God’s Word for You

Nahum 3:10-11 Lots were cast

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, May 22, 2026

10 Yet even she became an exile and went into captivity.
Her infants were dashed to pieces at every street corner.
Lots were cast for her honored men,
and all her great men were put in chains.
11 You too will get drunk and hide yourself,
you will seek refuge from the enemy.

The events of the fall of Thebes are not set out in detail by Nahum, but here is one of those places in Scripture, right alongside the existence of the Hittites, where Bible critics once bragged so loudly over an “impossible” story in Scripture only to be disproved and to end up eating crow. Yet we should remember that we do not rely on archaeology to prove anything in Scripture, but only to support or to help explain certain geographical, historical, or cultural things.

The people of Thebes were defeated, and the terrible account shows what the victors—the Assyrians—did to them. Now all of this, Nahum foresees, will turn back on the Assyrians and even on Nineveh itself.

The people of Thebes were exiled by the Assyrians; so it would be for the Assyrians of Nineveh.

The babies of Thebes were brutally killed by the Assyrians; so it would be for their own babies.

The honored men, nobles and royals of Thebes were sold one by one, chained up, and forced by the Assyrians to march away. So it would be for the Assyrians of Nineveh. Lots would be cast, decisions made, money would change hands, and the wealthy men of Nineveh would be taken away to become servants in houses where another language was spoken, or slaves working in fields, mines, or pits, or they might be chained to oars and forced to row galleys here and there on the barges of the Tigris and Euphrates, where they used to sit in the shade and sip wine once upon a time.

Then the prophet foresees something else. A few stragglers manage to slip away. They try to hide, in a cave or in a haystack or under a sand dune somewhere, and while there they will get drunk. Now, this is the most literal way of taking verse 11, just as the text has it. But I agree with the blessed Dr. Luther who points out that getting drunk was also a common idiom for drinking down a punishment. As one of our translators put the text of Jeremiah: “This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Drink and get drunk. Vomit! Fall and rise no more, because of the sword I will send among you’” (Jeremiah 25:27, EHV). And again: “Daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz. A cup will also come to you. You will become drunk and naked” (Lamentations 4:21). And the Psalm says: “A cup is in the hand of the LORD. The wine foams. It is fully mixed. He pours this out. Yes, they drain its dregs. All the wicked of the earth drink” (Psalm 75:8).

Of course, one other reference to drinking the cup of God’s wrath is the most famous one. Our Savior prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). For everyone who rejects Christ will drink their own cup of wrath, mixed by Almighty God and handed to them over and over again in eternity. Again, Luther puts it so well: “It is as if he were saying, ‘There is never any human ingenuity, there is no wisdom against the Lord, there is no power strong enough, when the Lord is angry…. You will look for some place of refuge, but you will not find one. It is all over for you. You have had it’” (Luther’s Works 18:310).

But for everyone who trusts in Jesus, we can be assured that he stood up, reached out and took the cup that was meant for us. He drank it down to its last drop. He said, “Father, I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (John 17:4), and he also said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). This is why Paul says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), because the condemnation was taken on by Christ in our place.

Here it is good to remember that all of Scripture is divided into two doctrines: the law and the gospel. By “gospel” the Scripture means the good news (“gospel” is Old English for “good news”), the promises of the Old Testament that Christ would come and remove sin and grant forgiveness (in this book, for example, we remember Nahum 1:7), and in the New Testament, Christ himself promises the forgiveness of sins, justification and eternal life for his sake, and his Apostles later preach and write the same things. But there are many Christians today who are confused about this. They select the law and through it they try to obtain forgiveness and justification. But the law—and especially the Ten Commandments—requires other works far beyond the reach of any human being who is stricken with original sin (that is to say, any and all of us). The law commands true fear of God, true love of God, true prayer to God, true conviction that God hears prayer, and the expectation of God’s help in death and in all troubles and afflictions. And finally it requires absolute obedience to God in death and all afflictions, so that we will not try to flee from these things or turn away when God imposes them on us.

Just how “true” does “true” mean when we say true fear of God, true love of God, true prayer to God, and so on? Jesus Christ says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This is his precise interpretation and explanation of the Father’s “Be holy, because I, the LORD your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). The Father and Son demand that we have no stray thoughts, no doubts, not one single moment of weakness, and it is there that we are shown just how wretched and miserable we are.

And we also must remember that we cannot merit or deserve forgiveness on account of our own works or holiness, for here we fail, too. In fact, we do worse than fail. For this kind of teaching brings only despair, and not only to those who teach it, but to all those who follow after them and listen to them. This is the doctrine that raised up Luther in 1517 to challenge indulgences (the merits of others, not Christ, somehow applied to the sinner as if Christ was not enough, but some Saint would add enough), and this is what began the Lutheran Reformation in the first place. They imagine (our Lutheran objection states) that the human will can love God, but that “initial grace” is not enough, so that this merit of others adds an increase of grace to merit eternal life—how? By works of the law, and not by the free grace of God at all. “This in spite of the fact that the law is never satisfied, that human reason performs only certain external works and meanwhile neither fears God nor truly believes that he cares. Though they talk about this disposition, yet without the righteousness of faith man can neither have nor understand the love of God” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV:18).

How is it, then, that we are saved? It is entirely by the grace of God. Faith and forgiveness are presented to sinners as a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 6:23). So the cup Christ drank for us was not some of our suffering, but all of it. The Apostle writes the final period on this doctrine when he says that this was “once for all, by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). He gives this gift to you, and he also gives you the gift of faith, by which you know about it, but more than that, you believe it to be true, and you trust it. He has forgiven you! Your sins are forgiven. You are at peace with God.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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