NAHUM CHAPTER 1 - 3

THE BOOK OF NAHUM

The seventh minor prophet came to write
In seventh century of You and spite.
The slot is filled by Musa l-Kadhim too,
The seventh Imam in the Shi’ite view.
The name means comfort, and if comfort’s due
From absolute in vengeance on the ones
Who were forgiven once, then in their tons
Apostatized, good name for prophet’s stew.
Beloved, I hear the cadence of the verse
Call down on Nineveh the judgement’s curse,
I hear the call at last of grace bestowed
On remnant faithful in a higher ode.
And so I take the double message load
Knowing that in the end I could do worse.

NAHUM 1

Nineveh’s burden, and the book
Of Nahum the Elkoshite’s look.
2 El’s jealous, YHWH revenges; YHWH
Revenges with fury undue;
YHWH will take vengeance on His foes,
From reserves for enemies’ woes.
3 YHWH’s slow to anger, great in power,
He’ll not acquit in just an hour;
YHWH has ways in whirlwind and storm,
The clouds are His feet’s dust in bourne.
4 He rebukes the sea, makes it dry,
He dried up all the rivers nigh;
Bashan languishes and Carmel,
The blossom of Lebanon fell.
5 The mountains tremble at His sight,
The hills melt and the earth with might
Is burned from before His face, yea,
The world all that in it stay.
6 Who can remain before His wrath?
Who abide His anger’s fierce path?
His fury’s poured out like the fire,
The rocks thrown down before His ire.
7 YHWH’s good, a strong hold in the day
Of trouble, and He knows the way
Of those confiding in His sway.
8 But with an overrunning flood
He will make utter end of stud,
And darkness shall pursue His foes.

The first Psalm’s quoted almost in the term
Of Your knowing the way that those affirm
Who set their confidence in Your great power,
The goodness that You show from hour to hour.
The two ways there too form the watershed
Between the righteous path and that one spread
Out for destruction. In the running flood
A contrast appears with the Psalm for mud.
Beloved, the fierce wrath is a thing indeed
That Nahum is so vivid I must heed.
The mountains tremble, and the hills are made
To skip about as if they were dismayed.
The thunder is Your voice Sinai displayed,
And that is what I hear in all my greed.

9 What do we devise against YHWH?
An end He makes, never in view
Shall rise again affliction’s stew.
10 For while they enclose as the thorns,
And while they’re drunk and drunkards’ horns,
They’ll be consumed like dry straw goes.
11 Out of you shall come a device
Against YHWH in counsel of vice.
12 So says YHWH: “Though complete in all,
Still they’ve been cut off at the fall,
And he shall pass away in thrall.
Though I’ve afflicted you, Now I
Shall never more afflict your eye.
13 “And now I break his rod from you,
And your bands I draw off from view.
14 “And YHWH has given a command
Regarding you, no more in land
Shall your name be sown, from the house
Of your gods I will cut and douse
The graven image, molten too:
I’ll make a grave for your vile crew.”
15 See on the mountains the feet of
One bringing good news from above,
To declare peace, O Judah and
To keep you solemn feasts at hand,
Perform your vows, for evil man
Shall no more pass through you in span,
He’s utterly cut off from plan.

I’ve come to expect You to rage in ire
Against idolatry and such desire,
But rarely do You rage against the drunk
Laid out or stumbling past when in a funk.
Let every priest that blesses wine take heed,
And every soul that drinks his staff with greed,
For Nahum’s word apply to sacrifice
To trinities of gods as to the nice
Sweet wine that represents their blood in trice.
The tinkling of the bell comes to blaspheme
The prophecy of Nahum and his dream.
Declare Your peace, Beloved, declare Islam
Without a qualm, in calm, more soothing balm,
And richer at the core than it may seem.

NAHUM 2

1 He who scatters comes up before
Your face, so man the fort! What’s more
Keep watch upon the road! Make strong
The flanks! And fortify along
Your forces mightily. 2 For YHWH
Will restore Jacob’s excellence,
Like Israel’s fineness He shall do,
For those who empty have cast hence
And ruined the branches of their vine.
3 The shields of his mighty men fine
Are made red, and the valiant men
Are dressed in scarlet, chariots then
With flaming torches in the day
Of his preparing, and betray
Spears brandished, 4 And the chariots rage
In the streets, jostle and engage
In the broad roads, they seem like flames,
They run like lightning in their games.
5 He minds his nobles, in their walk
They stumble, make haste to her stalk
And walls, so the defence prepares.
6 The gates of the rivers and stairs
Are opened, the palace dissolved.
7 It is decreed and is resolved:
Captive she shall be led away,
She shall be brought up in that day,
And her maidservants shall lead her
As with the voice of doves aver,
Beating their breasts. 8 Though Nineveh
Of old was like a pool to stay
Of water, now they flee away.
“Halt! Halt!” they cry, but none turns back.
9 Take spoil of silver bric-a-brac!
Take spoil of gold! There is no end
Of treasure or wealth to expend,
Muhammad’s instruments in all.
10 She’s empty, desolate, and waste!
The heart melts, knees shake at the call,
Much pain’s on every side, and all
Their faces are colour of paste.

Through generations Israel’s folk remained
Desirous of the coming one, sustained
That hope through enemy attack, defeat,
But when wealth and pride overwhelmed conceit,
The prophet lays their fond gropes in the dust.
The treasure has become a spoil that must
Be given to another. Yet the hope
Once wrenched away by grasping interlope
Becomes the prey of all the populace
Of earth dressed in woollen or silken lace.
The fortress gates are broken down and free,
The king’s riches are scattered on the lee,
And You, Beloved, proclaimed to son and all
One and alone, and by Muhammad’s call.

11 Where is the dwelling place of lions,
The feeding place of the young lions,
Where the old lion walks and where
The lion cup comes in to share
Without fearing from anywhere?
12 The lion tears in pieces what
Its whelp must eat until the glut,
Strangled for his mates, and he fills
His holes with prey, his den with kills.
13 “See, I am against you,” says YHWH
Of hosts, “and I will burn her chariots too
In smoke, and the sword shall devour
Your young lions, and in an hour
I’ll cut of your prey from the earth,
And the voice of sent ones from berth
Shall no more be heard in their dearth.”

The lion was the symbol of the power
Assyrians wielded in the world an hour.
But Nahum uses it to cast a spell
Of scorn upon the land and every swell.
The lion of Judah is also known,
And Ali is a lion before the throne
Divine. Who knows how far back symbols go,
And who the first one was who came to show
The lion’s deck. Beloved, I’ve seen the row
Of symbols, eagles, bears, and even one
Called donkey for his place under the sun.
But of all symbols of Your strength and might,
I find not one that remains my delight.
I shed all signs and strive to find the own.

NAHUM 3

1 A plague upon that blood-filled town!
It’s all full of lies for renown
And robbery. Its victim sits.
2 The noise of a whip from the pits,
And noise of rattling wheels in fits,
Of horses galloping along,
Of chariots clattering to wrong!
3 Horsemen charge with the glint of sword
And sparkling spear of one adored.
Pile upon pile of dead men killed,
A mountain made of corpses filled,
The tanks grind to a halt and stand,
And cannot drive across the land.
4 It’s all because the fornication
Of the seducing whores in nation,
The madame and her sorceries,
Who sells nations through harlotries,
And families through sorceries.
5 “Indeed, I am against you here,”
Says YHWH of armies, “Without fear
I’ll lift your skirts over your face,
I’ll show the nations your disgrace
Of nakedness, people your shame.
6 “I’ll throw abomination’s filth
Upon you, and make vile your tilth,
Make you a spectacle for blame.
7 “All who see you will run away
From you, and all of them will say,
‘Nineveh’s laid to waste! And who
Will come to weep her due?’
Where shall I seek mourners for you?”

If I used Nahum’s own vocabulary
I’d be met by the next constabulary.
I’ve always said the Lutheran state kept
A ritual striptease as part unswept
Of the faith and religion. That is seen
By the fact that such houses red and green
Are closed during the Sunday service while
They open for the sight and for the guile
When priests are off their tender. That may be
To give the priests a chance to join the spree.
Beloved, I volunteer to mourn the fate
Of Nineveh as well as Nordic state,
And weep that You are off the stage and out
Of heart and mind though You may give a shout.

8 Are you better than Ammon’s No,
That dwelling among brooks that go?
Waters she’s got around here there,
Whose shield’s the sea, waters wall’s share.
9 Ethiopia and Egypt stand
Her strength, and it indeed was grand;
Put and Lubim helpers at hand.
10 And still she was carried away,
She went into the captive way;
Her young offspring were dashed to death
In all the chief streets’ shibboleth;
They cast lots for her honoured men,
Her great ones all in chains again.
11 You’ll also be drunk, you shall hide,
You shall look for strength to abide
Because of the foe at your side.

All cities fall one day, it is the rule
That history teaches in every school.
Exception is the city now that reigns:
It only is eternal with its fanes.
The human myth in fine illusion brings
The merry shoppers with necklace and rings,
With bobs piercing the tongue and naval where
The wobble shows the wearer does not care.
Beloved, there are no honoured men around
To cast lots for, they’re all struck to the ground
And gassed and burnt and scattered on the air
To fall on land and sea and every stair.
Great ones in chains are never seen today,
But only drunken, not hiding away.

12 All your forts like fig trees that bear
The first-ripe figs; if shaken there
They fall onto the eater’s tongue.
13 See, your folk in your midst are strung
Like women; the gates of your land
Shall be set wide open to stand
Before your enemies; the fire
Shall consume your bars in its ire.
14 Draw water for the siege, make strong
Your forts, go into the clay long
And tread the mortar, make the blocks
In the brick kiln and fill the stocks.
15 There to consume you is the fire;
For cutting you the sword of ire,
It shall consume you like the worm,
Make yourself heavy as the firm
Cankerworm, heavy in the pyre
Before the locust of desire.
16 You’ve multiplied your merchantmen
Above the stars of the sky’s ken;
The cankerworm comes in to spoil,
Then flies away before the toil.
17 Your guards are like the locusts come,
Your captains like grasshoppers hum,
That camp in hedges from the cold,
But when the sun comes up as bold
They flee away, and their place told
Is not known at all in the fold.
18 Your shepherds slumber, O king of
Assyria, your nobles shove,
Your folk is gone and scatter on
The mountains where no man is drawn.
19 There is no healing of your bruise,
You wound is sore, all those who use
To hear your noise shall clap their hands
In glee to celebrate your bands,
For who has not suffered beneath
Your biding wickedness in wreath?

The fig tree is always the one to curse.
Even sweet Jesus found it was the worse
And struck it with a spell to wither where
No hidden streams appear to give its share.
My own granddad planted some fig trees too,
And they bore some fruit before he joined crew
Of buried resting ones at the curfew.
I know the taste of figs, I taste with care.
Beloved, if Nineveh casts out her own
Like figs into the mouth to fall like stone
Behind the teeth of raging eater, I
Also open my mouth wide for a try.
Maybe a benefit of treats will fly
Into my gullet from the craven throne.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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