Good News for Who?

Nahum 1-3

            We sure have seen the nations threatened and condemned—a lot!—in the prophets. Here the victim is Nineveh. (Whatever positive effect Jonah had didn’t last very long!)

            It’s hard to keep on reading these prophecies of judgment. The question is: is this good news or bad news? And the answer is: are you a Ninevite or an Israelite? When the nations are being judged, it is very bad news for them, and if we assume that we occupy the role of Nineveh here it’s very bad news for us! However, for Israel, the fall of Nineveh is very good news, the destruction of their enemies.

            An important consideration in reading the Old Testament—from Exodus on—is that the nations are cast as the enemies of the people of God. So, when we read about the total destruction of the Canaanites or when we read about the impending doom of Nineveh, we New Testament readers need to think of those two groups in the same way that we think of the defeat of sin, Satan, and death—our races truest enemies. As the Lord defends and protects Israel against her all too human and political enemies, so, too, in the death of Jesus does He defend and protect against our all too demonic enemies.