You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away. (Nahum 3:16 ESV)
Hope
God was disappointed with His children, Israel. They had repeatedly rebelled against Him, consistently ignored Him, and constantly chosen sin, unrighteousness, and hate instead of choosing the Lord’s way of holiness, righteousness, and love.
And despite their arrogant expectation that God would continue to give them second chances, He had finally turned away from them. God removed His protection from them. God allowed Israel to fall into utter destruction and disrepute. The blessed nation of God’s People was battered, ruined, and ashamed.
Nahum uses metaphors to help us understand how bad things were. For Israel (including both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms) God’s blessing was incorrectly measured by wealth. Rich people believed their accumulated possessions indicated God’s favor. And so, since Israel was successful financially, they believed that God did not really care about their sin.
But we see that God took away from them particularly what they valued most. Their wealth was carried away by foreign merchants. Their rich land was as empty as if locusts had devoured everything.
They were undoubtably devastated.
But despite appearances, God had not really taken everything from them. God only took those things that they foolishly valued more than they valued Him.
Even in His wrath and holy justice, God had not abandoned them. In fact, the only real abandonment that God performed was against His Son, on the cross. God abandoned Jesus in the fullness of God’s wrath. Israel here deserved to be abandoned. Judah here deserved to be abandoned. God’s people then, and God’s people NOW deserve to be abandoned.
But as bad as things got, merchants and locusts emptying the Promised Land of earthly value, God kept His promises of salvation, redemption, restoration, and love.
God often gets our attention by bringing loss and suffering. And we deserve all of it, honestly. But every trouble we experience is a reminder of our Savior. The suffering servant. The bearer of God’s wrath.
Have hope, in Christ, because God’s just anger was put on Jesus’ back instead of ours.