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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Nahum 1:3 - 1:3
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Lord is slow to anger; not slack, as some count slackness, 2Pe_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 Exo_34:6 Num_14:18 Neh_9:17 Psa_103:8 145:8 Joe_2:13 Jon_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, 2Pe_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 Isa_17:13 29:6 Amo_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, Pro_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.
The clouds are the dust of his feet; though he be surrounded with darkness, yet as an army afar off is discovered by the dust that their feet raise, so will God at last appear as an enemy with great power marching against his enemies, and from above, as well as from the darkness of clouds, destroy them. This is spoken after the manner of man, and must be applied as beseems God.