the Fourth Week after Easter
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Nahum 1:9
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from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
do: Nahum 1:11, Psalms 2:1-4, Psalms 21:11, Psalms 33:10, Proverbs 21:30, Isaiah 8:9, Isaiah 8:10, Ezekiel 38:10, Ezekiel 38:11, Acts 4:25-28, 2 Corinthians 10:5
he: 1 Samuel 3:12, 1 Samuel 26:8, 2 Samuel 20:10
Reciprocal: Exodus 15:7 - them that Psalms 9:6 - destructions Isaiah 10:27 - his burden Isaiah 37:29 - rage Jeremiah 51:64 - Thus shall Ezekiel 7:5 - General Ezekiel 20:17 - neither Ezekiel 21:5 - it shall Hosea 7:15 - imagine Amos 7:8 - I will not Habakkuk 2:5 - he transgresseth Habakkuk 2:7 - they
Gill's Notes on the Bible
What do ye imagine against the Lord?.... O ye Ninevites or Assyrians; do you think you can frustrate the designs of the Lord, resist his power, and hinder him from executing what he has threatened and has determined to do? or what mischief is it you devise against his people, which is the same as against himself? can you believe that you shall prosper and succeed, and your schemes be carried into execution, when he, the all wise and all powerful Being, opposes you?
he will make an utter end; of you, as before declared, and will save his people; which may be depended on will certainly be the case:
affliction shall not rise up the second time; either this should be the last effort the Assyrians would make upon the Jews, which they made under Sennacherib, and this the last time they would afflict them; or rather their own destruction should be so complete that there would be no need to repeat the stroke, or give another blow; the business would be done at once. This seems to contradict a notion of some historians and chronologers, who suppose that Nineveh was destroyed at two different times, and by different persons of the same nations; and so the whole Assyrian empire was twice ruined, which is not likely in itself, and seems contrary to this passage; for though some ascribe it to Arbaces the Mede, and Belesis the Babylonian as Diodorus Siculus e; and others to Cyaxares the Mede as Herodotus f, and to Nebuchadnezzar the first, or Nabopolassar the Babylonian in a later period; so Tobit g says it was taken by Nebuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus, the same with the Cyaxares of Herodotus; yet all seem to agree that it was taken by the conjunct forces of the Medes and Babylonians; and there are some things similar h in all these accounts, which show that there was but one destruction of Nineveh, and of the Assyrian empire.
e Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 110, 111. f L. 1. sive Clio, c. 106. g Tobit 14:15. h See the Universal History, vol. 4. c. 8. sect. 5. & vol. 5. p. 22. Margin, & Nicolai Abrami Pharus Vet. Test. l. 6. c. 19. p. 165.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
The prophet had in few words summed up the close of Nineveh; he now upbraids them with the sin, which should bring it upon them, and foretells the destruction of Sennacherib. Nineveh had, before this, been the instrument of chastising Israel and Judah. Now, the capture of Samaria, which had cast off God, deceived and emboldened it. Its king thought that this was the might of his own arm; and likened the Lord of heaven and earth to the idols of the pagan, and said, “Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?” 2 Kings 18:35. He sent “to reproach the living God” 2 Kings 19:16 and “defied the Holy One of Israel” (see 2 Kings 19:15-34). His blasphemy was his destruction. It was a war, not simply of ambition, or covetousness, but directly against the power and worship of God.
“What will ye so mightily devise” , “imagine against the Lord?” He Himself, by Himself, is already “making an utter end.” It is in store; the Angel is ready to smite. Idle are man’s devices, when the Lord doeth. “Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us” Isaiah 8:10. While the rich man was speaking comfort to his soul as to future years, God was making an utter end. “Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee.”
Affliction shall not rise up the second time - Others have understood this, “affliction shall not rise up the second time,” but shall destroy at once, utterly and finally (compare 1 Samuel 26:8; 2 Samuel 20:10): but:
(1) the idiom there, “he did not repeat to him,” as we say, “he did not repeat the blow” is quite different;
(2) it is said “affliction shall not rise up,” itself, as if it could not. The causative of the idiom occurs in 2 Samuel 12:11, “lo, I will cause evil to rise up against thee;” as he says afterward, “Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more” Nahum 1:12. “God,” He had said, “is good for a refuge in the day of affliction;” now, personifying that affliction, he says, that it should be so utterly broken, that it should rise up no more to vex them, as when a serpent’s head is, not wounded only but, crushed and trampled underfoot, so that it cannot again lift itself up. The promises of God are conditioned by our not falling back into sin. He saith to Nineveh, “God will not deliver Judah to thee, as He delivered the ten tribes and Samaria.” Judah repented under Hezekiah, and He not only delivered it from Sennacherib, but never afflicted them again through Assyria. Renewal of sin brings renewal or deepening of punishment. The new and more grievous sins under Manasseh were punished, not through Assyria but through the Chaldeans.
The words have passed into a maxim, “God will not punish the same thing twice,” not in this world and the world to come, i. e., not if repented of. For of the impenitent it is said, “destroy them with a double destruction” Jeremiah 17:18. Chastisement here is a token of God’s mercy; the absence of it, or prosperous sin, of perdition; but if any refuse to be corrected, the chastisement of this life is but the beginning of unending torments.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse 9. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. — There shall be no need to repeat the judgment; with one blow God will make a full end of the business.