Nahum 1
Nahum Chapter 1 chronicles a vision about Nineveh that the prophet Nahum received from God and relayed to the people.
God began His message in Nahum Chapter 1 by stating He is a jealous and angry God. He said He would take vengeance against those whom He deemed were His enemies. He will not allow the guilty to go unpunished.
Nahum Chapter 1 goes on to say that the Lord is also good and merciful. He proves this by the way He seeks to help those who need His assistance in times of trouble.
Finally God said that although the plotters had numerous allies, they would all be destroyed. God noted that He may have afflicted Judah in the past, but He would do so no more. He said He would free Judah from its shackles.
Lessons.
Our God is a righteous judge. He will definitely fight our battles when we depend solely on Him.
Nahum 2
The chapter is about the fall of Nineveh. It was a poetic overview of how things went down in the city.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God when He is unleashing the power of His wrath. Those who imagine themselves to be untouchable are the very ones whom God will bring crashing down. There is no strength or defense that can stand up against the Almighty. Nineveh was fortunate enough to receive the opportunity to repent under the preaching of Jonah; but here we see nothing but decreed devastation. There comes a time when God’s patience has been exhausted. But likewise the Lord encourages His people that He will restore the afflicted to splendor in His good time.
All this was fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar, in the first year of his reign, in conjunction with Cyaxares, or Ahasuerus, king of the Medes, conquered Nineveh, and made himself master of the Assyrian monarchy.
Nahum 3
The LORD used the Assyrian empire and its capital city, Nineveh, to carry out His judgment on the northern kingdom of Israel, which it conquered and exiled in 722 BC, “the king of Assyria captured Samaria and carried Israel away into exile to Assyria”
Therefore, the LORD would judge Nineveh, causing her to lose her power and disappear from the scene. The LORD’s action against Nineveh would demonstrate that He alone has complete control over the world He created. God, not Nineveh, is all-powerful. God is about to completely disgrace the proud and arrogant world power.
Assyria’s intent was evil. And now the LORD was about to judge Nineveh for her wicked deeds. So He used Nahum to pronounce an oracle of judgment against the city. God used Jonah to pronounce destruction upon Nineveh roughly a hundred years earlier, and Nineveh had repented. Now Nahum’s pronouncement of destruction upon Nineveh marks its end. Nineveh fell in 612 BC to the Babylonians in alliance with the Medes
