When will the peace of Nahum 1:15 come?

The result is stated in the last verse of this chapter. "Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows; for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off." The prophet beholds how the messengers rush over the mountains with the good news. Judah and Jerusalem are delivered. Peace has come. Praise and thanksgiving are heard in Zion.

We must not overlook the similar passage in Isaiah 52:7. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! ... Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the LORD hath comforted His people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem. The LORD hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God." This was spoken in connection with Babylon's overthrow, but its wider application and meaning is future. The overthrow of Babylon and Nineveh did not result in the glorious things spoken of by Isaiah and Nahum. Not then did the ends of the earth see the salvation of God, nor was Jerusalem redeemed, nor God as King enthroned in Zion. It is all yet to come. When that day comes, the messengers will go forth from Jerusalem and declare the good tidings to the nations of the world. The good news of the kingdom will be heralded far and wide, in the beginning of the millennium, and then the abiding, abundant peace will come, so that all the nations see the salvation of the God of Israel. The wicked, opposing powers of the world will then be no more.

Then in the last verse, or, as some prefer, forming the beginning of the second chapter, the chapter is wound up by the beautiful words, "Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace!" for the judgment of the Assyrian will be the established peace of Israel, and the proclamation of it everywhere when Jehovah shall have completed His full work in Jerusalem. That is, when the moral work is complete there, He will do His last deed of judgment in principle on the Assyrian, and then will come the reign of peace, of which there is the announcement here.

Then what encouragement there is to look beyond the gloom and tribulations to the time when woes and wars shall cease, for we read. "Behold upon the mountains the feet of Him that brings good tidings, that publisheth peace" (1:15). We know that the only one who can bring peace to the earth is the Lord Himself. Not the destruction of dictatorships by the vengeful sword of the democracies, but the personal appearance of the Son of Man will bring peace to distressed nations. It is the nail-pierced feet that will appear upon the mountains of Judea and judge the nations for the glory of God and for the peace of Israel.

In Nahum 1:11 we find the one so often mentioned by the prophets — the Assyrian, who imagines evil against Jehovah. verse 12, although obscure, applies, I think, to Israel. Israel, too, alas! boasting of their security and strength according to the spirit of the world, will undergo the invasion, the overflowing of the great waters, the scourge of God. But when this passes through the land (that is, of Israel), they shall be cut down (compare Isaiah 28:18-19; 14:25). But this scourge completes the judgment of God; and the deliverance of Israel, the prophet says, should now be complete and final (compare Isaiah 10:5, 24, 25). The yoke of the Assyrian should be broken for ever, and the proud and hostile power of the world destroyed, as the anti-christian corruption and rebellion had already been judged. The good tidings of full deliverance should be spread abroad, and Judah should keep her solemn feasts in peace.

I doubt not that the invasion of Sennacherib was the occasion of this prophecy; but most evidently it goes much beyond that event, and the judgment is final. This is another instance of that which we have so frequently observed in the prophets — a partial judgment, serving as a warning or an encouragement to the people of God, while it was only a forerunner of a future judgment, in which all the dealings of God would be summed up and manifested.

But does judgment close the story? That never has been, nor could it be. It only makes way for the purpose of God. The judgment of this "present evil world" will introduce the millennium or "the world to come." And Israel will be received as the seal and pledge of that bright and happy age — as our prophet says, "though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more; and now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds asunder. O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee, he is utterly cut off" (see Nahum 1:12-15). Or, in the words of one of ourselves, the saints of God in this day, "the vengeance of God is the deliverance of the world from the oppression and misery of the yoke of the enemy and of lust, that it may flourish under the peaceful eye of its Deliverer."

This is all recalled for the purpose of clearing as much as possible the final character of the judgment to be executed on the Assyrian. It is when the Lord shall have performed His whole work. Consequently we gather here an important item of divine truth, namely, that the Assyrian (speaking now in a general manner) is the last. It is the closing operation before the millennium in the full sense of the reign of peace, which accordingly is given just after in Isaiah 11. But in the description there given we have the introduction by the way of the Antichrist. He is destroyed, as it is said, by the breath of Jehovah's lips, but the time is not defined like the Assyrian. When we advance a little after we have more. In Isa. 14 for instance it is said, "Jehovah will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land." It is now evidently, therefore, a question of settling the people in the land of Palestine, — not merely a part of them, but the whole. Then follow the standing types of the final enemies of the people. "It shall come to pass in the day that Jehovah shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou hast been made to serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! Jehovah has broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that rules the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hinders."

28 In NAHUM, God's indignation is aroused against the pride of human power and dominion, and Nineveh (the Assyrian) is destroyed: the race will never be reinstated, and Judah is finally delivered.

Nahum was a Galilean like Jonah; and if the latter was sent long before to warn the haughty Gentile, and on repentance to defer the judgment in divine mercy, the former was given, on its raising its head still more proudly, to pronounce Jehovah's indignant vengeance, however slow to anger; for He is as great as He is good. In vain went forth out of Nineveh one that imagined evil against Jehovah, a counsellor of Belial. He will make a full end — trouble shall not rise a second time; as Sennacherib proved, his yoke broken, His people's bonds burst, out of the house of the Assyrian's gods graven and molten images cut off, and his grave prepared. The scourge finally past is followed by the enduring peace of His people (Nahum 1).

Nahum celebrates this deliverance in Nahum 1:15, and here our thoughts are directed to Christ. The "good tidings" borne across the mountains are the good tidings of Him, for He, born of a woman in Beth-lehem Ephratah, shall be great, and "shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land" (Micah 5:5).

Nahum, in Nahum 1:15, writes, "Behold upon the mountains the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!", words that speak of the character of the mission of the Lord Jesus while upon earth, and that also tell of Him who "came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh" (Eph. 2:17). He will also announce peace to Israel when He comes again.