It is human to yearn for hope when one is oppressed and to even want your enemy to suffer for what they’ve done to you. But can we humans be taught not to gloat as the ones who hurt us get to suffer? When does punishment for crimes achieve nothing but petty fury? The debate over the efficacy of capital punishment in the US often centered around these questions and where and how forgiveness is a virtue in the face of vice.
There are many months to go until we’ll reach this relevant teaching from Proverbs 24:17 -
“If your enemy falls, do not exult;
If your foe trips, let your heart not rejoice”
The instruction is there because the human heart is capable of such exulting and our history is filled with triumphalist art and political careers based on the glee at the defeat of the other side.
How do we navigate between the honest need to see the ones who hurt us for whatever reason face the consequences - but not fall into the trap of violent revenge and joy at their fall?
These are the heavy questions that rise these days as the bitter conflict rips apart not only Israel and Palestine but many many all over the world, with ancient hatreds, confusing and often manipulated facts and strong feelings. This is old stuff, and once again the old book that has planted many of these seeds, sets the stage for these strong sentiments, demanding that we question this reality and this mindset, and work hard to find a better, bolder, helpful path forward.
Nahum the prophet to whom we say goodbye today is living at a time when the empire is in charge and it is cruel and powerful. He hears in his head the sounds of war, the day on which Assyria will be over and Nineveh its capital, is brought to its knees. This is not just a political future of one empire defeated by another but also a religious war. Assyria wanted its religion to dominate all the nations that it conquered, but Nahum is joining all the other prophets who refuse to let Assyrian religion dominate both their local governments and gods.
Rev. Wilda Gafney, through her helpful Womanist angle, reminds us that:
“While not named, Ishtar, the principal deity of a Syria, and all Mesopotamia and protectress of and resident in Nineveh, lurks behind the scenes of Nahum. As Ishtar is sovereign over war and sexual desire, their Sargonoyd monarchs understood themselves to be beloved by Ishtar, and under her protection. The attack on Nineveh is an attack on Ishtar, since gods were as closely associated with their cities as they were with their temples.”
The sounds of Nineveh’s downfall are quite specific and terrifying:
ק֣וֹל שׁ֔וֹט וְק֖וֹל רַ֣עַשׁ אוֹפָ֑ן וְס֣וּס דֹּהֵ֔ר וּמֶרְכָּבָ֖ה מְרַקֵּדָֽה׃ פָּרָ֣שׁ מַעֲלֶ֗ה וְלַ֤הַב חֶ֙רֶב֙ וּבְרַ֣ק חֲנִ֔ית וְרֹ֥ב חָלָ֖ל וְכֹ֣בֶד פָּ֑גֶר וְאֵ֥ין קֵ֙צֶה֙ לַגְּוִיָּ֔ה בִּגְוִיָּתָֽם
“Crack of whip
And rattle of wheel,
Galloping steed
And bounding chariot!
׃
Charging cavalry,
Flashing swords,
And glittering spears!
Hosts of slain
And heaps of corpses,
Dead bodies without number—
They stumble over bodies.”
Nahum 3:2-3
The sounds of warfare turn to silence as the heaps of corpses fill our page.
There is nobody left to offer Nineveh any consolation:
וְהָיָ֤ה כׇל־רֹאַ֙יִךְ֙ יִדּ֣וֹד מִמֵּ֔ךְ וְאָמַר֙ שׇׁדְּדָ֣ה נִֽינְוֵ֔ה מִ֖י יָנ֣וּד לָ֑הּ מֵאַ֛יִן אֲבַקֵּ֥שׁ מְנַחֲמִ֖ים לָֽךְ׃
All who see you will recoil from you
And will say,
“Nineveh has been ravaged!”
Who will console her?
Where shall I look for
Anyone to comfort you?
Nahum 3:7
Rabbi Natasha Mann suggests that Nahum is sending here a
“dual message to the oppressed and the oppressors.
In the time of Nahum, Assyria had been the superpower of the Ancient Near East for what must have felt like forever. Unbeknownst to Nahum’s contemporaries, this power was not destined to last, and Assyria would soon crumble under its own weight and the growing power of its rivals. To Nahum’s audience, this prophecy against Assyria’s power must have felt absurd. However, Assyria did fall, and power exchanged hands as power is wont to do.
To later readers, the pronouncement against Nineveh and Assyria might feel overly specific, but behind it is a message that can be universalised. Even Assyria can fall. There is no eternal empire, Nahum tells us; true power lies only with the God of the Universe. This may not read as an uplifting message on its surface, but it is an incredible message of hope if you are Judah. To the oppressed, this says that even your oppressors can fall, no matter how all-powerful they might seem. And to those oppressors, Nahum warns against assuming that power now means power forever.”
Reading Nahum today, we know that he was right and that the empire did topple and others came after, with their own agenda and ultimate fates. Wars have not ended and corpses still pile, innocent victims of all the human needs and greeds, justified and often not. And yet as we read this long gone prophet today perhaps we can and should aspire higher, and even as we want our enemies to fail so that we prosper - teach ourselves again and again not to gloat, not to celebrate, but to console the hurting, remember our shared origin and human heart. Somehow, perhaps Ishtar, and the Shecinah and all the great goddesses trampled by patriarchal power structures are what we need now - to rise again and help us rise, to bring compassion to the passion, love to the hate, and soften the painful prophetic visions with a plea for kinder days.
Please join me on March 7, 2024, 5pm ET
for our monthly Zoom conversation Below the Bible Belt - linking the oldest book with today’s front-page news as we begin to wrap up the journey with the prophets, and prepare for the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible.
How do we reclaim, because we must, the moral voices of these prophets to help us reckon with our raw reality and begin the process of repair?
Please bring your questions, comments, responses and thoughts.
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