Once Again, the Party’s Over
Nahum’s picture of the fall of Nineveh spares us nothing. It is obviously unsuitable for children. Even after the 9 o’clock watershed it calls for the preface, ‘You may find some of these picures disturbing’. Immorality and witchcraft (v 4) follow bloodthirstiness (vv 1-3) among a shameless and deceitful people (v 6) who believe they have nothing to hide because they do not realise how bare and naked they actually are (v 5).
The Assyrian reign of terror had lasted for hundreds of years and plagued Samaria and the Northern Kingdom over three years (2 Kings 17:5). Regularly they made captives homeless, hungry and desperate. Women were taken as spoil, pregnant women disembowelled. Survivors were deported, outsiders (foreigners) brought in and the identity of the people destroyed for ever. Ethnic cleansing did not begin yesterday. Nineveh was the symbol of such oppression.
The Assyrians thought they could get away with anything, and Israel had come to believe it too. ‘Big Brother’ was invincible. He held all the cards. Always had. Probably always would. But now at last, the party’s over. Nineveh has fallen. Assyria is finished. Those who were at rock bottom can begin to live again.
Two thoughts. One, think of some group, business, nation or individual, apparently invincible and suddenly toppled. Use these verses to sort out your feelings. Why it is that suchlike seem so unaware of their ‘nakedness’?
Two, call to mind some recent incident of ethnic cleansing, real, imaginary or even only feared. Imagine it: the enemy invincible, people homeless, hungry, increasingly desperate, women taken as spoil and suffering every kind of atrocity. And when we are tempted to rejoice that the party’s over, don’t forget what it means for those victims coming back to life.
Does this say anything about the God we started with (1: 1-11). is it a fair reflection of our understanding of God and after reading the prophets do we see him differently?