Nahum 1:5

"The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt; and the earth is upheaved at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein."

This is a continued reference to the physical disturbances of the earth's environment. "The great physical changes and convulsions in the world are tokens of God's wrath on sinful nations."[5] Deane is undoubtedly correct in this, for so all the prophets of God understood them. (See more of this in my commentary on the minor prophets, vol. 1, pp. 10,11.) Some have difficulty in appreciating this, because of the obvious fact that many physical disturbances are predictable, and all of them apparently derive from the operation of definite and orderly laws of physics; but it must be remembered that God is the author of such laws, and that upon the occasion of the primeval sin of Adam and Eve, "he cursed the ground for Adam's sake" (Genesis 3:17), that being exactly the occasion when the great Lawgiver structured the laws of man's physical dwelling place in such a manner as to produce throughout the current dispensation the very type of disasters indicated in this paragraph. It should also be remembered that God's purpose in all of this was benign. "He cursed the ground for Adam's sake," therein providing endless reminders of human sin and promptings for men to repent and turn to God. The subject is one of very great interest, making up the principal theme of the trumpet judgments of Revelation 8ff. (See my commentary on the Book of Revelation, p. 184ff.) The very environment of the sin-cursed earth is inhospitable and antagonistic to rebellious and sinful humanity. Earthquakes and volcanoes are prominent in this verse.