Nah 1:3-6 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 3. The Lord is slow to anger ] He exercises much longsuffering towards his enemies, that this may lead them to repentance. And it is because of this longsuffering that vengeance is not speedily executed on every evil work. Great in power ] Able at all times to save or to destroy . The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm ] These are the effects of his power ; and when they appear unusual, they may be considered as the immediate effects of his power: and although he be in them to punish and destroy, he is in them to direct their course , to determine their operations , and to defend his followers from being injured by their violence. The pestilential wind which slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrians did not injure one Israelite. See . The clouds are the dust of his feet. ] This is spoken in allusion to a chariot and horses going on with extreme rapidity : they are all enveloped in a cloud of dust . So Jehovah is represented as coming through the circuit of the heavens as rapidly as lightning; the clouds surrounding him as the dust does the chariot and horses.

‏ Nahum 1:3-6

Verse 3. The Lord is slow to anger] He exercises much longsuffering towards his enemies, that this may lead them to repentance. And it is because of this longsuffering that vengeance is not speedily executed on every evil work.

Great in power] Able at all times to save or to destroy.

The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm] These are the effects of his power; and when they appear unusual, they may be considered as the immediate effects of his power: and although he be in them to punish and destroy, he is in them to direct their course, to determine their operations, and to defend his followers from being injured by their violence. The pestilential wind which slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrians did not injure one Israelite. See 2Ki 19:35.

The clouds are the dust of his feet.] This is spoken in allusion to a chariot and horses going on with extreme rapidity: they are all enveloped in a cloud of dust. So Jehovah is represented as coming through the circuit of the heavens as rapidly as lightning; the clouds surrounding him as the dust does the chariot and horses.

Verse 4. He rebuketh the sea] The Red Sea, and the rivers: probably an allusion to the passage of the Red Sea and Jordan.

The description of the coming of Jehovah, from the third to the sixth verse, is dreadfully majestic. Na 1:3-6 He is represented as controlling universal nature. The sea and the rivers are dried up, the mountains tremble, the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence. Bashan, Carmel, and Lebanon are withered and languish: streams of fire are poured out, and the rocks are cast down to make him a passage. If then, the seas, the rivers, the mountains, the hills, the rocks, and the earth itself, fail before Jehovah, or flee from his presence, how shall Nineveh and the Assyrian empire stand before him?