John Calvin Commentary Nahum 1:10

"For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly as dry stubble." — Nahum 1:10 (ASV)

He continues with this same subject: that God, when He chooses to exercise His power, can, with no difficulty, consume His enemies. For the comparison, which is added here, means this: that nothing is safe from God’s vengeance, because by "entangled thorns" he understands things difficult to handle.

When thorns are entangled, we dare not touch even their outermost parts with our fingertips; for wherever we put our hands, thorns meet and prick us. Just as pricking from entangled thorns makes us afraid, so none of us dare to come near them.

Hence the Prophet says, they who are as entangled thorns; that is, “However thorny you may be, however full of poison, full of fury, full of wickedness, full of frauds, full of cruelty, you may be, still the Lord can with one fire consume you, and consume you without any difficulty.” They were then as entangled thorns.

And then, as drunken by their own drinking. If we read it this way, the meaning is: God or God’s wrath will come upon you as on drunken men, who, though they exult in their own intemperance, are yet weakened, and are not fit for fighting, for they have weakened their strength by excessive drinking.

There seems indeed to be much vigor in a drunken man, for he swaggers immoderately and foams out much rage; yet he may be cast down by a finger, and even a child can easily overcome a drunken person. It is therefore an apt analogy: that God would handle the Assyrians as drunken men are usually handled. For the more audacity there is in drunken men, the easier they are subdued; for as they perceive no danger, and are, as it were, stupefied, so they run headlong with greater impetuosity.

“In like manner,” he says, “extreme excess will be the cause of your ruin, when I shall attack you. You are indeed very violent; but all this your fury is altogether drunkenness: Come,” he says, “to you shall the vengeance of God as to those drunken with their own drinking.”

Some translate the last words, “To the drunken according to their drinking;” and this sense also is acceptable. But as the Prophet’s meaning is still the same, I do not contend about words.

Others indeed give the Prophet’s words a different sense, but I have no doubt that he here derides that haughtiness by which the Assyrians were puffed up, and compares it to drunkenness. It is as though he said, “You are indeed more than sufficiently inflated, and therefore all tremble at your strength; but this your excess rather debilitates and weakens your powers.

When God then shall undertake to destroy you as drunken men, your insolence will be of no use to you. On the contrary, it will be the cause of your ruin, as you willingly offer yourselves; and the Lord will easily cast you down, just as when one, by pushing a drunken man, immediately throws him to the ground.”

And these comparisons should be carefully observed by us: for when there seems to be no probability of our enemies being destroyed, God can with one spark easily consume them.

How so? For just as fire consumes thorns entangled together, which no one dares to touch, so God can with one spark destroy all the wicked, however united they may be.

And the other comparison also offers us no small consolation. For when our enemies are insolent, and utter boastful words, and seem to frighten and to shake the whole world with their threats, their excess is like drunkenness; there is no strength within; they are frantic but not strong, as is the case with all drunken men.

And he says, They shall be devoured as stubble of full dryness. The word מלא (mela) means not only to be full, but also to be perfect or complete. Others translate the words, “As stubble full of dryness,” but the sense is the same.

He therefore implies that there would be nothing to prevent God from consuming the enemies of His Church; for He would dry up their entire vigor, so that they would be no different from stubble, and that very dry stubble, which is so dry that it will easily catch fire.