---
title: "Clarke"
description: "Verse Nahum 1:1. The burden of Nineveh. — משא massa not only signifies a burden, but also a thing lifted up, pronounced, or proclaimed; also a message. It"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/clarkes-commentary/nahum/1"
---

Verse [Nahum 1:1](../../../kjv/nahum/1/1). ***The burden of Nineveh.*** — משא *massa* not only signifies a *burden*, but also a thing *lifted up, pronounced*, or *proclaimed*; also a *message*. It is used by the prophets to signify the *revelation* which they have received from God to deliver to any particular people: the *oracle*-the *prophecy*. Here it signifies the *declaration* from God relative to the overthrow of Nineveh, and the *commission* of the prophet to deliver it.
As the Assyrians under Pul, Tiglath-pileser, and Shalmaneser, three of their kings, had been employed by a just God for the chastisement of his disobedient people; the end being now accomplished by them, God is about to *burn the rod* wherewith he corrected Israel; and Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, is to be destroyed. This prediction appears to have been accomplished a short time after this by Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares, the Ahasuerus of Scripture.
*Nahum*, נחום Nachum, signifies *comforter*. The name was very suitable, as he was sent to *comfort* the people, by showing them that God was about to destroy their adversaries.

Verse [Nahum 1:2](../../../kjv/nahum/1/2). ***God is jealous*** — For his own glory.
***And - revengeth*** — His justice; by the destruction of his enemies.
***And*****is*****furious*** — So powerful in the manifestations of his judgments, that nothing can stand before him.
***He reserveth wrath*** — Though they seem to prosper for a time, and God appears to have passed by their crimes without notice, yet he *reserveth - treasureth* up - *wrath* for them, which shall burst forth in due time.

Verse [Nahum 1:3](../../../kjv/nahum/1/3). ***The Lord is slow to anger*** — He exercises much longsuffering towards his enemies, that this may lead them to repentance. And it is because of this longsuffering that vengeance is not speedily executed on every evil work.
***Great in power*** — Able at all times to *save* or to *destroy*.
***The Lord*****hath*****his way in the whirlwind and in the storm*** — These are the *effects* of his *power*; and when they appear unusual, they may be considered as the *immediate* effects of his power: and although he be *in them* to punish and destroy, he is in them to *direct* their *course*, to determine their *operations*, and to defend his followers from being injured by their violence. The pestilential wind which slew *one hundred and eighty-five thousand* of the Assyrians did not injure *one* Israelite. See [2 Kings 19:35](../../../kjv/2-kings/19/35).
***The clouds*** are *the dust of his feet.*] This is spoken in allusion to a *chariot and horses* going on with *extreme rapidity*: they are all *enveloped in a cloud of dust*. So Jehovah is represented as coming through the circuit of the heavens as rapidly as lightning; the *clouds* surrounding him as the *dust* does the chariot and horses.

Verse 4. ***He rebuketh the sea*** — The Red Sea, and the rivers: probably an allusion to the passage of the *Red Sea* and *Jordan*.
The description of the coming of Jehovah, from the third to the sixth verse, is dreadfully majestic. [Nahum 1:3-6](../../../kjv/nahum/1/3-6) He is represented as controlling *universal nature*. The *sea* and the *rivers* are dried up, the *mountains* tremble, the *hills* melt, and the *earth* is burnt at his presence. *Bashan, Carmel*, and *Lebanon* are withered and languish: streams of *fire* are poured out, and the *rocks* are cast down to make him a passage. If then, the *seas*, the *rivers*, the *mountains*, the *hills*, the *rocks*, and the *earth* itself, fail before Jehovah, or flee from his presence, how shall *Nineveh* and the *Assyrian empire* stand before him?

Verse 7. ***The Lord*****is*****good*** — In the midst of judgment he remembers mercy; and among the most dreadful denunciations of wrath he mingles promises of mercy. None that trust in him need be alarmed at these dreadful threatenings; they shall be discriminated in the day of wrath, for the *Lord knoweth them that trust in him*.

Verse 8. ***But with an overrunning flood*** — Bishop *Newcome* thinks this may refer to the manner in which Nineveh was taken. The *Euphrates* overflowed its banks, deluged a part of the city, and overturned *twenty* stadia of the wall; in consequence of which the desponding king burnt himself, and his palace, with his treasures. - *Diodor. Sic*., Edit. Wessel., p. 140, lib. ii., s. 27.
***Darkness shall pursue*** — Calamity. All kinds of calamity shall pursue them till they are destroyed.

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.

Verse [Nahum 1:10](../../../kjv/nahum/1/10). ***While*****they be*****folden together*** — However united their counsels may be, they shall be as *drunken men*-perplexed and unsteady in all their resolutions; and before God's judgments they shall be as *dry thorns* before a devouring fire.

Verse [Nahum 1:11](../../../kjv/nahum/1/11). ***Imagineth evil against the Lord*** — Such were *Pul*, [2 Kings 15:10](../../../kjv/2-kings/15/10), *Tiglath-pileser*, [2 Kings 15:29](../../../kjv/2-kings/15/29); *Shalmaneser*, [2 Kings 17:6](../../../kjv/2-kings/17/6); and *Sennacherib*, [2 Kings 18:17](../../../kjv/2-kings/18/17); [2 Kings 19:23](../../../kjv/2-kings/19/23).
***A wicked counsellor.*** — *Sennacherib* and *Rabshakeh*.

Verse [Nahum 1:12](../../../kjv/nahum/1/12). ***Though*****they be -*****many*** — *Sennacherib* invaded Judea with an army of nearly *two hundred thousand* men.
***Thus shall they be cut down*** — The angel of the Lord (a suffocating wind) slew of them in one night *one hundred and* *eighty-five thousand*, [2 Kings 19:35](../../../kjv/2-kings/19/35).

Verse [Nahum 1:13](../../../kjv/nahum/1/13). ***Now will I break his yoke from off thee*** — This refers to the tribute which the Jews were obliged to pay to the Assyrians, [2 Kings 17:14](../../../kjv/2-kings/17/14).

Verse [Nahum 1:14](../../../kjv/nahum/1/14). ***No more of thy name be sown*** — No more of you shall be carried away into *captivity*.
***I will make thy grave; for thou art vile*** — I think this is an address to the Assyrians, and especially to *Sennacherib*. The text is no obscure intimation of the fact. The *house of his gods is to* *be his grave*: and we know that while he was worshipping in the house of his god *Nisroch*, his two sons, *Adrammelech* and *Sharezer*, smote him there that he died, [2 Kings 19:37](../../../kjv/2-kings/19/37).

Verse [Nahum 1:15](../../../kjv/nahum/1/15). ***Behold upon the mountains*** — Borrowed probably from [Isaiah 52:7](../../../kjv/isaiah/52/7), but applied here to the *messengers* who brought the *good tidings* of the *destruction of* *Nineveh*. Judah might then *keep her solemn feasts*, for the wicked Assyrian should *pass through the land no more*; being entirely cut off, and the imperial city razed to its foundations.

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