There is no easing your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?
Nahum closes his book with the last word over a fallen empire: Nineveh's wound is past healing, and the nations applaud. The verse ends with a question, and that question explains why no one mourns.
A ruin without parallel
The verse says the wound is fatal, not merely serious. One writer measures that collapse against everything else recorded in history:
William KellyIt is a completeness of ruin, unmatched in history for the greatness of what was destroyed.
Why the nations clapped
The verse asks who escaped Assyria's unceasing evil. One writer fills in what that evil looked like:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinDuring the reign of Assyria's king Asshurbanipal, every year saw a cruel war, with ruin and slaughter spread in every direction. The captives were treated horribly, with all kinds of torture. The nations suffered terribly under this wicked king. So when Assyria fell at last, the nations rejoiced, as Nahum mentions at the end of his prophecy.
Mercy received, then thrown away
Nineveh once repented under Jonah's preaching, and God spared the city. That earlier mercy is why its end is so severe:
W. W. FeredayNineveh was granted forty days' reprieve, with blessed results, but the people soon returned to their wicked ways. This is why Nahum 3:1 says: "Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder." That was about 100 years after Jonah's visit. Even then judgment waited another century… Nineveh was favoured with a special message from God and submitted to it; but the generations that followed gained nothing from the fact, and went back to the old vomit. Favour given by God but despised brings heavy judgment from Him.
The sentence was carried out
The words about an unhealed wound were not left hanging. What happened to the city matched what was written:
Morrish Bible DictionaryDiodorus states that there was an ancient prophecy: Nineveh would not fall until the river became an enemy to the city. That happened in the third year of the siege, when the river partly flooded the city… It had been "a city of blood," and full of lies and robbery. It would be made vile. Its destruction would be final: there would be no healing of its wound.
A city ends, a nation does not
The unhealed wound belongs to Nineveh in particular. Commentators note that the book aims at the capital rather than at the whole empire:
W. W. FeredayIt is the city rather than the Kingdom that is denounced in Nahum; whereas in Isaiah the Kingdom is condemned, with no special mention of its capital. This distinction is important. In the wonderful ways of God, Assyria is to be restored and blessed in the Kingdom age (Isa. 19:23-25), but its proud capital will never rise again.
So the last verse of Nahum is not God's last word about that part of the world:
William KellyAs for Babylon or Chaldea, we never hear of either when the kingdom comes. The Lord, while judging, will remember mercy. Scripture names Egypt and Assyria in particular as having a leading place along with Israel in that day.
A pattern still to be repeated
Writers also read the book forward, to an enemy still to come:
Leslie M. GrantNahum ("Comfort") is a vigorous prophecy of the judgment of Nineveh. As the capital of Assyria, Nineveh stands for that empire — the King of the North in a coming day… The cruelty of Assyria doubtless prompted this prophecy, when Sennacherib ("He that dashes in pieces," ch. 2:1) invaded Israel. It was partly fulfilled when Nineveh was destroyed. 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.
Summary
- Wound. The hurt has no easing. Nineveh's destruction would be final, with no healing of its wound.
- Why. The clapping answers the closing question. Year after year of cruel war, torture and slaughter had reached every nation around.
- Warning. Nineveh once repented under Jonah and won a reprieve. Favour from God that is later despised brings heavy judgment.
- Witness. The words came true. The river turned against the city, just as an old prophecy said.
- Wider. The city never rises again, yet Assyria has a place in the coming kingdom. The prophecy also looks on to a later enemy, judged with the same firmness.