Footnotes

1. Nahum 1:1 Elkosh was probably a place in Judea. This verse tells us what the subject of the Book is to be.
2. Nahum 1:1 The faith of Israel judges these events differently from the way secular historians do through the sudden leaps of history; it is the project of salvation of God that is accomplished: it is he who destroys Nineveh. Thus, before describing the unfolding of facts, the Book raises this drama to the level of a great manifestation of God, who brings back order and justice into the universe of men.
3. Nahum 1:1 One must let himself be carried away by the force of this triumphal psalm, which proclaims the victory of the All-Powerful whom no one can resist. Nevertheless, this terrible God leans toward the wicked.
4. Nahum 1:2 Elkosh was probably a place in Judea. This verse tells us what the subject of the Book is to be.
5. Nahum 1:2 The faith of Israel judges these events differently from the way secular historians do through the sudden leaps of history; it is the project of salvation of God that is accomplished: it is he who destroys Nineveh. Thus, before describing the unfolding of facts, the Book raises this drama to the level of a great manifestation of God, who brings back order and justice into the universe of men.
6. Nahum 1:2 One must let himself be carried away by the force of this triumphal psalm, which proclaims the victory of the All-Powerful whom no one can resist. Nevertheless, this terrible God leans toward the wicked.
7. Nahum 1:4 The places named were places of classic opulence.
8. Nahum 1:9 Master of the world, the Lord is also Master of history. He acts as the arbitrator of his oppressed people and Assyria, which incarnates the powers of evil: the first shall be liberated and the second shall be destroyed. Belial (“is worth nothing”), a term of scorn often assigned to an infernal power, fits very well upon Sennacherib, of sinister memory (see 2 Ki 18:19). If the God of the Bible appears to us often as one of chastisement, he is first of all the God of liberation.