NOTES for Nah 2:1-13

Nineveh was accustomed to relying on its own strength; one might say that the veneration of military power had become a cult in Assyria. Strength can indeed accomplish much, but it cannot be relied upon forever. The only inexhaustible strength is the strength of the Lord, and now it is turned against Assyria. That in which hope had been placed could not but fail, like everything in which people try to place their hope apart from the Creator.

Nineveh's fate brings to mind the proverb, “You reap what you sow.” Assyria brought much evil upon its neighbors; it conquered and devastated many lands. And now the hour has come when invaders in turn descend upon it. We see vivid scenes of the defeat and devastation of a city that was powerful and wealthy only recently and is now doomed to perish. Yet many peoples had already suffered at the hands of Assyria's hordes what Assyria itself is now experiencing; it has all returned to the place from which it came. Everything must be paid for, and now Assyria's turn to pay has come.

The Assyrians of those days would hardly have been able to acknowledge that what happened to them was just. But He who is able to turn every difficult situation to good did not allow the Assyrian people to perish. They are as dear to Him as His other disobedient children.