Nahum 1:2

God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth.

The jealous God

There is in man a selfishness that is Divine. It is a singular fact, in our moral constitution, that often the tenderest feelings of our nature should also be the most selfish. Love, even apparently in its highest moods, is sometimes also most exacting and difficult of satisfaction. I have known a mother most jealous of the departure of a daughter’s heart to its natural home and rest. When I have seen this, I have thought of the selfishness of God.

God is infinitely selfish, for we may appropriately use that term. For selfishness may be celestial, and an attribute of benevolence. We do not, indeed, think much of love that cannot, in circumstances, be jealous; such is but a cold, indifferent, impoverished affection. How can it be other than that the best natures of the universe must he most selfish? Jealousy is not necessarily an infirmity. It may be a Divine emotion.

The apostle speaks of a “godly jealousy.” No doubt all our love is |infirmity. The best, what we call the most purely unselfish, has its infirmity: I call that rove of the highest which most intensely desires the well-being of its objects! this is me selfishness of love. Jealousy is a passion that depends for its character upon the fuel that gives its flame. It is the sorrowing and pitying passion which would save, if it could, from the perdition and the doom, and unable to do so, or even seeking to do so, moves all its powers, takes all the minor emotions, faculties, and casts them into the flames of its love, bidding all blue.

This is the apostle’s “godly jealousy.” And God is jealous. Do not think of Him as beneath the influence of that passion which sometimes, as envy, spite, and malice, disturbs our rest; still think of Him as, in a lofty sense, the jealous God. There are many terms applied to Him in Scripture which seem to anthropomorphise His character. “Angry,” “repenting,” “foreseeing.” Whenever such terms are used, think of them as steps of Divine descent.

We may be sure they do represent some qualities of the Divine nature on which it is important that we should reflect, and of which we should stand in awe. The meaning of words assists to the conception of things. Jealous is the same word as zealous, and both are derived from the Greek word zeal, fire; zeal is enthusiasm--moral fire; and jealousy,--what is jealousy but love on fire? Is not this the representation we constantly have of God? I do believe in the mercy, and gentleness, and goodness of God.

I do believe that He who “knows our frame” does save His children from the alienation of eternity, even when the heart has so vehemently loved in time the children of time. But then you must take the consequences here of that too vehement love. God is jealous of sin, of all aberrations from Himself. He is jealous of love, of power, of knowledge. See how He is constantly reminding man of his weakness as He incarnates his strength; and God is constantly absorbing man’s knowledge, power, and love to Himself.

Divine love on fire, God is jealous! There is no love where there is no fire, but let it burn with the white, not with the red heat. Imagine no evil against God from this declaration of His Book. God is jealous, His love is on fire, the Holy Spirit is love on fire,--hell is love on fire. The one by gentle persuasion entreats; the other, by forcible compulsion, guards His holy ones. Thus His fire folds inward and outward; inward to bless, outward to punish--so a calm breath of holy life, a stormy fire of doom. (Paxton Hood.)

The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries.

Great sins bringing great ruin

I. That the great sins of a people must ever bring upon them great ruin. The population of Nineveh was pre-eminently wicked. It is represented in the Scriptures as a “bloody city,” a “city full of lies and robberies”; the Hebrew prophets dwell upon its impious haughtiness and ruthless fierceness (Ésaïe 10:7).

Great sins bring great ruin. It was so with the antediluvians, with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. The principle of moral causation and the Eternal Justice of the universe demand that wherever there is sin there shall be suffering, and in proportion to the amount of sin shall be the amount of suffering.

II. The great ruin that comes presents God to the “vision” of man as terribly indignant. The passions of man are here ascribed to God. It is only when terrible anguish comes upon the sinner that God appears to the observer as indignant. (Homilist.)

National punishments part of God’s moral government

I. The certainty that sin will not remain unpunished.

1. The inevitable working of natural laws secures this. Physical, social, and spiritual evils follow sin.

2. The declared character of God secures it. He is a jealous God.

II. There is no resisting the judgments of God. His power is seen in nature. The rolling whirlwind, the dark tempest, the desolating storm are symbols of His wrath and of His might.

III. Yet in wrath God remembers mercy.

1. There is a refuge for those who turn and repent.

2. No sins preclude hope.

3. Salvation is full and certain to the truly penitent.

4. Though the godly suffer trouble, they will be delivered from it. Their trials are only a discipline, if used aright. (C. Cunningham Geikie, D. D.)

God’s judgments will be fulfilled

As you stood some stormy day upon a sea cliff and marked the giant billow rise from the deep to rush on with foaming crest, and throw itself thundering on the trembling shore, did you ever fancy that you could stay its course and hurl it back to the depths of the ocean? Did you ever stand beneath the leaden, lowering cloud, and mark the lightning’s leap as it shot and flashed, and think that you could grasp the bole and change its path? Still more foolish and vain his thought who fancies that he can arrest and turn aside the purpose of God. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)