And all who look at you will shrink from you and say,
“Wasted is Nineveh; who will grieve for her?”
Where shall I seek comforters for you?
Nahum 3:7
In the story of the prophet Jonah God spared Ninevah because the people repented of their violence and evil. But with the prophet Nahum God decrees their final end. Their repentance was short-lived. Their attitudes became proud, their worship idolatrous, and their violence pervasive and oppressive to all the nations around them.
When God finally brought Ninevah down, there was nobody left in the ancient Near East to mourn them. This was a result of their own oppression. Everybody rejoiced when Assyria fell. When evil is toppled, the righteous and the oppressed are relieved. You get a sense of why Assyria’s slaughter went unmourned: They had slaughtered countless people themselves.
And so God’s justice turns. He has the right to restore the repentant. He has the right to destroy the depraved and demented. We should believe and pray with this history in mind.
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