What is the meaning of Nahum 1:6? Who can withstand His indignation? “Who can withstand His indignation?” (Nahum 1:6). • Nahum starts with a question that answers itself: no one. Psalm 76:7 declares, “You alone are to be feared. Who can stand before You when You are angry?” In Revelation 6:17 the terrified nations cry, “For the great day of Their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” • This line reminds Judah—and us—that God’s holiness is not negotiable. When He rises to judge, there is no neutral ground or safe hiding place apart from Him (Malachi 3:2). • The comfort is implicit: if the Lord alone is unstoppable, His covenant people need only stay close to Him. Judgment falls on His enemies, but those who belong to Him are secure (Psalm 46:1-3). Who can endure His burning anger? “Who can endure His burning anger?” (v. 6 b). • The phrase shifts from resisting to enduring. Jeremiah 10:10 says, “At His wrath the earth quakes and the nations cannot endure His indignation.” Isaiah 33:14 asks, “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?” • This “burning” speaks of intensity. Unlike human fury—often impulsive—God’s anger is pure, measured, and perfectly just (Romans 2:5). • For sinners, endurance is impossible. Yet the gospel shows that Christ bore this burning anger in our place (Isaiah 53:4-6; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Those who trust Him do not face it; those who reject Him will (John 3:36). His wrath is poured out like fire; “His wrath is poured out like fire” (v. 6 c). • Fire consumes, purifies, and spreads. Deuteronomy 4:24 states, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29 repeats the same truth for New-Covenant believers. • Nahum’s imagery fits what eventually happened to Nineveh: archaeology shows the city burned fiercely when it fell. The prophecy is more than metaphor; God’s words became literal history (Nahum 3:15; 2 Peter 3:7). • For the faithful, the picture of fire also reassures: trials that feel scorching are instruments of refinement, not destruction (1 Peter 1:6-7). even rocks are shattered before Him. “Even rocks are shattered before Him” (v. 6 d). • Mountains seem immovable, yet “The mountains quake before Him and the hills melt away” (Nahum 1:5). At Sinai “the whole mountain trembled violently” (Exodus 19:18). Judges 5:5 reports, “The mountains quaked before the LORD.” • Jeremiah 23:29 compares God’s word to “a hammer that shatters a rock,” underscoring that the hardest hearts cannot resist forever. • For Assyria, whose fortifications were built of massive stone, this was a direct warning: walls, armies, and idols offer no refuge when the Creator speaks (Isaiah 2:19-21). summary Nahum 1:6 piles question upon question, image upon image, to proclaim one truth: God’s wrath is irresistible. No one can withstand, endure, escape, or outlast it. His anger is burning, His judgment consuming, His power able to pulverize the very rocks. Yet folded into the warning is hope: the same God who shatters stone shelters those who trust Him. By fleeing to the refuge He provides—ultimately fulfilled in Christ—we move from the path of His indignation to the embrace of His mercy. |
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