Jonah 2 - the Drowning Fire

The Sequel is Always Better

Everyone loves the sequel, right?

Newer is always better.

Teen Wolf 2. Jaws 2. Rocky 2. (These are some recent examples).

Okay, maybe not.

Shrek 2? Pretty great. Did better than the original.

Maverick better than Top Gun, supposedly?

Jonah

I LOVE Jonah! I love the ridiculously awesome adventure story. God tells prophet to go West, so he runs east, stormy seas, would rather die than obey, thrown overboard, drowns or almost drowns, “saved” by getting ate by a giant fish… Vomited on land… reluctantly obeys God.

Then he gives the weak-sauce “you’re going to die” speech to Niniveh… and they actually hear it and repent and God relents! It is salvation to the Gentiles.

And it is an answer to the question of what God is doing in the rest of the nations before Jesus. In large part the world is waiting for Jesus… but God is still sending His Word and His Prophets out. We don’t know how many Jonah’s there were to other cities and other nations.

I LOVE Jonah.

But I don’t think many other folks, contemporaries of Jonah and after, I don’t think they loved Jonah.

Nineveh becomes the capital of Assyria. Assyria very quickly becomes the big bad imperial nation of the Ancient Near East, and all the prophets we have been reading prophesy that God is going to use Assyria as an instrument of judgment and wrath and destroy Israel, the northern Kingdom.

And in 722, Assyria comes in and does.

(Description of Assyria’s destruction).

And they don’t leave Judah, the southern kingdom, alone either.

So when folks 100 years after Jonah are reading the story, they identify more with Jonah who was furious at God for his mercy. It’s like reading a story about how God spared Berlin and Germany in the decades following World War II. God sent a prophet, and they repented for like a few years… but then they turned around and wreaked havoc across all the surrounding nations!

Think how much destruction, how much grief, how much sin, how much evil could have been prevented if God had followed through on his judgment on Nineveh and Assyria.

I don’t think folks liked Jonah so much. Or at least, they see a different hero. They cry out against God with Jonah as he pouts.

How long will God allow evil to continue?

Nature of evil? How can a “good God” allow evil to continue? To flourish?

“How long, oh Lord?”

Psalm 13:1–2 ESV

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Here comes the sequel to Jonah. Part II.

This is the other side of justice.

This is “peace-making”.

Nahum answers this decades or century-long prayer of God’s people. ESPECIALLY in the decades since the destruction of Israel by the hands of Assyria.

Yes, God used that nation to render his judgment.

But also, that was a great evil and injustice. They weren’t righteous judges, they were a human empire full of sin and wickedness… as are all human empires and nation from the Fall through today.

They were an extant evil and a present-danger to the people of God.

“How long will they be allowed to continue?”

Nahum

Nahum is the sequel to Jonah. And it is everything Jonah wished happened in the first book. It is the fulfillment of judgment upon Nineveh and all of Assyria.

Three chapters of celebration.

This is D-Day and V-Day all wrapped up together.

Nineveh was the largest city in the world for approximately fifty years.

Just a few years after Nahum’s warning, God’s judgment fell on Nineveh.

Nahum calls out a few things in his prediction of the coming destruction.

They would hide behind their famous brick walls

They would be destroyed by flood

Fire would devour them

They would be stripped of their gold and then forgotten.

We are going to read the WHOLE book (3 short chapters). Lest it become a wash of “Bibley sounding words”, listen in for these things, these specific predictions of Nahum. And then we will hear what happened in Jonah Part 2 - the Drowning Fire.

Nahum 1–3 ESV

An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time. For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried. From you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor. Thus says the Lord, “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart.” The Lord has given commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.” Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you; he is utterly cut off. The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts; watch the road; dress for battle; collect all your strength. For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel, for plunderers have plundered them and ruined their branches. The shield of his mighty men is red; his soldiers are clothed in scarlet. The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he musters them; the cypress spears are brandished. The chariots race madly through the streets; they rush to and fro through the squares; they gleam like torches; they dart like lightning. He remembers his officers; they stumble as they go, they hasten to the wall; the siege tower is set up. The river gates are opened; the palace melts away; its mistress is stripped; she is carried off, her slave girls lamenting, moaning like doves and beating their breasts. Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. “Halt! Halt!” they cry, but none turns back. Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of all precious things. Desolate! Desolation and ruin! Hearts melt and knees tremble; anguish is in all loins; all faces grow pale! Where is the lions’ den, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and lioness went, where his cubs were, with none to disturb? The lion tore enough for his cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses; he filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh. Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard. Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder— no end to the prey! The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot! Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end— they stumble over the bodies! And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings, and peoples with her charms. Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle. 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? Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall? Cush was her strength; Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers. Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity; her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men lots were cast, and all her great men were bound in chains. You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy. All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs— if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater. Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars. Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold! There will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper! You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away. Your princes are like grasshoppers, your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold— when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are. Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them. There is no easing your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?

The city of Nineveh. Surrounded to the west and south by two rivers (Tigris and Zab). East and North were two MASSIVE moats, the equal of the rivers.

According to an ancient source, Diodorus, might be a questionable historical source. But he describes:

The King of Assyria had become overjoyed with his past victories, so he began a celebration for his soldiers serving them with great quantities of wine and other provisions. Learning that the army was drunken and relaxed, the Medes quickly attacked their camp by the cover of night catching them off-guard.”

After slaying many of the soldiers, they pursued the rest of them as far as the city . . . The rebels then massed their forces on the plains before the city and defeated the Assyrians in two battles . . . some Assyrians were cut down while fleeing, while others, who had been shut out from entering the city, were forced to leap into the Euphrates river. They were destroyed almost to a man. So great was the slaughter that the water mingled with blood and could be seen for a great distance. Furthermore, now that the Assyrian king was shut up in the city (of Nineveh) and surrounded, many of the nations revolted, each of them going over to the side giving freedom from his rule.

They were destroyed almost to a man. So great was the slaughter that the water mingled with blood and could be seen in the river for a great distance. Furthermore, now that the Assyrian king was shut up in the city and surrounded, many of the nations revolted, each of them going over to the side of freedom from his rule. . . . "Now there was a prophecy which had been handed down to him from his ancestors that "No enemy will ever take Nineveh by storm unless the river shall first become the city's enemy." Assuming, therefore, that this would never be, he held out hope, his thought being to endure the siege and await troops which he hoped would be sent from his subjects . . . The inhabitants of the city had a great abundance of all provisions, since the king had made plans for this situation. Consequently the siege dragged on. . . . But in the third year, after there had been heavy and continuous rains. it came to pass that the Euphrates running very full, inundated a portion of the city and broke down the walls for a distance of 20 stades (approximately 2 1/4 miles.) At this the king, believing that the prophecy was fulfilled and that the river had plainly become the city's enemy, abandoned all hope of saving himself. And in order that he might not fall into the hands of the enemy, he built an enormous pyre in his palace . . . he consigned . . . himself and his palace to flames. . . . the silver and gold was carried off.” The rebels, on learning of the death of the king, took the city by forcing an entrance where the wall had fallen.

Then they loot and burn the place.

It wasn’t until 1800 that archaeologists began digging up and discovering portions of ancient Nineveh.

No matter the evil worked against you. No matter how dark the days get. No matter how desperate it gets. No matter how long we have to wait… this we know:

Justice is coming.

Nahum 1:3 ESV

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Nahum 1:7 ESV

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.