God’s Word for You

Nahum 2:3-4 Spears of pine

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, May 13, 2026

3 The shields of his mighty men are dyed red;
the warriors are clad in scarlet.
The metal on the chariots flashes
just like the day they were made;
the spears of pine are brandished.

There is a question we need to answer right away as to who is meant when Nahum says “his mighty men.” Some take this to be the One who scatters from verse 1, and others take it to be the LORD from verse 2. Under the usual rules of grammar, it should be the last named person in context, but since I have taken “the One who scatters” to also be the Lord, there isn’t any difference. The men coming to make war against Nineveh are from the Lord, who is also the One set on scattering the Assyrians and completely defeating them.

There are various reasons why shields might be dyed red (or “rubbed with red,” perhaps the diminutive use of the pual (passive) participle as a kind of denominative). Soldiers (like the Spartans, according to Plutarch) did this with both their shields and their cloaks to conceal the blood of their wounds and therefore boost the morale of the troops. So warriors “clad in scarlet” here has nothing to do with the sense of the scarlet clothing in Proverbs 31:21, where a good mother clothes her children in scarlet in the winter time so that they are highly visible and she will be able to find them easily even through winter’s gloomier weather, and especially if there is any snow or frost on the ground. At the same time, seeing shields approaching that were already gleaming red as if with blood would tend to demoralize and frighten the enemy. Therefore, the spiritual reason for this description is a severe proclamation of law to terrify those who are condemned, and bring them in fear to perhaps reach out to the true God in repentance, and open the door to the gospel and, with it, to faith and salvation. Even if someone once had faith but fell away (which was more than possible among the Assyrians of Nineveh in the years following Jonah’s preaching), it is possible to be brought back to faith once again in the very same way that the conversion was made in the first place. For it is not enough simply to know and believe that God exists to be saved. That kind of general faith might and usually does either fail to acknowledge Christ or even rejects Christ altogether. This cannot be saving faith. But when real terror over sin overtakes a man, the door to the gospel is kicked open by the Holy Spirit, and anyone who sows the seed of the gospel has done a good thing. For when Christ has been preached, and the faith of the sinner is grasped by God in this way (for this is the channel or the means of grace by which the gospel is given to the sinner), then salvation is given along with the gospel, and forgiveness is also received through that same faith, for true faith is “faith in Christ’s blood (that is, in Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross)” (Romans 3:25), and “through him we have obtained access by faith to God’s grace” (Romans 5:2). And this is why all Lutherans confess together, “A terrified conscience cannot pit our works or our love against the wrath of God, but it finds peace only when it takes hold of Christ. Those who dream that the heart can find peace without faith in Christ do not understand what the forgiveness of sins is, nor how it comes to us. Peter (1 Peter 2:6) quotes the words of Isaiah (28:16), ‘He who believes in him will not be put to shame.’”

In the case of these Ninevite Assyrians, watching the flashing metal of the approaching chariots and the shaking of the brandished spears, there is no gospel message being preached. There is only destruction on its way. “Brandished” is not merely a spear (literally “a pine shaft”) being held, but the passive hofal verb tells us that those spears were being “shaken” by each warrior as he approached. The message is clear: “See this? This is your death approaching!” Can you hear? I can hear their boots marching in the distance!

4 The chariots dash madly through the streets,
rushing back and forth through the city squares.
They look like flashing torches;
like lightning as they charge about.

In the fourth verse the scene changes. Has a breach in the wall been made? Have the chariots arrived inside the walls? Perhaps, but this verse could be depicting the army advancing through the various towns and villages that comprised what we could call Nineveh’s suburbs. Nineveh was a city that required “a three-day walk” (Jonah 3:3). The streets and city squares described by Nahum could have been those of the “corner towns” of Nimrud (Kalhu), Karamless, or Khorsabad (or were these the places meant by “Rehoboth-Ir and Caleh” in Genesis 10:11?). In any case, the enemy was advancing closer and closer.

Two reciprocal verbs in the imperfect tense show the wild confusion of careening vehicles where there used to be quiet, peaceful citizens on foot. The hithpolel Yothholalu means that the chariots “rush madly,” for this verb in most stems means “to praise,” but in the hithpolel means to behave in an unrestrained and crazy fashion, like David “making marks on the doors of the gate of Gath and letting saliva run down his beard” (1 Samuel 21:13). The second verb is the hithpalpel imperfect yishtaqshaqun “rushing here and there.” This calls to mind the ferocious “charging bear” of Proverbs 28:15. To be sure, a study of this second chapter of Nahum is an adventure in some of the more obscure and oblique conjugations available to the Hebrew writers. This is not the way that Moses or Joshua wrote. What appears in the poetry of David and Solomon appears here in Nahum in the language of the battle and the fight. Those critics who want to talk about “sources” for the text of Moses should make a closer study of the kinds of verbs that appear. Forgers do not leave such fingerprints as the hithpalpel and the hithpolel (those unusual forms are made by duplicating certain sounds within the word itself, the way we do when we say super-duper, fancy-schmancy, or putt-putt).

The glinting metal on the chariots calls the prophet’s mind to torches when they are being carried by sprinting runners, but of course chariots are so much faster than any running man. The chaos of battle, the sudden sights and sounds of battle, the smoke and dust and uncertainty of battle, are all proclaimed by a man who must be familiar with such sights and sound and of course smells.

Once again, the law is preached in this verse to all who oppose God or reject Christ. Their judgment is coming, and it will not go well for them on the Last Day. But God is good to all who trust in him. For us, when he carries out his justice on the wicked, it is a sign of his holiness, and we know that he is the LORD, the God who keeps all his promises. And he promises to bring us home to heaven. We put our trust in Jesus, and we have nothing to fear.

In the late fourth century, a Roman poet and senator, Paulinus of Nola, abandoned his career and embraced his wife’s Christian faith, being baptized and later becoming a minister and finally a bishop in Campania (southwestern Italy). He wrote about the believer’s view of Judgment Day, whether Old Testament or New Testament believers they might be.

“Each and every saint will shine with his own light
As equals yet distinct in brightness. With Christ as judge
They will not increase to the detriment of one another’s merit.
Christ will be for all the kingdom, light, life, and crown.
See their deeds, different yet joined in honor,
Teachers of the Old and New Testament.
Among whom the one and only Wisdom gave the twofold laws,
And so an equal glory rewards their varying virtues.”

Paulinus of Nola, Natal. Felicis 8.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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