Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Nahum 1:2
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Notes on the Whole Bible
Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
God is jealous and the Lord revengeth - Rather (as the English margin) God “very jealous and avenging is the Lord.” The Name of God, יהוה (YHVH), “He who Is,” the Unchangeable, is thrice repeated, and thrice it is said of Him that He is an Avenger. It shows both the certainty and greatness of the vengeance, and that He who inflicts it, is the All-Holy Trinity, who have a care for the elect. God’s jealousy is twofold. It is an intense love, not bearing imperfections or unfaithfulness in that which It loves, and so chastening it; or not bearing the ill-dealings of those who would injure what It loves, and so destroying them. To Israel He had revealed Himself as “a Exodus 20:5-6 jealous God, visiting iniquity but shewing mercy;” here, as jealous for His people against those who were purely His enemies and the enemies of His people (see Zechariah 1:14), and so His jealousy burns to their destruction, in that there is in them no good to be refined, but only evil to be consumed. The titles of God rise in awe; first, “intensely jealous” and “an Avenger;” then, “an Avenger and a Lord of wrath;” One who hath it laid up with Him, at His Command, and the more terrible, because it is so; the Master of it, (not, as man, mastered by it; having it, to withhold or to discharge; yet so discharging it, at last, the more irrevocably on the finally impenitent. And this He says at the last, “an Avenger to His adversaries,” (literally, “those who hem and narrow Him in”). The word “avenged” is almost appropriated to God in the Old Testament, as to punishment which He inflicts, or at least causes to be inflicted , whether on individuals Genesis 4:15, Genesis 4:24; 1Sa 24:12; 2 Samuel 4:8; 2 Kings 9:7; Jeremiah 11:20; Jeremiah 15:15; Jeremiah 20:12, or upon a people, (His own Leviticus 26:25; Psalms 99:8; Ezekiel 24:8 or their enemies Deuteronomy 32:41, Deuteronomy 32:43; Psalms 18:48; Isaiah 34:8; Isaiah 35:4; Isaiah 47:3; Isaiah 59:17; Isaiah 61:2; Isaiah 63:4; Micah 5:14; Jeremiah 46:10; Jeremiah 50:15, Jeremiah 50:28; Jeremiah 51:6, Jeremiah 51:11, Jeremiah 51:36; Ezekiel 25:14, Ezekiel 25:17, for their misdeeds. In the main it is a defect . Personal vengeance is mentioned only in characters, directly or indirectly censured, as Samson Judges 15:7; Judges 16:20 or Saul . It is forbidden to man, punished in him, claimed by God as His own inalienable right. “Vengeance is Mine and requital” (Deuteronomy 32:35, compare Psalms 94:1). “Thou shalt not avenge nor keep up against the children of My people” Leviticus 19:18. Yet it is spoken of, not as a mere act of God, but as the expression of His Being. “Shall not My soul be avenged of such a nation as this?” Jeremiah 5:9, Jeremiah 5:29; Jeremiah 9:9. And a Reserver of wrath for His enemies - The hardened and unbelieving who hate God, and at last, when they had finally rejected God and were rejected by Him, the object of His aversion. It is spoken after the manner of men, yet therefore is the more terrible. There is that in God, to which the passions of man correspond; they are a false imitation of something which in Him is good, a distortion of the true likeness of God, in which God created us and whisk man by sin defaced. : “Pride doth imitate exaltedness: whereas Thou Alone art God exalted over all. Ambition, what seeks it, but honors and glory? Whereas Thou alone art to be honored above all and glorious for evermore. The cruelty of the great would fain be feared; but who is to be feared but God alone, out of…
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