God’s Word for You

Nahum 1:2 Vengeful

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, May 2, 2026

2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God;
the LORD is vengeful and furious;
the LORD is vengeful on his foes
and maintains wrath against his enemies.

God’s attributes do not change, and for this we are grateful, because his love and forgiveness are among those attributes. How horrible it would be for us if God could one day say that he is sick and tired of us, of me, and that he would from now on withhold his grace and mercy from me forever? But he does not ever do this. As long as we are his children he loves us, and his love is eternal.

But here we see that his righteousness and wrath are absolute and changeless as well. How clearly the prophet proclaims: God is jealous, avenging, vengeful, furious, and he is the one who maintains all these things forever when his wrath is kindled.

“Jealous” is a word we should look at carefully. The Lord God is not jealous in the dictionary sense of the word, as if he could have insecurity, fear, or anger provoked by a perceived threat to a valued relationship, like a jealous lover. Whenever “jealous” is used of God, it especially means an attribute of God, within God, that demands exclusive devotion. God will not share his throne with a Baal or Molech or anyone else. Moses writes: “Do not worship any other God, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14). And again, “The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deuteronomy 4:24). Nahum’s presentation of the Lord in this way has three aspects:

1, God is jealous and will not share his divine throne with any other. The Assyrians, including the people of Nineveh, bowed down to many gods and idols, and they served them. Jeremiah declares: “Bel has been put to shame. Marduk is terrified. Babylon’s images have been put to shame. Her filthy idols are terrified” (Jeremiah 50:2).

2, The Lord will vent his full wrath and fury against all who oppose him. Nineveh had resisted the Lord for a long time. Paul asks, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31), but there are many sinners who turn away from God because they have been deceived. And Zephaniah the prophet said, “He will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria. He will make Nineveh desolate, dry like the wilderness” (Zephaniah 2:13).

3, God will vindicate his people, long troubled “by tyranny entrenched on the Tigris.” This vindication is often expressed with words about impending judgment, and therefore these words in Nahum 1:2 are no surprise. “I will carry out great acts of revenge and furious punishments among them, and they will know that I am the LORD when I lay my revenge upon them” (Ezekiel 25:17).

This verse provides the theme for the whole book. The Lord will carry out his wrath, his vengeance, his fury, on his enemies. In this case, all of this wrath is going to be poured out on Nineveh, who had once sprung up like the seed that fell among the rocky places in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. Nineveh “did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow” (Mark 4:5). The people of Nineveh “heard the word and at once received it with joy” (Mark 4:16, Jonah 3:9). “But since they had no root, they lasted only a short time. They quickly fell away” (Mark 4:17). “They believed for a while, but in the time of testing they fell away” (Luke 8:13). And now, having fallen away, they fell completely away, becoming enemies of God and of his people.

And what is left? The Apostle cries out: “If anyone deliberately keeps on sinning after they have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sin is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God” (Hebrews 10:26-27). Therefore this is what is in store for this self-proclaimed enemy of God who once threw herself at God’s mercy:

1, Her royalty will be carried away (Nahum 2:8), she who had taken kings captive (2 Chronicles 33:11).

2, Nineveh would find herself under siege (3:14), she who had besieged a hundred cities (Micah 5:1).

3, Nineveh would be spoiled; who had spoiled so many others (2:10).

4, Piles of Nineveh’s dead would be piled high (3:3), she who had massacred so many foes.

5, Fire would devour Nineveh’s temples and sanctuaries (3:15), she that burned the temples of so many nations, so many uncounted cities (Hosea 10:5-6).

6, Nineveh would be inundated with water to become “like a pool” (2:7), she who had ruined cities by flooding them with water.

7, Nineveh would be “pillaged, plundered, and stripped” (2:10), who had so often joined in doing just these things to so many (Psalm 83:8).

8, Nineveh’s people would be scattered in exile (3:18)—Nineveh, who had exiled so many in the past (1 Chronicles 5:6).

9, Nineveh’s leaders would run away “like swarms of locusts that settle in the walls on a cold day” (3:17), she who made so many flee for their lives from so very many cities and towns (Jeremiah 51:6).

10, Nineveh was going to come to an end (1:8)—Nineveh, who had boasted of destroying so many of her opponents’ cities and peoples (Nehemiah 9:32).

God’s wrath against his enemies is as fierce and as unyielding as his grace upon those he shows his mercy to. His wrath is eternal (Isaiah 66:24), but his mercy endures forever as well (Psalm 118:1-4). All of us who have put our faith in Christ have already received this mercy and love of the Lord, and it will be ours into all eternity. Praise his holy name, forever!

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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