Hard to pick out one section of Nahum to focus on – it’s all prophecy about the overthrow of Nineveh who, as Jonah suspected, didn’t change their ways for very long after he preached to them with such success (approx 150 years earlier).
It’s hard to tell, reading an English translation of the original words, but it seems as though Nahum enjoyed playing with words and language. I picked this section because I love the shift from the soft, gentle, loving words about God’s goodness to the fury of the ‘overwhelming flood’.
I’m not sure what the ‘take home’ point is for us today – good is a good of justice and he will repay the wicked with the same measure they use/d to mete out wickedness, maybe.
Maybe God just included it because, although it has the same message as many other passages of the Bible, it says it in a powerfully creative way and he just enjoyed the use of the language. Who knows?
Here’s another fun bit – it sounds like performance poetry, though I imagine the Ninevites didn’t enjoy it quite so much!