Such is the sheer religion of the Proem to the Book of Nahum—thoroughly Oriental in its sense of God’s method and resources of destruction; very Jewish, and very natural to that age of Jewish history, in the bursting of its long pent hopes of revenge. We of the West might express these hopes differently. We should not attribute so much personal passion to the Avenger. With our keener sense of law, we should emphasise the slowness of the process, and select for its illustration the forces of decay rather than those of sudden ruin. But we must remember the crashing times in which the Jews lived. The world was breaking up. The elements were loose, and all that God’s own people could hope for was the bursting of their yoke, with a little shelter in the day of trouble. The elements were loose, but amidst the blind crash the little people knew that Jehovah knew them. _A God jealous and avenging is Jehovah; Jehovah is avenger and lord of wrath; Vengeful is Jehovah towards His enemies, And implacable He to His foes._ _Jehovah is long-suffering and great in might,[239] Yet He will not absolve. Jehovah! His way is in storm and in hurricane, And clouds are the dust of His feet.[240] He curbeth the sea, and drieth it up; All the streams hath He parched. Withered[241] be Bashan and Carmel; The bloom of Lebānon is withered. Mountains have quaked before Him, And the hills have rolled down. Earth heaved at His presence, The world and all its inhabitants. Before His rage who may stand, Or who abide in the glow of His anger? His wrath pours forth like fire, And rocks are rent before Him._ _Good is Jehovah to them that wait upon Him in the day of trouble,[242] And He knoweth them that trust Him. With an overwhelming flood He makes an end of His rebels, And His foes He comes down on[243] with darkness._ _What think ye of Jehovah? He is one that makes utter destruction; Not twice need trouble arise. For though they be like plaited thorns, And sodden as ...,[244] They shall be consumed like dry stubble._ _Came there not[245] out of thee one to plan evil against Jehovah, A counsellor of mischief?[246]_ _Thus saith Jehovah, ... many waters,[247] yet shall they be cut off and pass away, and I will so humble thee that I need humble thee[248] no more;[249] and Jehovah hath ordered concerning thee, that no more of thy seed be sown: from the house of thy God, I will cut off graven and molten image. I will make thy sepulchre_ ...[250] Disentangled from the above verses are three which plainly refer not to Assyria but to Judah. How they came to be woven among the others we cannot tell. Some of them appear applicable to the days of Josiah after the great Reform.