Nahum 1:15

"Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Keep thy feasts, O Judah, perform thy vows; for the wicked one shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off."

This verse is similar to Isaiah 52:7 and is definitely Messianic, as indicated by "The wicked one shall no more pass through thee." "This is a reference to the "holy Jerusalem" of Joel 3:17 (See in my commentary on the minor prophets, Vol. 1, p. 64). The whole passage looks forward to the "spiritual Israel" yet in the future, in which the good tidings of peace should be proclaimed to all men.

Any good news of the fall of Nineveh would have been loudly proclaimed by those coming over the mountains and approaching Jerusalem; and it is probable that the immediate fulfillment of this prophecy occurred in just such a manner. However, the passage has overtones of something far more wonderful.

"It would serve as a type of the far more glorious spiritual deliverance of God's people from Satan by the Messiah, heralded by ministers of the gospel, Paul himself applying these words thus, "How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of the good things!" (Romans 10:15)."[23]

"Keep thy feasts, perform thy vows ..." The cultivation of God's holy and righteous religion was indicated by these commandments. If Israel would really participate in the ultimate deliverance that God will give to his people, let them not seek to do so apart from the sacred commandments God has given. It is the utmost blindness not to see these commandments given here as a form of a synecdoche for "ALL" that God had commanded his people to perform, both of ceremonial and ethical and moral qualities. To receive these words as an intimation that Nahum had no regard for anything other than the outward ceremonies of the law of Moses is no more than blindness to what is said. Fidelity to the law of God in its most comprehensive and detailed particulars is the thing Nahum commanded. The holy prophets referred to that Law sometimes as "doing righteously," and at other times as "keeping the feasts and performing the vows"; but it is the whole law that is meant in all such abbreviated references to it. One must therefore constantly guard against being misled by critical destroyers of the Word who, in the instance of Amos' stressing moral values, affirm that he repudiated the idea of sacrifice, and, in the instance of Nahum's mentioning the ceremonial requirements, accuse of him of caring nothing for the moral values. Such views are in no sense "exegesis" of the sacred text, but they are an amazing blindness to what it says and what it clearly means.