NOTES for Nah 1:7
What does the prophet mean when he says that God is a good refuge in the day of distress? The simplest thing, of course, would be to interpret his words in the sense that religious feeling, hope in God, helps in hard days those who have such hope. This is hard to dispute; but is Nahum speaking of such hope? Then, in essence, it would be more correct to speak not of God as a reliable refuge, but of religious feeling as a reliable support, which in the day of distress can indeed be useful and has been useful to many.
The prophet, meanwhile, speaks of God's goodness, which becomes a refuge in the day of sorrow; the corresponding Hebrew text can also be interpreted this way. But God's goodness belongs not only to God. He also placed it in the world He created, which at first, before the fall, was, according to the Bible, "very good," or "fully good"; the corresponding Hebrew text uses the same word that Nahum uses in his preaching.
Part of this goodness, inseparable from the fullness of God's world, a fullness destroyed by the fall, are people who seek salvation in God. The corresponding Hebrew word, rendered in the Synodal translation as "those who hope," means properly "those who seek refuge" or "those who seek salvation." Indeed, everyone who seeks salvation or refuge in God is evidently ready to trust Him with all his heart, to rely on Him completely. And such readiness establishes deep and strong relations between God and the human being, relations characteristic not so much of the fallen world as of the Kingdom.
Of course, before Christ came into the world it was still too early to speak of the nearness of the Kingdom. But the world was originally conceived by God as His Kingdom. It ceased to be so because of the fall, which was a fact not so much natural or historical as spiritual; all natural and historical phenomena connected with the fall are only consequences. But the one whose relationship with God was restored as far as possible for the fallen world shared in that fullness of God's world which for God always remained reality. And such fullness could truly become a real refuge. Even in the hardest days.