and one writer sees the break as part of the message:
The prophet sets out to describe the glorious greatness of God. But the surpassing splendour of His majesty and might, and of His changeless character, seems so far beyond his grasp that he fails to put it into ordered words. So he breaks down in the alphabetical structure. It is as much as to say: His infinite and unchanging perfections tower up like immeasurable mountains to the skies, beyond my feeble sight, so words fail to describe them.
Two verses later Nahum calls the Lord a stronghold in the day of trouble. So the shaking is not blind:
But this is not all. When He gives His indignation free course, it is not vague, sweeping away everyone alike. He is good. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble. The evil and the judgment overflow. The evil is itself a judgment, and nothing the judgment reaches can stand before it. Even then He Himself is the sure refuge of all who trust in Him, and He Himself knows all who do.
Nineveh did fall. But the writers do not treat that ancient event as all Nahum saw. They read the blows in order, starting with the Assyrian Sennacherib and ending with one still ahead:
The first blow was, I suppose, Sennacherib. The second would not be the threat of the Assyrian rebuked, but the destruction of Nineveh. And the destruction of Nineveh is a picture of the final judgment of the great Assyrian in the last days, the king of the north.
- Pride — the mountains stand for the great seats of power on earth. What melts here is human greatness, not just rock.
- Patience — His slowness to anger is not softness. It is the restraint of One who is never impatient, and that makes the coming day more solemn.
- Power — the prophet's alphabet poem breaks apart. Language gives way where the world does.
- Protection — the same flood that nothing can stand before has a refuge inside it: He knows those who trust Him.
- Prospect — Nineveh's ruin was a preview. The shaking runs on to a final judgment, and beyond it to the world's deliverance.
Who shall stand before his indignation? and who shall abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by him.
Nahum asks two questions about God's anger, and no one in Nineveh can answer them. The mountains have just been shaking at God's presence. Now the prophet asks who is left standing when that anger breaks out.
The question gets its force from God's patience. His long delay is not approval of evil. It makes the wrath, when it comes, more terrible, not less.
It is a solemn thought that, however great His patience, a day is coming which will prove that He does not bear with evil. Yet it is a comforting thought. God's vengeance is the deliverance of the world from the oppression and misery of the yoke of the enemy and of lust. Then the world can flourish under the peaceful eye of its Deliverer. No doubt He has long allowed evil to go on. He is not impatient, as our poor hearts are. He is slow to wrath — a wrath so much the more terrible because it is the justice of One who is never impatient.
The question is not left open. Creation itself gives the verdict.
Slow to anger, and great in power, with the clouds as dust beneath His feet, none can stop the great God. The sea and the rivers dry up at His rebuke! The mountains quake at Him, and the hills melt away! Like fire, His fury is poured out! The rocks are rolled down before Him! Who can stand when His indignation awakens? None, surely.
The word "stand" belongs to God's throne. Other Scriptures ask the same question. The point is not that a person's standing is weak. He has none at all.
"The wicked will not stand in the judgment" (Psalm 1:5). "If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" (130:3). It is plain that these passages connect the thought of standing with the throne of God... Before that throne, then, the sinner in his sins cannot stand. It is not taught here that his standing has been a bad one, or that he must change it. On the contrary, the point is stated plainly: as a sinner, as a foolish person, he has no standing before a God of judgment. He has no standing before His throne.
Nineveh was a real capital, and it really fell. Commentators also read the city as a picture of something larger. God's judgment there is as unbending as the enemy's greed.
Nahum ("Comfort") is a vigorous prophecy of the judgment of Nineveh, which, being the capital of Assyria, stands for that empire... Egypt pictures for us the world in its comfortable independence of God. Assyria shows the world's vicious opposition to Him... the destruction of Nineveh fulfilled part of it, but it looks on to God's judgment of the King of the North in the latter days. Notice that the determined greed of this enemy is fully matched by the unbending firmness of the judgment of God.
The same God who pours out fury is also a shelter. His anger is not blind, and it does not sweep away everyone alike.
But this is not all: His indignation is not vague and destructive without distinction when He gives it free course. He is good; He is a stronghold in the day of trouble. The evil is itself a judgment. Nothing the judgment reaches can stand. When the evil and the judgment overflow, He is Himself the sure refuge of all who trust in Him. He Himself knows all who do so.
Ask the same question about the great day of God's wrath, and the answer rules out every human credential.
When the great day of His wrath has come, who will be able to stand? Who? The great, the mighty, the noble of the earth? Who? The well-disposed, the upright, the moral? Only those who are redeemed "with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or spot."
- Patience — God's slowness to anger is not tolerance of evil; it makes the wrath, when it comes, the justice of One who was never rushed.
- Power — Sea, mountains, hills and rocks all give way before Him; the honest answer to "who can stand?" is: no one.
- Position — The sinner's standing before God's throne is not merely poor. He has no standing at all.
- Purpose — Nineveh really fell. Commentators also read the city as a picture of the world's open hostility to God. God's judgment matches that hostility in firmness.
- Protection — God is a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who trust Him. In the day of wrath, only those redeemed by the blood of Christ stand.