Albert Barnes Commentary Nahum 1:7

"Jehovah is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that take refuge in him." — Nahum 1:7 (ASV)

The Lord is good: a stronghold in the day of trouble - “Good and doing good,” and full of sweetness; alike good and mighty; good in giving Himself and imparting His goodness to His own; indeed, none is good, save God (Luke 18:19); Himself the stronghold in which His own may take refuge, both in the troubles of this life, in which He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able (1 Corinthians 10:13), and in that Day, which will hem them in on every side and leave no place of escape except Himself.

And He knows them that trust in Him - So as to save them, just as Rahab was saved when Jericho perished, Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, and Hezekiah from the host of Sennacherib.

He knows them with an individual, ever-present knowledge. He says not only, “He will own them,” but He ever “knows them.”

So it is said: The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous (Psalms 1:6); The Lord knoweth the days of the upright (Psalms 37:18); and our Lord says, I know My sheep (John 10:14, 27); and Paul, The Lord knoweth them that are His (2 Timothy 2:19).

God speaks of this knowledge also in the past, of His knowledge when things did not yet exist, I have known thee by name; or of loving-kindness in the past, I knew thee in the wilderness (Hosea 13:5), you alone have I known of all the families of the earth (Amos 3:2).

Conversely, our Lord says that He will say to the wicked in the Great Day, I never knew you (Matthew 7:23).

That God, being what He is, should take knowledge of us, being what we are, is such wondrous condescension that it involves a purpose of love, indeed, His love toward us, as the Psalmist says admiringly, Lord, what is man that Thou takest knowledge of him? (Psalms 144:3).

Them that trust in Him - It is a habit that has this reward: “the trusters in Him,” “the takers of refuge in Him.” It is a continued, unvarying trust, to which is shown this ever-present love and knowledge.

Yet this gleam of comfort only reveals the darkness of the wicked. Since those who trust God are they whom God knows, it follows that the rest He does not know. On this opening, which sets forth the attributes of God toward those who defy Him and those who trust in Him, the specific application to Nineveh follows.