Albert Barnes Commentary Nahum 1:2

"Jehovah is a jealous God and avengeth; Jehovah avengeth and is full of wrath; Jehovah taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth [wrath] for his enemies." — Nahum 1:2 (ASV)

God is jealous and the Lord avenges - Rather (as the English margin notes) God “very jealous and avenging is the Lord.” The Name of God, יהוה (YHVH), “He who Is,” the Unchangeable, is repeated three times, and three times it is said of Him that He is an Avenger. This shows both the certainty and greatness of the vengeance, and that He who inflicts it is the All-Holy Trinity, who care for the elect. God’s jealousy is twofold. It is an intense love, not tolerating imperfections or unfaithfulness in that which He loves, and so chastening it; or not tolerating the evil actions of those who would injure what He loves, and so destroying them.

To Israel He had revealed Himself as “a jealous God, visiting iniquity but showing mercy” (Exodus 20:5–6); here, as jealous for His people against those who were purely His enemies and the enemies of His people , and so His jealousy burns for their destruction, in that there is in them no good to be refined, but only evil to be consumed.

The titles of God rise in awe: first, “intensely jealous” and “an Avenger;” then, “an Avenger and a Lord of wrath.” He is One who has this wrath laid up with Him, at His command, and it is all the more terrible because it is so. He is the Master of it (not, like humans, mastered by it), possessing it to withhold or to discharge; yet He discharges it at last all the more irrevocably on the finally impenitent. And this He says at the last, “an Avenger to His adversaries” (literally, “those who hem Him in and confine Him”).

The word “avenged” is almost exclusively applied to God in the Old Testament, referring to punishment which He inflicts, or at least causes to be inflicted. This applies whether on individuals (Genesis 4:15, Genesis 4:24; 1 Samuel 24:12; 2 Samuel 4:8; 2 Kings 9:7; Jeremiah 11:20, Jeremiah 15:15, Jeremiah 20:12), or upon a people—either His own (Leviticus 26:25; Psalms 99:8; Ezekiel 24:8) or their enemies (Deuteronomy 32:41, Deuteronomy 32:43; Psalms 18:48; Isaiah 34:8, Isaiah 35:4, Isaiah 47:3, Isaiah 59:17, Isaiah 61:2, Isaiah 63:4; Micah 5:14; Jeremiah 46:10, Jeremiah 50:15, Jeremiah 50:28, Jeremiah 51:6, Jeremiah 51:11, Jeremiah 51:36; Ezekiel 25:14, Ezekiel 25:17)—for their misdeeds.

In humans, however, vengeance is generally a defect.

Personal vengeance is mentioned only in connection with characters who are directly or indirectly censured, such as Samson (Judges 15:7, Judges 16:20) or Saul. It is forbidden to humans and punished in them; God claims it as His own inalienable right. “Vengeance is Mine and requital” (Deuteronomy 32:35, compare to Psalms 94:1). “You shall not avenge nor keep up against the children of My people” (Leviticus 19:18). Yet God’s vengeance is spoken of, not as a mere act of God, but as the expression of His Being: “Shall not My soul be avenged of such a nation as this?” (Jeremiah 5:9, Jeremiah 5:29; Jeremiah 9:9).

And One who reserves wrath for His enemies - This refers to the hardened and unbelieving who hate God and, at last, when they have finally rejected God and are rejected by Him, become the object of His aversion. It is spoken in human terms, yet is therefore all the more terrible. There is that in God to which human passions correspond; they are a false imitation of something which in Him is good, a distortion of the true likeness of God in which He created us and which humanity by sin defaced:

“Pride imitates exaltedness, whereas You alone are God exalted over all. Ambition, what does it seek but honors and glory? Whereas You alone are to be honored above all and glorious forevermore. The cruelty of the great desires to be feared; but who is to be feared but God alone, from whose power what can be taken by force or withdrawn, when, or where, or to what place, or by whom? The tendernesses of the promiscuous desire to be counted as love; yet nothing is more tender than Your charity, nor is anything loved more healthfully than Your truth, bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity simulates a desire for knowledge, whereas You supremely know all. Indeed, ignorance and foolishness itself is cloaked under the name of simplicity and harmlessness, because nothing is found more simple than You; and what is less injurious, since it is their own works which injure the sinner?

Indeed, sloth desires to be at rest; but what stable rest is there apart from the Lord? Luxury tries to be called plenty and abundance; but You are the fullness and never-failing abundance of incorruptible pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality; but You are the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many things; and You possess all things. Envy disputes for excellence: what is more excellent than You? Anger seeks revenge: who avenges more justly than You? Fear startles at unaccustomed or sudden things which endanger beloved things, and takes forethought for their safety; but to You what is unaccustomed or sudden, or who separates from You what You love? Or where but with You is unshaken safety? Grief pines away for things lost, the delight of its desires, because it would have nothing taken from it, as nothing can be from You. Thus the soul seeks outside You what it does not find pure and untainted, until it returns to You. Thus, all pervertedly imitate You—those who distance themselves far from You and lift themselves up against You.

But even by imitating You in this way, they imply that You are the Creator of all nature, from which there is no place where one can altogether retire from You.”

And so, in humans, the same qualities are good or bad depending on whether they have God or self as their end:

“The joy of the world is a passion. Joy in the Holy Spirit, or to rejoice in the Lord, is a virtue. The sorrow of the world is a passion. The sorrow according to God which produces salvation is a virtue. The fear of the world which has torment, from which a person is called fearful, is a passion. The holy fear of the Lord, which endures forever, from which a person is called reverential, is a virtue. The hope of the world, when one’s hope is in the world or in the princes of the world, is a passion. Hope in God is a virtue, as are faith and charity. Though these four human passions are not in God, there are four virtues, having the same names, which no one can have except from God, from the Spirit of God.”

In humans, these are “passions” because humans are to that extent “passive” and suffer under them; and, through original sin, cannot prevent having them, though by God’s grace they may control them.

God, without passion and in perfect holiness, has qualities that in humans would be jealousy, wrath, vengeance, unforgiveness—a “rigor of perfect justice toward the impenitent, which punishes so severely, as though God had fury.” Only, in Him it is righteous to punish human unrighteousness. Elsewhere it is said, “God does not keep forever” (Psalms 103:9), or it is asked, “Will He keep forever?” (Jeremiah 3:5). And He answers, “Return, and I will not cause My anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, I will not keep forever” (Jeremiah 3:12).

A person’s misdeeds and God’s displeasure remain with God, to be erased upon that person’s repentance, or, as Scripture says, “by his hardness and impenitent heart a person treasures up for himself wrath for the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will reward each according to his works” (Romans 2:5–6).