Behold upon the mountains
Of the land of Israel, as the Targum; or those about Jerusalem:
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings;
see how they come one after another with the news of the havoc
and slaughter made in the army of Sennacherib by an angel in one
night; of his flight, and of the dealt, of him by the hands of
his two sons; and, after that, of the destruction of Nineveh, and
of the whole Assyrian empire; all which were good tidings to the
Jews, to whom the Assyrians were implacable enemies, and whose
power the Jews dreaded; and therefore it must be good news to
them to hear of their defeat and ruin, and the messengers that
brought it must be welcome to them: that publisheth
peace;
to the Jewish nation, who might from hence hope for peaceable and
prosperous times: like expressions with these are used in (
Isaiah 52:7 )
on account of the return of the Jews from the Babylonish
captivity; and are applied by the apostle to Gospel times and
Gospel preachers, ( Romans 10:15
) as these may also, and express the good tidings of victory
obtained by Christ over sin, Satan, the world, hell and death;
and of salvation wrought out, and peace made by him; it being
usual for the prophets abruptly and at once to rise from temporal
to spiritual and eternal things, particularly to what concern the
Messiah, and the Gospel dispensation; (See Gill on Isaiah
52:7): O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts;
of the passover, pentecost, and tabernacles; which had been
interrupted or omitted through the invasion of the land, and the
siege of Jerusalem, by the enemy; but now, he being gone and
slain, they had full liberty, and were at leisure to attend these
solemnities: perform thy vows;
which they had made when in distress, when the enemy was in their
land, and before their city; promising what they would do, if it
pleased God to deliver them out of his hands, and now they were
delivered; and therefore it was incumbent on them to make good
their promises, and especially to offer up their thanksgivings to
God for such a mercy; see ( Psalms 50:14
) ( Psalms
66:13 Psalms 66:14
) ( Ecclesiastes
5:4 Ecclesiastes
5:5 ) : for the wicked shall no more pass through thee;
he is utterly cut
off;
or Belial, the counsellor of Belial, as in ( Nahum 1:11 ) the king of
Assyria; who, though he had passed through their land, had
invaded it, and made devastation in it, should do so no more;
being dead, cut off in a judicial way, through the just judgment
of God, suffering his sons to take away his life while in the
midst of his idolatrous worship; and this may reach, not only to
him, and his seed after him, being wholly cut off, but to the
whole Assyrian empire, who should none of them ever give any
further trouble to Judah.
Nahum 1:15
