Nahum 2:2

"For Jehovah restoreth the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the emptiers have emptied them out, and destroyed their vine-branches."

Dalglish thought this referred to "the restoration of both Judah and the Ten Northern tribes, and to their restoration under a Davidic monarch."[9] However, nothing like that is in the passage. "Jacob" is used here, not Judah; and Jacob necessarily included all of Israel, northern and southern; and, besides that, it is the spiritual Israel which comes into view here, and not the fortunes of the Jewish secular state, either north or south. The excellency of Jacob will be restored in the glorious privileges of all men under the New Covenant of God in Christ. All of this is evident in the use of two different names for Israel: Jacob, which is identified with the poverty and humility of Israel at first, and Israel, meaning "Prince of God," and identified with the glories that came to him later. This verse is therefore Messianic and is similar in thought to Nahum 1:15, to which it is joined in the New English Bible and by many commentators.[10] However, such fiddling around with Biblical verses by re-grouping them is not at all necessary, and sometimes is very harmful. The verse, as it stands, is logically related to the greater drama of God's conflict with evil mentioned in the chapter introduction. The preference for connecting the verse with Nahum 1:15 was clearly stated by Blaiklock, "It is assumed that Jacob means the northern kingdom, and Israel means the southern kingdom."[11] Of course, that is an error, both words as used here having reference to the whole of Israel. As Keil accurately discerned:

"Both names stand here for the whole of Israel (of the twelve tribes); and as Cyril has shown, the distinction is this: Jacob is the natural name which the people inherited from their forefather, and Israel the spiritual name which they received from God."[12]

Therefore, it is evident that New English Bible's removing the verse and joining it in another place is not a manuscript decision, but an interpretive one; and the interpretation is wrong.

The proper interpretation of the use of two names here was cited thus by Barnes: "It means the afflicted people (Jacob) shall be restored to its utmost glory as Israel."[13] But such a promise is clearly Messianic and has nothing whatever to do with restoring the old northern kingdom, of which God had already made a summary end forever. Furthermore, before the ultimate glory indicated in this verse would appear, Judah also (the southern kingdom) would be destroyed and its people carried into captivity. Only a remnant would return; and the glory promised here would be achieved in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"For the emptiers have emptied them out ..." The great world military powers, perpetually the enemies of God, had seduced the heart of Israel (all of it); and they had rejected God and elevated a king and proceeded to build another worldly kingdom, becoming thereby themselves also enemies of God, which necessitated their being "emptied," before the true "glory of Israel" could appear. That is exactly why that emptying was mentioned here in this verse.

But Nahum would next describe prophetically the doom of Nineveh, as a judgment against the godless state, a doom that would continue to fall repeatedly throughout history upon all similar examples of the kingdom of man founded upon the rejection of God and rebellion against him. Is this pertinent now? Of course it is!