Nahum

Nahum 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7

#411 Weekday Year II Context (Friday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time)

See, upon the mountains there advances
the bearer of good news,
announcing peace!
Celebrate your feasts, O Judah,
fulfill your vows!
For nevermore shall you be invaded
by the scoundrel; he is completely destroyed.
The Lord will restore the vine of Jacob,
the pride of Israel,
Though ravagers have ravaged them
and ruined the tendrils.

Woe to the bloody city, all lies,
full of plunder, whose looting never stops!
The crack of the whip, the rumbling sounds of wheels;
horses a-gallop, chariots bounding,
Cavalry charging, the flame of the sword, the flash of the spear,
the many slain, the heaping corpses,
the endless bodies to stumble upon!
I will cast filth upon you,
disgrace you and put you to shame;
Till everyone who sees you runs from you, saying,
“Nineveh is destroyed; who can pity her?
Where can one find any to console her?”
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Commentary on Na 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7

This passage takes excerpts from both sections of the short book of the Prophet Nahum. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah, writing in about 612 BC. The focus of this selection is on the significance of the fall of Nineveh. His oracle envisions the restoration of Judah and Israel as well as God’s just retribution against the Assyrians, whose ruthlessness was legendary.

"It is very difficult to capture in translation the full impact of the Hebrew original. The prophet manages to convey the sheer terror and anguish of the Ninevites as the Babylonian army pours through the streets and squares of the great capital of Assyria." [1]

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[1] The Navarre Bible, Minor Prophets (Scepter Publishers, Princeton, NJ, © 2003), 223-24

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