Verse 15
This is the first verse of chapter 2 in the Hebrew Bible. It is a janus, a transition that looks back to what precedes and forward to what follows.
Nahum called his audience to give attention. Someone was coming over the mountains with a message of peace. Consequently the people of Judah could celebrate their feasts; they had a future. They should pay their vows to the Lord because He had answered their prayers. The wicked Assyrians would never again pass through their land, as they had done in the past. The message was that they had been cut off, like a piece of a garment, and so would be no threat in the future. The prophet spoke as if Nineveh had already fallen and a messenger had just arrived with the news. The same statement appears in Isaiah 52:7, where the messenger announces the defeat of Babylon.
"So complete was its [Nineveh’s] destruction that when Xenophon passed by the site about 200 years later, he thought the mounds were the ruins of some other city. And Alexander the Great, fighting in a battle nearby, did not realize that he was near the ruins of Nineveh." [Note: Elliott E. Johnson, "Nahum," in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, p. 1499.]
The Apostle Paul quoted the first part of this verse in Romans 10:15 in reference to those messengers who bring similar good news, namely, the gospel.
"The message is one of peace, a peace from external oppression and a new kind of peace with the God who is the giver of all life." [Note: Peter C. Craigie, Twelve Prophets, 2:67.]
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