Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame.
Nahum has just pictured Nineveh as a prostitute who lured whole nations. Now the LORD of hosts answers her Himself. The threat is not military defeat but public disgrace. God strips the city bare, and the nations she ruined watch.
The Lord Himself Steps Forward
The sentence does not come from jealous rivals. One writer shows whose decision it is.
William KellyNext comes the stern condemnation of Jehovah. He had once spared her. Now He would have Nineveh know that this was no mere jealousy on the part of others. It was His own resolve to disgrace the one who had so enjoyed herself and misled others.
The same writer comments on another nation that heard "I am against you". He draws a line from it to the reader today.
William KellySoon they were to prove what it is to have Jehovah against them — His hand stretched out to leave them desolate and waste... Yet I may add a warning for any careless soul who glances over these pages. It was awful to learn in this way that He who had so spoken and acted is Jehovah, shown in the chastening of Israel and the judgment of the nations. But His dealing must be beyond comparison more solemn with every soul in Christendom who trifles with the name and word of the Lord now.
Why She Is Called a Prostitute
Her prostitution had two sides: the lure, and the dark power behind it.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinShe made herself attractive, as a prostitute does, to trap and mislead weaker nations. Like all these ancient cities she was full of witchcraft, that is, sorceries. The power of darkness showed itself in the rule of evil spirits, which Nineveh welcomed... Egypt, Babylon, Nineveh and other centres of paganism were full of occultism, and practising it hurried on their doom. In the same way, the influence of these same evil powers will bring the doom of our age to its head.
The Punishment Matches the Crime
Nineveh's sentence was the ordinary public sentence on a prostitute.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinShe had acted the prostitute, and now she receives a prostitute's punishment: public exposure. Nations and kingdoms would stare at her, as the righteous God stripped her of everything and exposed her shame. There would be no one to grieve over the vile mistress of witchcrafts.
Note who watches: "the nations" and "the kingdoms" she had seduced. God shows them all that she had hidden under her beauty.
A Patience That Had Already Run Long
God had spared Nineveh once before. Two books of the Bible deal with this one city, and they teach two different lessons.
An Outline of Sound WordsThe Lord commanded Jonah, "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me" (Jonah 1:2). He clearly gave this command nearly 150 years before Nahum's prophecy. Both books are entirely taken up with God's dealings with Nineveh. The book of Jonah teaches that God is patient and merciful. Where there is repentance, God will hold back His judgment. But the book of Nahum teaches something else. The God who sees the end from the beginning will carry out the judgment He announced, once He decides the time of His patience is over.
What Nineveh Stands For
Nineveh is more than a city on a map. One writer names what she stands for.
J. N. DarbyNineveh is the proud glory of the world, which recognises nothing but its own importance. She is the world as the open enemy of God's people, simply by her pride. God will judge her like all the rest, and she will disappear for ever under the judgment of the Almighty.
So a city admired for its splendour ends with no one to grieve over it.
Summary
- Spared. God sent the prophet Jonah to Nineveh first and held back judgment for about 150 years. Mercy came before the sentence.
- Sold. Her sin was seduction. She made herself attractive to trap weaker nations, and welcomed the occult powers that hurried her ruin.
- Stripped. God does not just defeat her. He gives a prostitute a prostitute's penalty: public exposure of all that her beauty hid.
- Shown. God makes the nations and kingdoms she deceived watch. He shows sin that once seemed glamorous for what it always was.
- Silence. Pride that "recognises nothing but its own importance" ends with no one left to grieve over her. The same warning stands over anyone today who trifles with the word of the Lord.