A booklet I was reading recently by a well-known theologian spent a couple of pages on each of the minor prophets from the Old Testament looking at the virtue offered by each of the prophets. In the piece about Nahum he begins by quoting from Nahum 1: 2-3

A jealous and avenging God is the Lord,
    the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
    and rages against his enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
    and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

but a gifted scholar he translates the same passage as follows:

Yahweh is a God who is passionate and takes redress, Yahweh takes redress and he is the master of wrath. Yahweh takes redress on his adversaries and he himself holds it against the people who are hostile to him. Yahweh is long-tempered but big in energy, and he certainly does not let people off.

Clearly, it seems as though Nahum focuses on not letting people off, showing a lack of compassion and mercy. However, like all things context is everything. Judah at the time were living under Assyrian oppression and so the people’s future was bleak and the possibility of them taking up arms against the Assyrians was an unlikely option . But Nahum leads the people in their trust of Yahweh and against violence. Nahum was getting people to trust that God would right these wrongs, that God would not only be compassionate but also tough. And indeed, in time it did happen. Nahum in his wiliness gets the people to recognize that they can only take comfort in the message if they apply it to themselves.

What we need, is to similarly believe in the compassion and toughness of God in the adverse circumstances we find ourselves in, by recognising that in our own lives.