Nahum 1:5 ESV
Nahum 1:1 ESV
Nahum 1:2 ESV
Nahum 1:3 ESV
Nahum 3:8 ESV
I’ve been to the Rocky Mountains several times in my life but it doesn’t matter how many times I go, I am always amazed!
I used to drive across Kansas or Nebraska, but for the last several years I’ve taken the train. I love the train because it’s a great relaxing way to travel. Plus, I can go to sleep while I’m still in the Midwest and wake up at dawn when Denver is in sight. The last few trips I’ve made I noticed most of the passengers are at least 25 years younger, but I’m cool with that. I’ve found that because I am friendly and respectful of them, they are friendly and respectful of me. They don’t seem to mind that I was in college when Harry Truman died.
It just doesn’t get any better than that. I like talking to people from every generation.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of folks I’ve met in the dining car are from Europe or from other parts of the world. I’ve traveled outside the U.S.A. some and I’ve noticed (and have been told) that in other parts of the world they rely on the railway system. I’ve also been told by several people from abroad that they are amazed that more people from the “states” don’t take the train.
I get that. I’ve noticed that Americans are independent and are okay traveling alone or with their own family.
The first time I traveled from the Midwest to the Rocky Mountains was around 1960. We went with my cousins. My family was in one car and they were in another car. I had so many “firsts” on that trip.
It was the first time I saw mountains.
It was the first time I went up to Pike’s Peak on a bus. I was scared stiff every time the bus driver swung out and around a curve! By the time I got to the top I was gasping for air…it wasn’t because of the altitude.
It was because of the bus ride!
The first time I saw the Royal Gorge I was speechless…
I was seven years old and all of those things did have a huge impact on me. Whether I “be” seven or nearly 70, the size of the mountains cannot be ignored.
Yet, when I read in In Nahum 1:5 the words of the prophet, “The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.”
I am breathless and yet the mountains quake before God.
It makes me wonder who is this God we serve who shakes the mountains?
Who can melt the hills?
Who can heave the earth just by appearing?
It is the one who whispers my name in the night.
It is the one who gave a vision to Nahum from Elkosh telling him he was going to take on the evil and cruel Assyrian Empire and the city of Ninevah.
Now Elkosh at the time was a city in Southern Judah. In Nahum 1:1 the prophet wrote this is, “An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.”
After a brief introduction the prophet immediately jumps in telling his readers that “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God” (Nahum 1:2). Clearly, Nahum is a man on a mission for God. That mission was focused on the city of Ninevah. You probably remember this wasn’t the first mention of Ninevah by the prophets.
Jonah was called to go preach to Ninevah 150 years before Nahum’s vision.
Nahum tells us in Nahum 1:3 that “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.”
God gave Ninevah 150 years. Jonah preached there around 760 B.C.
In Nahum 3:8 we are told about the fall of Thebes (No-Anon in Hebrew), “Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?” The timing puts Nahum’s writing between 663 B.C. and 612 B.C. (https://www.gotquestions.org/Book-of-Nahum.html).
The visit from Nahum was Ninevah’s final reckoning.
They ignored God’s word from Jonah and Ninevah was destroyed in 612 B.C. when the Medes captured the city from the Assyrian Empire. Eventually the Babylonians ruled the land and the Assyrian Empire NEVER rose to power again (https://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/nineveh-destroyed/).
The mountains quake. The hills melt. The earth heaves when God appears.
God sent two prophets who warned Ninevah and there was a day of reckoning.
All things under God…the mighty mountains quake, the hills melt, and the earth heaves when God appears!
Today’s Spiritual Practice is: Consider God
Consider the power of God and God’s love for you…
In God, Deborah
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