Nahum 1:3

1:1-8 About a hundred years before, at Jonah's preaching, the Ninevites repented, and were spared, yet, soon after, they became worse than ever. Nineveh knows not that God who contends with her, but is told what a God he is. It is good for all to mix faith with what is here said concerning Him, which speaks great terror to the wicked, and comfort to believers. Let each take his portion from it: let sinners read it and tremble; and let saints read it and triumph. The anger of the Lord is contrasted with his goodness to his people. Perhaps they are obscure and little regarded in the world, but the Lord knows them. The Scripture character of Jehovah agrees not with the views of proud reasoners. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is slow to wrath and ready to forgive, but he will by no means acquit the wicked; and there is tribulation and anguish for every soul that doeth evil: but who duly regards the power of his wrath?

(3) And great in power. —Better, but great in power. Jehovah’s forbearance is not attributable to weakness. To vindicate His power, Nahum, after the manner of other Hebrew poets and prophets, reverts to the wonders of the Exodus ( Nahum 1:4-5 ). The pillars of cloud and fire in the desert march; the quaking cliffs of Sinai; the Red Sea and Jordan divided at His word; Canaan succumbing at every point, upwards to mighty Lebanon in the north, and across from Eastern Bashan to Western Carmel—these are the testimonies to Jehovah’s might. (Comp. Habakkuk 3:6-10 .)

The {f} LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. (f) Thus the wicked would make God's mercy an occasion to sin, but the Prophet wishes them to consider his power and justice.

The Lord is slow to anger; not slack, as some count slackness, 2 Peter 3:9 , either in performing promise, or executing threats; but very wisely patient and long-suffering, which is ever tempered with great mercy, and both are joined together in his providence and in his word: see Exodus 34:6 Numbers 14:18 Nehemiah 9:17 Psalm 103:8 145:8 Joel 2:13 Jonah 4:2 . Anger; just displeasure conceived and expressed: the Lord doth not presently entertain resentments of displeasure, nor make sinners feel them; he doth now, as he long hath, forborne you, O sinful Ninevites, O cruel Assyrians! but consider it, his slow anger will be the heavier when it falls on you. Great in power; most mighty in power, which restrains the rage of enemies, defends and supports his oppressed ones, and in a moment can destroy those that have deserved, yet fear not his anger: that the Assyrians are not yet destroyed is the effect of patience, not of impotence, in the God of Israel. And will. This is spoken to awaken the secure kingdom, in which many, it is like, were as the scoffers, 2 Peter 3:4 , ready to say, All things do continue as they were, there will be no change, no judgment against the wicked. But our prophet assures such, that as there is great power with God, he can, so there is exact justice and stedfast resolution, he will judge.

Not at all acquit; neither pronounce them innocent by sentence of judgment, nor let them escape as if innocent by a perpetuated forbearance in the course of his providence; but, sooner or later, in due season the wickedness or righteousness of them shall be upon them. The wicked; the incorrigible, hardened, and persisting sinner. The Lord hath his way; either the methods of his providence, his usual path; or else his way, intimating the unerring steadiness of providence, the straight and known path; however to us it may seem, yet certainly God knows and keeps the right way. In the whirlwind; which riseth suddenly, and with violence beareth before it all things that stand in its way; which none can prevent, which no man can calm, which is attended with terror and amazement, Job 27:20 Isaiah 17:13 29:6 Amos 1:14 : so will destruction from the mighty and just displeasure of God come upon his adversaries, and on you Ninevites and Assyrians, when you shall fall before his whirlwind and tempest; so all impenitent sinners perish, Proverbs 1:27 . In the storm; the Hebrew speaks a dreadful tempest, which makes men full of horror; it is an elegant ingemination of the same thing, to affect hearers the more.

3 . Nahum 1:3 continues the description of the relation of Jehovah to His enemies: He is longsuffering, delays chastisement long, but eventually takes vengeance. The meaning of the phrase “great in power” is not clear. If employed in the usual objective sense as Job 9:4 , the verse would read, The Lord is slow to anger, but great in strength and will by no means leave unpunished ( Romans 9:22 ). If “great in power” had a sense parallel to Job 36:5 , “Lo God is great and despises not, great in strength of heart” (mind), that is, if “strength” referred to attributes of the divine mind, magnanimity and longsuffering, the clause would be connected rather with the first, and the verse would read, “The Lord is slow to anger and great in strength, but he will &c.”; see Numbers 14:17-18 , to which the verse has great resemblance. The phrase “will not acquit,” or leave unpunished, is used here absolutely, as Exodus 34:7 , it being readily understood who it is that He will not let go unpunished; cf. Exodus 20:7 ; Joel 3:21 ; Jeremiah 25:29 . For “great in power” some would read the usual “great in mercy.” With Nahum 1:3 b the prophet passes to the manifestation of these attributes of Jehovah or of Jehovah in these attributes in the tempest.

The passage does not seem to possess unity as a description of a single Theophany, but rather accumulates features from various manifestations of the Lord, all illustrating His power and its terrible effects in nature and on men. hath his way in the whirlwind ] i.e. He moves and passes in the whirlwind, which is not the mere wind but also all its accompaniments of cloud and darkness. (The Heb. word for “Storm” is spelled exceptionally here, as Job 9:17 .) The meaning is not so much that Jehovah uses the whirlwind and storm as the vehicles of His movement as that these commotions and terrors in nature are created by His presence, of which to men they are the tokens. The splendid words “the clouds are the dust of his feet,” like the others “the earth is his footstool” need to be conceived, not explained.

3. slow to anger, and great in power—that is, but great in power, so as to be able in a moment, if He pleases, to destroy the wicked. His long-suffering is not from want of power to punish (Ex 34:6, 7). not at all acquit—literally, "will not acquitting acquit," or treat as innocent. Lord hath his way in the whirlwind—From this to Na 1:5, inclusive, is a description of His power exhibited in the phenomena of nature, especially when He is wroth. His vengeance shall sweep away the Assyrian foe like a whirlwind (Pr 10:25). clouds are the dust of his feet—Large as they are, He treads on them, as a man would on the small dust; He is Lord of the clouds, and uses them as He pleases.

Verse 3. - Slow to anger ( Exodus 34:6, 7 ). Nahum seems to take up the words of Jonah ( Jonah 4:2 ) or Joel ( Joel 2:13 ). God is long suffering, not from weakness, but because he is great in power, and can punish when he will. Will not at all acquit the wicked; literally, holding pure will not hold pure ; i.e. he will not treat the guilty as innocent. Ἀθωῶν [Alex., ἀθῶον ] οὐκ ἀθωώσει (Septuagint); Mundans non faciet innocentem (comp. Exodus 20:7 ; Exodus 34:7 ). The Lord hath his way, etc. The prophet grounds his description of the majesty and might of God upon the revelation at the Exodus and at Sinai. (see Exodus 19:16-18 ; Psalm 18 ; Psalm 97 .). The clouds are the dust of his feet, Large and grand as the clouds look to us, they are to God but as the dust raised by the feet in walking. As an illustration of this statement (though, of course, the fact was utterly unknown to Nahum), it has been remarked that recent scientific discovery asserts that clouds owe their beauty, and even their very existence, to the presence of dust particles in the atmosphere. The aqueous vapour, it is said, condenses on these particles, and thus becomes visible. Nahum 1:3

The Lord is slow to anger - Nahum takes up the words of Jonah Jon 4:2 as he spoke of God's attributes toward Nineveh, but only to show the opposite side of them. Jonah declares how God is "slow to anger," giving men time of repentance, and if they do repent, "repenting Him also of the evil;" Nahum, that the long-suffering of God is not "slackness," that "He is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." And strong in power - Divine long-suffering gees along with Divine power. God can be long-suffering, because He can, whenever He sees good, punish. His long-suffering is a token, not of weakness, but of power. He can allow persons the whole extent of trial, because, when they are past cure, He can end it at once. "God is a righteous judge, strong and patient, and God wraths every day" Psalm 7:11. The wrath comes only at the last, but it is ever present with God. He cannot but be displeased with the sin; and so the Psalmist describes in the manner of men the gradual approximation to its discharge. "If he (the sinner) will not return (from evil or to God), He will whet His sword; He hath trodden His bow and directed it: He hath prepared for him instruments of death; He hath made his arrows burning" Psalm 7:12-13.