Kill 'em All, Let God Sort 'em Out!

This is sermon that I wrote a few years ago from my least favorite book of the bible.  Since I'm revisiting that book again this Sunday, I thought I'd review and share what I wrote before.

Kill ‘em All, Let God Sort ‘em Out!

Martin Luther found the book of James to be so disagreeable that he wanted to have it removed from the cannon of scripture- he considered it to be a book of straw. If I were in such a position of scholarship and leadership, and people actually asked for my opinion (which as of yet they have not) – I might find myself arguing for the exclusion of the book of Nahum – considering it to be a book of nationalism and hatred. And I don’t think I’m alone in my hesitation to accept Nahum. The lectionaries of the church all skip Nahum. It is an implicit confession by the church that Nahum – at the very least – makes us uncomfortable.

At the conclusion of the film about the life of Joan of Arc, The Messenger, Jean (played by Milla Jovovich) confesses, 

“I fought out of revenge and despair. I was all the things that people believe they are allowed to be when they’re fighting for a cause… I was proud, and stubborn, selfish…yes, cruel.” 

When I read the book of Nahum, I wonder if the prophet Nahum might make a similar confession.

Nahum, curiously, means “compassion” or “comfort” – yet there is very little of either in his prophecy. His message is Doom, Death, and Destruction. There is no hope for reconciliation or repentance or forgiveness. There is no word salvation. There is no word of mercy. There is no word of grace.

Nahum delivered his prophecy sometime between the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes to the Assyrian army in 663 BC and the destruction of the Assyrian capital city, Nineveh, by an army of Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians in 612 BC.

Assyria conquered the Northern nation of Israel in 722 BC. Around 650 BC Assyria, led by Ashurbanipal, conquered a number of Judean towns and subjugated the Southern Kingdom as well. Judah was made a vassal state to the Assyrian empire.

The prophet Jonah had been sent to Nineveh, but was reluctant to deliver God's message to those he considered enemies. He did go however, and despite (or perhaps because of) his ill feelings toward the Assyrians, delivered a message of imminent destruction. The people of Nineveh repented and God granted forgiveness.

Nahum on the other hand seemed to relish the chance to pronounce a message of imminent destruction and does not allow any opportunity for repentance. Filled with a violent nationalism and a fierce hatred for the cruel Assyrians, Nahum ("comfort" / "compassion") declared that the city would be destroyed and the people slaughtered.

And Nahum was correct. His prophecy of destruction of the city of Nineveh (specifically, destruction by flood and army in 2:7 –9) was fulfilled in 612 BC when the Babylonian army along with troops from the Medes and the Scythians laid siege to the city. The siege lasted only a few months.

Towards the end of the siege there was a tremendous rain and the Tigris River (which flowed through the city) flooded and destroyed a portion of the city walls allowing the invaders to capture the city. The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus tells us that when the king saw the flood waters destroy the wall he set fire to his palace – making it a funeral pyre for himself, his wives, and his concubines. So fully was the city destroyed that the ruins of the city were not rediscovered until 1850!

YHWH is a jealous and vengeful God,
YHWH takes vengeance; he is rich in wrath;
YHWH takes vengeance on his foes,
he stores up fury for his enemies.
YHWH is slow to anger but great in power,
YHWH never lets evil go unpunished.
In storm and whirlwind he takes his way,
the clouds are the dust stirred up by his feet.
(Nahum 1: 2 - 3)

This is the Divine Warrior – the avenging warrior God who destroys the forces of chaos and demolishes the power of the tyrant. Nahum’s God is a God of power and might. A God who judges wickedness, declares sentence, and acts as executioner. Nahum’s God is a terror to the wicked and the cruel. And while he may be slow to anger, Nahum’s God stores up his fury for his enemies and never – ever lets evil go unpunished.

During times of war, nations often declare that they have the Divine Warrior on their side. During the 100-year war between England and France, English soldiers taunted the French by shouting, “the Pope may be French, but Jesus is English!” In the American Civil War both sides, the North and the South, were convinced of the righteousness of their cause – and invoked the Divine Warrior against the other side. “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord / He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored…” Nazi soldiers during World War II wore belt buckles that were inscribed with the words, “God is with us!” The cold war was given a holy war flavor as the enemy was referred to as “godless communists”.

This Divine Warrior is the kind of God envisioned by “hellfire-and-brimstone” preachers. From this idea we get sermons like the (in)famous sermon, “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards. 

“The wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present; they increase more and more and rise higher and higher till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose…”

If we are completely honest, there are times when we want this kind of Angry Wrathful God. When we read about genocide, and slaughter; when we hear about children who are killed or maimed by landmines, we want an angry God. We want an angry God when we hear about children and wives who are abused and when we hear about the elderly being neglected. We want an angry God when we think about the holocaust in Nazi Germany. We want an angry God when we think about the terrorists who deliberately crashed planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Pennsylvanian landscape on September 11th. We want an angry God when we hear about murder, and drug pushers, and abortion clinics.

We want a God who is angered by sin. We want a God who will pour out wrath on the cruel, the wicked, and the merciless. We want a God who will vindicate the innocent.

But is that really what the bible teaches? Is it the whole truth?

Is that really what we want?

Do we worship a merciless, vengeful, wrathful God? Are we forever to live as ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God?’ And who ultimately decides which side of nationalistic conflicts God favors, especially when both sides claim that God is on their side?

Nahum’s God was rooted in a violent Judean nationalism and had no room for forgiveness or grace. Nahum’s God seems almost more demonic than divine. He has no pity for those who would die in the destruction of Nineveh. His motto is that of calloused soldiers, “Kill ‘em all. Let God sort ‘em out.”

Nahum’s God reveals more about Nahum perhaps than the true character of God. Nahum spoke from an angry time. His people had been oppressed for over 100 years by a brutal and cruel foreign empire. He wanted vengeance on those oppressors and spoke of a vengeful God who would pour out righteous divine wrath on those same oppressors.

“The God of human history is as much obscured here [in Nahum] as revealed, in images that cannot rise far enough above the limitations of their originating culture.” [i] While Nahum may illuminate the justice and wrath of God, the smoke from his fiery language obscures God's mercy and grace.

Nahum’s message may have been appropriate for his time and place – but it would be foolish and dangerous to try to apply Nahum’s nationalistic hatred towards our enemies today. Though I have heard Christian pastors and teachers making a connection between Nahum and other OT prophets and our national enemies today (Afghanistan, Iraq, N. Korea, etc...)

Nahum was an extremist. Nahum could find no balance. Without going so far as to say “Nahum was wrong,” (I hesitate to declare scripture to be "wrong") I will say that he wasn’t / isn’t complete. We do believe that God is just and that he does judge the wicked and that he does vindicate and liberate the oppressed – but …

We also believe that God does not delight in the death of anyone (Ezekiel 18: 32). We believe that God will pardon and overlook crime – and that he does not harbor anger forever. (Micah 7:18 – 20) We have been taught to love our enemies and to work and pray for their good (Matthew 6: 43 – 48). And that vengeance is best left to God. (Romans 12:14 – 21).

Nahum spoke out of revenge and despair. He was all the things that people believe they are allowed to be when they’re fighting for a cause… He was proud, and stubborn, selfish, and cruel.

He saw only a nationalistic God pouring out wrath on his (Nahum's) enemies. He could not (would not?) see the God who loves and forgives, the God who is merciful to sinners.

May we see the God that Nahum could not.

See Also: The Burden of Nahum

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[i] Francisco O. Garcia –Treto, The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. 7, p. 615