John Calvin Commentary Nahum 2:8

"But Nineveh hath been from of old like a pool of water: yet they flee away. Stand, stand, [they cry]; but none looketh back." — Nahum 2:8 (ASV)

The prophet here anticipates a doubt that might have weakened confidence in his words. Nineveh not only flourished in power, but it had also confirmed its strength over a long course of time. Antiquity not only adds to the strength of kingdoms but also secures their authority. Since, then, the imperial power of the city Nineveh was ancient, it might seem to have been perpetual. The doubt was: “Why!

Nineveh has always ruled and possessed the sovereign power in all the east; can it now be shaken, or can its strength now be suddenly subverted? For where there is no beginning, we cannot believe that there will be any end.” According to common opinion, it had no beginning. For we know how the Egyptians also told fables about their antiquity; they imagined their kingdom was five thousand years before the world was made. That is, in numbering their ages, they went back nearly five thousand years before creation.

The Ninevites, no doubt, boasted that they had always existed. And as they were fixed in this conceit about their antiquity, no one thought that they could ever fail. This is the reason why the Prophet expressly declares that Nineveh had been like a pool of waters from ancient days. That is, Nineveh had been, as it were, separated from the rest of the world. For where there is a pool, it seems well fortified by its own banks; no one comes into it. When one walks on the land, one does not enter the waters.

Thus, Nineveh had been in a quiet state not only for a short time but for many ages. This circumstance will not, however, prevent God from now overturning its dominion. However much, then, Nineveh took pride in the notion of its ancientness, it was still God’s purpose to destroy it.

He says then, They flee. By fleeing, he means that even though not beaten by their enemies, they would still be overcome by their own fear. He then intimates that Nineveh would not only be destroyed by slaughter, but that all the Assyrians would flee away, and despair would deliver them to their enemies. Hence, the Chaldeans would not only be victorious through their courage and the sword, but the Assyrians, distrusting their own forces, would flee away.

It afterwards follows, Stand ye, stand ye, and no one regards. Here the Prophet places, as it were, before our eyes, the effect of the dread of which he speaks. He might have given a single narrative—that even if one called them back, they would not dare to look behind, and that, thinking that safety alone was in flight, they would pursue their course. The Prophet might have formed this sort of narrative, but this he has not done. Instead, he assumes the persona of one calling back the fugitives, as though he saw them fleeing away and tried to bring them back: No one, he says, regards. We now see what the Prophet meant.

But from this passage we should learn that no trust should be placed in the number of men, nor in the defenses and strongholds of cities, nor in ancientness. For when men excel in power, God will therefore take occasion to destroy them, inasmuch as pride is almost always connected with strength.

It is almost inevitable that men arrogate too much to themselves when they think that they excel in anything. Thus it happens that, on account of their strength, they run headlong into ruin; not because God has any delight, as profane men imagine, when he turns the face of the earth upside down, but because men cannot bear their own success, nor keep themselves within moderate bounds, and many triumph against God. Hence it is that human power recoils on the head of those who possess it.

The same things must also be said of ancientness: for those who boast of their antiquity do not know for how long they have been provoking the wrath of God. For it is almost inevitable that abundance itself generates licentiousness, or at least leads to excess; and further, those who are the most powerful are the most daring in corrupting others.

Hence the increase of putridity; for men are like the dead when not ruled by the fear of God. A dead body becomes more and more fetid the longer it continues putrefying; and so it is with men. When they have been sinning for a long time, and still continue to sin, the fetidness of their sins increases, and the wrath of God is more and more provoked.

There is then no reason why ancientness should deceive us. And if, at any time, we are tempted to think that men are sufficiently fortified by their own strength, or by numerous auxiliaries, or that they are, as it were, sacred through their own ancientness, let what is said here come to our minds—that Nineveh had been like a pool of waters from the ancient days; but that, when it was given up to destruction, it fled away; and that, when their enemies did not rout them, they still, being driven by their own fear, ran away and would not stop, even though one called them to return.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as you constantly remind us in your word, and teach us by so many examples, that there is nothing permanent in this world, but that the things which seem the firmest tend to ruin, and instantly fall and of themselves vanish away, when by your breath you shake that strength in which men trust—O grant, that we, being really subdued and humbled, may not rely on earthly things, but raise up our hearts and our thoughts to heaven, and there fix the anchor of our hope; and may all our thoughts abide there, and at length, when you have led us through our course on earth, we shall be gathered into that celestial kingdom, which has been obtained for us by the blood of your only-begotten Son. Amen.