Nahum and Assyria

When the name Ninevah came up today I had a flashback to Jonah. These were the same people who had repented of their sin and been spared of the judgement God had planned for them. They had dramatically turned from their idolatrous ways. I flipped back in the Bible to see who long ago that had been and it was only 50 years! I was thinking that this would be the difference between the year 1960 and 2010, which translates to the difference between prayer in school, sock hops, intact families, and "Ozzie and Harriet" versus rapidly declining church attendance, metal detectors in schools, rampant divorce and teen pregnancies, and "Real Housewives of New Jersey". Fifty years really can make a huge difference.

So Nahum is predicting the ruin of Assyria, who at present is a force to be reckoned with, having already overtaken the northern kingdom of Israel. They would soon fall to the Babylonians who were at that time under the Assyrian yoke. And it would be the Babylonians who would defeat Judah shortly thereafter. But in the meantime, the goodness of King Josiah and the reforms he put into place, are buying them time, just as the king of Ninevah had fifty years earlier for his people.

Tomorrow's reading: Habakkuk 1-3, Zephaniah 1-2:7