Nahum 1:5 - Exposition

The mountains quake. The mountains, the very emblems of stability, tremble before him (Adios 8:8). The hills melt; οἱ βουνοὶ ἐσαλεύθησαν , "The hills were shaken". The hills dissolve like wax or anew at his presence (see Amos 4:13 ; Micah 1:4 ). Burned ; Septuagint, ἀνεστάλη , "recoils," "is upheaved," as by an earthquake. This rendering has the greatest authority. The world; i.e. the habitable world, and all living creatures therein ( Joel 1:18-20 ). Nature animate and inanimate is represented as actuated by the terror of conscious guilt.