Hank Smith: 00:00:01 Welcome to followHIM, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I’m Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:00:15 As together, we follow Him.

Hank Smith: 00:00:20 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith and I am your host. And I am here with my everlasting co-host, John Bytheway. John, I was reading out of the Come Follow Me Manual and it said this week’s lesson is called His Ways Are Everlasting. And guess who popped into my head? Everlasting, John Bytheway.

John Bytheway: 00:00:43 That’s the best old-age joke you’ve ever made about me.

Hank Smith: 00:00:47 It’s a compliment about how everlasting you are. I don’t know if I’ve ever told the story about when I first saw John Bytheway. I was 12 years old, you were speaking at a BYU Youth conference.

John Bytheway: 00:00:58 Wow.

Hank Smith: 00:00:58 I still remember it. I was over on your left hand side. It was a great moment, it was a great deal. If you would’ve told me, “Man, one day you are going to do a podcast with John Bytheway, I would’ve said, “Wow, what is a podcast?” Right?

John Bytheway: 00:01:13 What’s a podcast? Exactly. I knew that was coming.

Hank Smith: 00:01:19 Anyway, John, this week we are in Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. And when I read where we were going to be this week, I thought, “We need a Bible scholar.” And we have one. Who is with us today?

John Bytheway: 00:01:34 We do. I’m so excited for everyone to meet Dr. Joshua M. Matson. He’s a scholar of the Bible and we’re going to talk about this, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Hank Smith: 00:01:43 Great.

John Bytheway: 00:01:45 He’s a religious educator with seminaries and institutes of religion, he’s at Bingham Seminary right now. Josh received a Bachelor of Arts degree from BYU with University honors in Ancient Near Eastern studies, a master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Trinity Western University, and a PhD in religion from Florida State University. That’s where Robert Millet got his PhD, I believe. While completing his dissertation on the minor prophets in the late second temple period, Josh was a researcher with the Scripta Qumranica Electronica projectica. No, project. At the University of Haifa. And an Orion Center scholar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

  00:02:28 These qualifications are just awesome. Josh is married to the former Erin Barnes and is the father of Lydia, Emma, Brigham, and Jacob. I’m very excited for everybody to get acquainted with Dr. Matson. And I’m excited personally to see how the Dead Sea Scrolls can relate to these books we’re looking at today. Welcome, Dr. Matson. Thanks for being with us.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:02:50 Thanks for having me.

Hank Smith: 00:02:51 I’ve known Josh for a couple of years, John, and he is energetic, he’s fun, he’s kind, he’s everything you’d hope he’d be. And he’s brilliant. How do you want to go about this? These are books that I would guess most of our listeners are not very familiar with. In fact, when my sons were learning the song of the books of the Old Testament, when it says Jonah, Micah, they wanted to say Nahah because it just seems to fit.

John Bytheway: 00:03:17 Jonah, Micah, Nahah?

Hank Smith: 00:03:18 Yeah. And then they said, Nahum? Who’s Nahum? I was like, “Well, I’ll tell you in a couple weeks after I interview Josh.” So how do you want to go about this, Josh, with these three books?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:03:29 I mean, the interesting part about these being grouped together is they’re part of this larger collection that we call the minor prophets. I joked with my wife when I got your message to come on, I said, “I think the only reason that I got the phone call was because I’m one of three people that actually study the minor prophets and the other two have retired. I’m just kind of filling in.” These minor prophets, I think of a story. We had a rabbi visit us once at BYU and asked all of our class this question, “What’s the difference between a major prophet and a minor prophet?” And I’ll never forget that I was a little too ambitious and I raised my hand and gave some convoluted statement. And the rabbi looked at me and said, “You could not be more incorrect. The only difference is the length of the books, but these prophets are just as much prophets as Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel that we’re familiar with. The only difference is we only have a small portion of what they taught.”

  00:04:28 Having the opportunity to be able to delve into them, especially this section. We’ve got three books right in a row that are three chapters each, it’s a chapter a day and a little bit more, and you can get through it in a week. And you can see the whole breadth of what these prophets are teaching, but I think there’s something instructive in following the order in which the texts are preserved, so I’m totally fine to start with Nahum and work our way through Habakkuk and Zephaniah. No, they’re not the three plagues of the apocalypse, John, sorry. I wondered that myself too.

John Bytheway: 00:04:59 Hey, I’ve always had a question when I’ve seen this because we all are familiar with one of the places in Lehi’s journey was when Ishmael died, buried in a place which was called Nahom. And I know there’s lots of different spellings and things. Does it mean the same thing that we’ve learned kind of a place of consolation or mourning or something, his name?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:05:21 Yeah, absolutely. So again, in Hebrew, one of the things that we see is we don’t have vowels in the ancient text, the only thing that we’re looking at is the consonants. And here we get that N-H-M, which it’s the root for this idea of showing consolation or being compassionate. You’re exactly right, that same word that we see in the Book of Mormon and that we draw some great lessons with the passing of Ishmael, we can say the same thing though, although it is kind of confusing for those who have already read Nahum, you might say, “I don’t see anything consoling or compassionate about this text. This text seems to be misnamed.”

John Bytheway: 00:05:59 Yeah.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:06:00 One of the hopes today I hope, as we explore this together, is that we can show that there is actually a message of compassion and consoling in a text that otherwise seems very dismal and destructive.

Hank Smith: 00:06:12 I was actually reading in the manual and it said in dreadful detail, these three prophets foretold the downfall of cities that at that time seemed strong and powerful, Nineveh, Babylon, and Jerusalem. That was thousands of years ago. Why is it valuable to read these prophecies today? So what do you think, Josh? Why is it valuable to read these prophecies today?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:06:34 These are three texts that among the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient Jewish texts that date from the second century BC to the first century AD, these are three texts that we actually found commentaries for. There’s ancient Jewish people who found these texts to be of enough value that they wrote commentaries on each of these three books. One of them, Habakkuk, that we’ll talk about here in a little bit, is actually one of the crown jewels of the Dead Sea Scrolls because it’s one of the most complete scrolls that we have. And so we get this great insight into how the Jewish community, 400 or 500 years after the text is being written, is interpreting the text for their day.

  00:07:18 And what I think that tells me in answer to your question, Hank, is that this is a text that wasn’t just intended for Nineveh, and Babylon, and Jerusalem, but that these were warnings to modern day cities, we could attribute them to great cities in our own day. But even more so than that, they’re warnings to each and every one of us that if we try to set ourselves up in opposition to God, then we will be destroyed spiritually in the same manner that they were.

Hank Smith: 00:07:50 Awesome. I think we would be remiss, since we have an expert here, if I’m a Latter-day Saint and I hear you say Dead Sea Scrolls, and I’ve definitely heard the name before and I’ve definitely nodded when people have said, “Oh, it’s in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” And I’ve nodded, “Oh yeah, of course it is,” but I really don’t know what you’re talking about, could you tell me like I’m five years old, what the Dead Sea Scrolls are so all of our listeners can be informed?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:08:14 Absolutely. So the Dead Sea Scrolls, interestingly enough have been quoted in General Conference. In the April 2006, General Conference, President Dallin H. Oaks actually referred to the Dead Sea Scrolls as one way in which God is going to reveal more scripture in our day. That statement from President Oaks actually is what interested me in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I went straight from that priesthood session to the local Deseret Book and bought the only book they had on the Dead Sea Scrolls on the shelves. I bought that book and read through it. And the synopsis in that book, and as I would say now, is The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Jewish texts that are written by ancient Jewish communities that give us an insight into what Judaism looked like in the days of Jesus Christ, starting at about 150 BC up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

  00:09:04 These texts tell us about how scripture was written, how they interpreted scripture, and also a collection of texts that told us how their community sought to live their faith. They’re very Jewish texts and about 40% of them are biblical in orientation, they’re biblical texts, so what we have in our Old Testament. Another 30% are texts about the Bible and about people in the Bible, so it’s kind of expanding our view of what the Bible has to say, including these commentaries on Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. And then another 30% that tell us just about their life. We get receipts, and records, and discussions about how the community is organized. So it’s almost this lens into the ancient Jewish world that the Savior was a part of.

John Bytheway: 00:09:53 I think we’ve heard before, it included like every book in the Old Testament. Is it except for Esther?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:09:59 Yeah, except Esther and Nehemiah. Nehemiah, they usually work around because Nehemiah and Ezra usually circulated in ancient times as one text. We have the Ezra text, but we don’t have any Nehemiah text. And we don’t have Esther, and there’s a plethora of opinions about why that’s the case, whether it’s the name of God is never used in The Book of Esther, or that Esther’s following a different calendar than the regular Jewish communities, and would then have holidays landing on the Sabbath, which was a big no-no. There’s a number of reasons that scholars have tried to postulate why Esther’s not there, but you’re exactly right, John, that every text except Nehemiah and Esther, we have at least an attestation of the text there in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

John Bytheway: 00:10:44 And another thing, I think a lot of our listeners have heard the terms, Mishnah, Talmud. Can you talk about that? Because you said commentaries on Habakkuk. Is that part of one of those, Mishnah or Talmud?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:10:56 Yeah. So a lot of scholars early on thought that that’s what this was, but they actually are called something completely different at Qumran, they’re called pesharim, and it comes from the Hebrew word, pesher, which is to interpret. What they would do is they would actually go line by line and say, “Here’s the line of scripture.” And then they would say pisar, pesher, which interpreted means, and then they would give their interpretation, which is a little more direct and a little more textually based than Mishnah, which is more just general commentary on a text and what’s happening. So there’s two different kinds of pesharim. You get one that’s thematically based, we get some texts that are talking just about themes, including the theme of the Messiah. One of the most famous texts is a text all about the Messiah, and it’s one of these pesharim where they’re taking Messianic texts and trying to interpret what that looks like. That’s 4Q175.

  00:11:54 And then the other type is just what we call continuous pesharim, where they just start at verse one and they just go through and start saying, “This verse, this is what it means, this verse, this is what it means,” which is a completely different aspect than what we see in rabbinic interpretations. So it’s this new genre that the Dead Sea Scrolls gave us and give us another lens into how people in Jesus’ Day are interpreting these scriptures, including scriptures that the Savior’s going to quote and give us a better idea of what his audience would’ve heard.

Hank Smith: 00:12:24 Excellent. Josh, I think our listeners, some of them might be surprised to hear that in the world of biblical scholarship, this is pretty new stuff. When were the Dead Sea Scrolls actually discovered?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:12:36 Yeah, so the scrolls were discovered in 1947, and there’s a number of stories or myths that talk about how those scrolls were found. And through a really intricate way of backdoor dealings and sales from the Bedouin who were finding these, and to those who are interested in antiquities, they end up being sold to various faith traditions or to various museums, and eventually purchased by the State of Israel through a New York Times article. There’s a famous picture of the Dead Sea Scrolls for sale from the New York Times and a number of private entities worked together with the Israeli government to purchase the majority of those texts.

  00:13:20 And then between 1947 and the mid 1960s, it led to an absolute rush, think of the California gold rush, but there was a rush of Bedouin in the Judean Desert who are just searching cave after cave, and you get archeologists who are trying to get in on the game as well and start excavating caves. And over time they find thousands and thousands of fragments and a couple of complete manuscripts that today we call the Dead Sea Scrolls.

John Bytheway: 00:13:50 So they were in caves, in jars. It looks like the conventional wisdom to hide them, to preserve them, they hid them in the cave. Is that how it happened?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:13:59 Yeah, there’s a number of varying opinions about why they were storing them if they were longtime storage or if a lot of the accounts have to do with the Romans approaching. For those who’ve been to the Holy Land, Masada is not too far from Qumran. Actually, during the archeological studies of the site of Qumran, we find that it was an outpost for Roman soldiers at various points in time. The Romans are using this area for travel and whether they’re taking these texts and trying to preserve them in that way from destruction or this was their natural way of storing text, and then when they left, they just kind of left their libraries behind, the texts were there in the caves. And by the grace of a very arid climate and the fact that they were out of the sun and in a protected area, they were able to be preserved for thousands of years.

Hank Smith: 00:14:50 Wow.

John Bytheway: 00:14:50 Amazing.

Hank Smith: 00:14:51 So let me make sure I get this right. If I’m listening at home, there was a group of Jews who lived outside of Jerusalem, 20-odd miles outside of Jerusalem down by the Dead Sea. They are doing a lot of writing, a lot of reading of this ancient scriptures, and they’re preserving these texts as you call them, in scrolls, in jars. And they’re not found. And then these people disappear, what? Around 70 AD? Their community is destroyed, gone?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:15:20 Yeah. Well, and it comes with the destruction, yeah. The Romans coming in and destroying Jerusalem and the surrounding regions just completely destabilize any regular routine.

Hank Smith: 00:15:30 Then the texts sit there for 2,000 years, 1,900 years until they’re found in the 1940s. And what’s so fascinating about them to Bible scholars like yourself? What makes them so interesting and fun?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:15:43 I think there’s three primary things that the scrolls help us better understand the Bible with. The first is that they give us an insight into what biblical texts look like in the first, second century BC and in the first century AD. It gives us a better idea of the scriptures that were used in the days of the Savior. And I know I’ve used that phrase a lot, we have no connection between these texts and the Savior. I don’t want to give any idea that the Savior was walking around Qumran. The idea is that in the climate and the day, these groups were in communication with each other. So that’s the first one, this gives us a better sense of what the biblical text looked like. Before we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, our oldest biblical manuscript dated to the 10th century AD, so it was almost a thousand years older. And you can think of everything that can change and alterations.

  00:16:36 We talk about in the Book of Mormon frequently that there were things that are adjusted in biblical texts over time. That thousand year gap gives a great window into how texts did change. So that’s the first one. The second one is it helps us better understand what Jews were doing and what their beliefs were in the time of Jesus, what were the communities arguing about? One of my favorite Dead Sea Scrolls text is actually an angry letter written from the Essene community back to Jerusalem, telling them how they’re doing everything wrong at the temple and in the city. And it’s almost a protest letter saying, “We’re not coming back until you fix these problems.” I almost think of Luther’s 95 Theses, “I’m going send you this letter because I want things to change.” And that was the Dead Sea Scrolls community.

  00:17:27 The last insight for me is the fact that the Dead Sea Scrolls make real the world that we don’t have a lot of texts for. When we finish the Old Testament in Malachi, there’s one page and then you’re automatically in Matthew, and that one page is a 400 year leap. We don’t have any scriptural texts in our Bibles that tell us what’s happening during that 400 year period, being able to get some insights into how things are evolving, how do we go from the Persians being in control of the world to the Romans? How did that all happen? What’s happening interculturally? Where did the Pharisees come from? Who are the Sadducees? What are these debates about what resurrection is or who can operate in the Temple? And the Dead Sea Scrolls start to clear that picture up for us and give us a better insight into what happened from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Hank Smith: 00:18:20 All right, and this brings us full circle. These three books are some of the most discussed in those Dead Sea scrolls.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:18:26 Not necessarily most discussed, but we have commentaries for these three books.

Hank Smith: 00:18:30 Okay.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:18:32 What’s nice is we have texts that are saying, “Here’s the interpretation of Nahum, and Habakkuk, and Zephaniah.” We know that they were reading these texts in the days of the Savior, that they were trying to make sense of them and how they were applicable in their own day.

Hank Smith: 00:18:47 Fantastic.

John Bytheway: 00:18:48 Quick question, when Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said of old time, love your neighbor, hate your enemy.” It was written, but we don’t know where. And I’ve heard that that might have been a teaching of the Essenes?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:19:00 Yeah. So there’s no direct correlation between that statement and the Savior. What we do know from the Essenes, so one text that we have in the Dead Sea Scrolls is a text called The Rule of the Community. And the community itself was very isolated and was almost that you’re with us or against us, and there’s no middle ground. It helps give us a picture of really the factions that had grown and that had become very prevalent in the New Testament times. When the Savior is talking about the friction between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, or even the Jews and the Samaritans, these texts help us see the rhetoric that’s between these groups and where they would say something, “We’re keeping the law and you’re not, so we can despise you.”

Hank Smith: 00:19:45 Awesome. I think our listeners are going to be well acquainted– don’t you think, John?– now with the Dead Sea Scrolls, they’ve kind of got a better idea of what these are.

John Bytheway: 00:19:54 Right. And if memory serves, BYU had something to do with some of the scanning or the preservation of those texts or something, didn’t they?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:20:03 Yeah. So BYU was one of the first institutions to digitize the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls in a format that was searchable, computer programming was a big part of it. And for those who are listening, some may be screaming at the podcast device that they’re listening to saying, “Wait, my grandfather or my parents had a big role to play.” Numerous critical additions of the Dead Sea Scrolls are dedicated to Latter-day Saints who are from Utah, who donated a great deal of money for the publication and the presentation of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the general audience. In the late ’90s, all the Dead Sea Scrolls scholars in the world actually came to Provo, Utah for a conference. And even when I interact with Dead Sea Scrolls scholars today, they often talk about how fond their trip to Utah to talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls was.

Hank Smith: 00:20:53 Wow. That’s fantastic. All right, Josh, so let’s bridge the gap now between the Dead Sea Scrolls, these three books, and our listeners.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:21:03 Let’s go.

Hank Smith: 00:21:03 The task is up to you. Yeah. How are we going to meld these three together?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:21:08 Well, let’s start with Nahum. And I think giving some historical context will help give people an understanding. Nahum is a text that when I read it, it’s one of those texts where it’s like, “Oh, I’m comfortable because I’m not the focus of the text.” Anybody who reads Nahum from the first verse, we read, “The burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.” That’s an introduction, so we don’t know whether or not that was added later to the text of Nahum to give context to what’s going on. And we actually don’t get a reference to Nineveh until much later in the text. This may just be a summary, kind of like our chapter headings in the LDS editions of the scriptures. It’s not actually scripture, it’s a heading to give you an idea of what you’re about to read. For you and I, we read that and we go, “Oh yeah, this is Nineveh.” But to an ancient audience, they might actually be asking the question, “Who are they talking about?”

  00:22:04 When we look at the text, we start to go through and we see, “Well, wait a second, God’s talking about this city and those that are going to be destroyed, but who is it?” And for me as a modern reader, I love kind of taking away that understanding that this is Nineveh and saying, “Is God talking to me?” That famous question that’s asked at The Last Supper by the disciples, “Lord, is it I?” And that statement that’s been reiterated in our day with Elder Uchtdorf in that wonderful General Conference address that he gives that says this is an introspective question we should be asking. For an ancient and modern audience who’s reading Nahum, the first question we can ask is, “Are they talking about me? And what can I learn from this text as it relates to my situation and my standing and my relationship with God?”

  00:22:51 Then we’ll get into some details that make it very clear that Nineveh is the focus, but at least at the outset we can ask that question, “Lord, is it I?”

Hank Smith: 00:22:59 Awesome, great way to approach it.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:23:01 Moving forward, kind of the historical setting, unlike other prophetic books, if you remember when we studied Isaiah or Ezekiel, we get this long introduction, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz given in the days of King Ahaz, etc. It gives us a specific date. Nahum doesn’t do that. We have to infer from the text when this text was actually written and we get some insights if we go to Nahum chapter three, verse eight. The King James text is a little difficult to understand. It starts and says, “Art thou better than populous?” And when you read that and even with the lowercase P, you think, “Whoa, what? Better than populous?” Are we talking about a populous group or are we talking about a population? But in the Hebrew, the word is actually No-Ammon, which is the Hebrew name for the City of Thebes.

Hank Smith: 00:23:54 Oh, okay.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:23:55 In Nahum chapter three, verse eight, our first indication of the dating of the text is the fact that verses 8, 9, and 10 talk about the destruction of Thebes, which takes place sometime around 663 BC. And why this is important for our study of Nahum is that it’s Ashurbanipal, one of the military generals of the Assyrians, who’s the one who’s going to overthrow Thebes, and Nineveh is going to become the capital of Assyria. This connection is that Nahum is trying to say, “You all talked about how great Thebes was.” And for our listeners to give you an idea, those who have seen pictures of Luxor or Karnak, that was Thebes. Even today we think of the grandeur and the greatness of the City of Thebes. People that I’ve taken on tours or have talked to, when they go to Thebes and they see Karnak and Luxor, that’s often the highlight of their trip, to see these ancient temples and these ancient spaces.

  00:25:00 The destruction of Thebes is discussed and recorded in verse 8, 9, and 10 of chapter three. So the text is reviewing and saying, “You’ve already sacked Thebes.” So Nahum was written after that date, but as we continue reading through the text, Nineveh hasn’t been destroyed by the Babylonians yet, which will take place in 612 BC. Nahum is somewhere in that window of roughly 50 years between 660 BC and 612 BC. Thebes is destroyed, Nineveh hasn’t quite been destroyed yet.

Hank Smith: 00:25:34 Okay, so somewhere between 660 and 606, this book is written. I hate to spoil the ending, but is it saying, “Look, Nineveh’s going to become like Thebes. You all thought Thebes was amazing, well watch what happens to Nineveh”?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:25:47 No, and that’s actually the irony of this text is it’s because the Assyrians overthrew Thebes and said, “Look at how great we are,” I like to actually think of this text in that context that Nahum is writing and saying, “You all are still celebrating that you destroyed Thebes, but the same destruction is about to come to you.” It’s at that height. The destruction of Thebes is really when the Assyrian or the Neo-Assyrian empire is going to hit its apex. To say that at this time of jubilation is actually kind of a buzzkill for these Assyrians. If they’re reading this text, they’re saying, “There’s no way this is going to happen because look at what we just did.”

  00:26:26 And I can’t help but think of the parallel with the Book of Mormon. How many times did the Nephites later on say, “Look at how great we are, nobody can destroy us because of how amazing our armies are and our tactics.” I think Nineveh is saying that same thing. To read this text in that context makes it so much more lively as we see the many images that are going to come forward.

Hank Smith: 00:26:50 Is it pretty natural to see the fall of Nineveh as like the fall of the adversary, the fall of Satan?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:26:57 Yeah, I think we can take that, but I would almost even say this is the fall of the enemies of God. So anyone who’s fighting against God, and obviously Satan and his minions fall into that category very much, but anyone who’s in that position of fighting against God is going to be destroyed.

Hank Smith: 00:27:16 Okay.

John Bytheway: 00:27:17 And Nineveh is where, our listeners will remember that Jonah was supposed to go prophecy against and he left, but he finally went there. So this is sometime later?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:27:27 Yes. And actually, that parallel, John, is so important. Even the name of Jonah shares some of the same letters as Nahum. Many scholars actually say that we should read Nahum and Jonah very closely, they both focus on Nineveh and they both have this message that actually diverts. The end of Jonah is this message of, “I’m going to save Nineveh, I’m going to allow Nineveh to repent and change.” Here we’re going to say Nineveh is going to be completely wiped off the face of the map.

Hank Smith: 00:27:57 Wow, that’s interesting. Two separate endings to the same city.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:28:01 Yeah. So two endings. And if we take it back to that modern application, I can’t help but think, “When I’m reading Nahum, what’s the ending of my story? Is my story going to be one of redemption and forgiveness or is my story going to be one of destruction and standing in opposition to God?”

Hank Smith: 00:28:19 Jonah’s story saves Nineveh. Nahum’s story condemns Nineveh. It’s almost like a choose your own adventure. Which one are you going to be?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:28:28 Yeah, and historically speaking, we know that Nineveh is destroyed in 612, but I think putting ourselves in the context of this not happening yet, gives us that opportunity to say, “What are we going to do?” And I think as we read the text we can get some of that insight.

Hank Smith: 00:28:43 Great. Let’s do it.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:28:45 Awesome. So the text of Nahum’s really interesting because it’s actually seven cantos or separate verses to a song. One of the things that makes the minor prophets, and prophetic literature in general, difficult to read is that it’s all written in poetry. When we’re looking at this text, even in Hebrew, scholars who study this stuff their whole life say, “There’s some things we actually have to kind of put a question mark on,” because it’s written in a poetic way that the audience in antiquity would’ve been able to fill in the details. When we read through Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, we have to keep in mind that these are poetic texts. And Nahum whom in particular has these seven cantos or seven verses that separate the text so that individuals can see the transitions from one topic to another.

  00:29:34 And that verse one actually is one that I find most applicable for us today. It starts in verse 2 of Nahum chapter 1 and is going to progress to verse 10. But the whole focus of this section is to describe Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, as a warrior. Jehovah is going to fight the battles for his covenant people. And as I say that out loud, I can’t help but think of Doctrine and Covenants section 105 verse 14, where the Lord promises the saints that he will fight their battles for them. That’s what’s going to happen here. So we read in verse two, “God is jealous and the Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.” And the words that are used here in Hebrew are interesting. You start with God in verse two, this is the Hebrew word El, which is shared with other ancient societies as a name for deity.

  00:30:36 And then we’re also going to have Lord both in the sense of Jehovah, the divine name, but we also get Lord in the sense of Ba’al, a word in Hebrew that means master. We’re seeing that the author of Nahum is actually using deity language that would’ve resonated with those outside of a Jewish community. And saying, “Our God is the God who rules and reigns over all deities in the entire world.” And that’s where we’re going to start to continue forward, continuing in verse three, “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” This divine warrior imagery is present in other texts we’ve already talked about. Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 33, Judges 4 and 5. Jesus is presented as a warrior who’s ready to fight for his people.

Hank Smith: 00:31:32 And he already has, he rebuked the sea. That sounds like the Red Sea. He makes it dry, he dries up the rivers, the Jordan River.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:31:39 Yeah. And that’s exactly what this is a hearkening back to, is we are talking about the events of the Exodus. And I know it’s been mentioned on the show before, but that Exodus event seems to be this focal point that prophets are constantly coming back to. And Nahum is right in line with those other prophets saying, “This is where these events need to be remembered among the people.”

Hank Smith: 00:32:04 This is fantastic. If you wanted to see the Lord as all powerful, these are your verses. “The clouds are the dust of his feet.” Think how massive that is if the clouds are just the dust of his feet.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:32:14 Yeah. Well, and then he continues on in verse five, “The mountains quake at him and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world and all that dwell therein.” And this verse here, some scholars actually refer to this as Nahum’s Theophanies. This is his vision of God. And we see words that are similar to other theophanies. I think of Isaiah chapter six, or one that we’re much more familiar with, which is Joseph Smith’s First Vision. Remember that Joseph Smith says that he thought that the whole forest was going to burn around him because of the light.

Hank Smith: 00:32:51 Yeah, this is fantastic. Keep going.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:32:54 That theophany language then continues in verse six. “So who can stand before his indignation? And who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire and the rocks are thrown down by him.” This is the question, “Am I sufficiently worthy to stand in the presence of God? And if I am not, this is what I have to look forward to, is that I cannot abide his presence.” And we were familiar with that statement that Joseph Smith corrects in the Gospel of John that no man can see God at any time and live. This is why for an ancient audience, they sat there and said, “No, I’m not worthy enough to be in His presence. Of course, I can’t stand in God’s presence.”

  00:33:38 But Joseph Smith gives us that great insight in the Joseph Smith translation that they have to be quickened by the Holy Ghost. If we have not received the fullness of the Holy Ghost, we can’t see what Nahum is seeing. We need that divine presence of a member of the Godhead to be able to be in His presence. Because if we’re not, then we are part of those who are destroyed by that presence.

Hank Smith: 00:34:00 And then there seems to be a message of hope there just before the destruction of Thebes. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows them that trust him. So this is Jehovah defending and protecting his covenant people.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:34:13 Yeah. And one of the aspects of studying this text in Hebrew, you get this other insight, that last line that you read there, Hank, that trust in him, the Hebrew actually better reads, “To those who seek refuge in Him.”

Hank Smith: 00:34:27 Oh, okay.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:34:28 So it’s not just that I trust God or I know God can do these things, but it’s this intentionality of finding refuge in God and that’s what’s going to separate the righteous covenant people and those who are going to be destroyed in the latter texts is who comes to seek refuge from him as opposed to finding refuge in other places.

John Bytheway: 00:34:51 Yeah, I was going along here and it looks like that’s one of the more positive statements. It’s talking about his power, and his presence, and then thank heavens for verse seven to come along, “He knows them that trust in Him.” It reminds us of Nephi, “I know in whom I have trusted” and “trust in the Lord with all thy heart.” He knows those that are trusting Him. That’s the positive verse in the middle of all that. Whew, this sounds bad.

Hank Smith: 00:35:16 Sounds intense.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:35:18 Who’s on the Lord side? Who? Maybe we can start singing here. I won’t do that, but who’s on the Lord’s side? Who? Now is the time to show. We ask it fearlessly, who’s on the Lord’s side? Who? That’s really the question of Nahum, “Are you on the Lord’s side or have you sided with others who are not seeking refuge in the Lord?”

Hank Smith: 00:35:39 I realize that for some people the Lord destroying can be a very difficult thing to process, but when you think of the fear that Nineveh strikes into the covenant people, you want someone to come and defend you.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:35:54 Yeah. Well, and verse eight, Hank, I don’t know if you knew this, but as you were saying that, that’s actually what makes verse eight so scary is we start to get specific references to the Neo-Assyrian empire and to Nineveh. In verse eight it says, “But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof and the darkness shall pursue his enemies.” In Assyrian literature, they actually would refer to their armies as an overrunning flood. Now we’re starting to get language and we’ll see this through the rest of Nahum, is Nahum is using pointed language that the Assyrians were using towards their enemies. And Nahum is saying, “God is stronger than your rhetoric and your actions.” And what’s really interesting to know the ancient history of Assyria here because you see bits and pieces of their rallying cries being utilized by Jehovah against their own people.

Hank Smith: 00:36:49 Got it. I’m stronger than your rhetoric.

John Bytheway: 00:36:52 Didn’t Isaiah do that too? “Because you refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, I’m going to send you a flood”? And he meant the Assyrians.

Hank Smith: 00:37:02 Yeah, he even says the King of Assyria.

John Bytheway: 00:37:05 Yeah. What I love about Shiloah is in the New Testament, that’s Siloam, the water that the man born blind went to wash in and, “You refused the living water, so I’m going to send you a tsunami of the Assyrians.”

Hank Smith: 00:37:20 And that’s interesting, that that’s their own rhetoric. That’s how they refer to themselves. I didn’t know that.

John Bytheway: 00:37:24 Isaiah did that. That’s cool.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:37:26 Well, and I love that because it gives us this insight to the antiquity of the text, is the people who are writing these texts are intimately familiar in the same way that you and I are familiar with rhetoric in our day, that people will draw upon and say, “Oh, that’s a pointed reference specifically to them.” As we slow down and we seek to understand a little bit better these statements, we can see that come to fruition and help us better understand the text in our day.

Hank Smith: 00:37:53 Correct me if I’m wrong here, Josh, but is the Lord saying, “I’ve seen your commercials, I’ve seen your rhetoric, I know how you refer to yourself, but that doesn’t stop me”? Or Nahum is saying, “That’s not going to stop the Lord.”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:38:06 Yeah. And that question’s such a good one, Hank, because I think it comes back, Nahum 1 starts with this interesting phrase, “The burden of Nineveh.” And this is that Hebrew word, Massa. And it’s so interesting because you would think the vision of Nineveh or the prophecy of Nineveh, but we get this idea of burden. One scholar actually says that maybe a way that we should translate burden is the prophetic exposition of divine revelation. So Nahum is receiving a revelation of what’s going to happen to Nineveh and using his ability and his language. And himself, he’s going to expound on that vision in language that people will understand. And I love that image of a prophet because the prophet then is an agent who’s independently acting in his own time and place and isn’t just mimicking words that he’s receiving from another source.

Hank Smith: 00:39:02 Got it. So he’s received a revelation, but he’s got to put words to it, words and descriptions.

John Bytheway: 00:39:08 Isaiah uses that in the burden of concerning Babylon, Isaiah 13 or 2 Nephi 23. And I’ve always thought that the burden, the message that he had to give, that wasn’t a happy one, so that’s how I’ve always looked at burden. But say that name again that you have for it, exposition?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:39:26 Prophetic exposition of divine revelation.

John Bytheway: 00:39:30 Wow.

Hank Smith: 00:39:30 Well, that’s such a great way of describing that, Josh, because we would think, “Oh no, the Lord is giving this word for word,” when perhaps he’s giving him something that we can’t describe and he’s got to put words to.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:39:41 Yeah. And it helps because then when you get the sections where you actually have the Lord speaking like verse 12, “Thus saith the Lord,” then you can say, “Oh, here’s the quotation of what the Lord’s saying,” and then we can see where the prophet is adding his own description of what he saw. And for me, that’s just an empowering way to say, “This text is one that an individual who’s been called by God is giving to people with the best of his abilities.” Sometimes we get really critical of prophets and not saying things the right way or doing things the way we’d want them to do them. And we sometimes ask, “Well, if they’re speaking for God, then they should act a certain way.” But in the text here, it’s giving them that leeway to say, “Here’s Nahum’s words, this is Nahum’s exposition on what he saw. And he’s just doing the best with his own abilities.”

John Bytheway: 00:40:32 Oh, I love that. There’s a good paragraph in the manual here that says on page 213, “Some might find it difficult to reconcile the scriptural teaching that the Lord is good, Nahum 1:7, with the teaching that he will take vengeance on his adversaries, Nahum 1:2.” In the Book of Mormon, Alma’s son, Corianton, had similar questions concerning the justice of God and the punishment of the sinner. To learn more about God’s mercy and how it relates to his justice, read Alma’s answer to Corianton in Alma 42. So I think we’re reading that he’s going to take vengeance on the adversaries and also that God is good, but we all know that he gives us time. All behavior is going to have a consequence, but God is long suffering. And eventually that day of grace runs out, to use a Book of Mormon phrase. And I think that’s what we’re seeing here. There’s going to be a consequence eventually.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:41:27 Yeah. And I think we can start to see that in verse 14, John, Nahum says, “And the Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee.” I love that the Joseph Smith translation went back and tried to take these pronouns and give us exactly who it is. That’s not the case here, but the thee here seems to be the Assyrian King. So the Lord is giving a direct commandment to the Assyrian King, “That no more of thy name shall be sown. Out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image. I will make thy grave for thou art vile.”

John Bytheway: 00:41:58 Wow.

Hank Smith: 00:41:58 Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:41:59 It’s this impending statement that, “Hey, your day is going to come and the gods that you trust in are going to be cut off. What you think is coming from these gods is no longer going to come.” And I think it’s even more impactful because the phrase right before that, “No more of thy name be sown.” That’s an idea that your posterity is going to be cut off, that your name and your heritage eventually is going to come to an end because of the fact that you are putting your trust in these graven images and the Lord will not be mocked in this essence of, “You think that you are greater than God but God is greater than you.”

Hank Smith: 00:42:43 And the Assyrians are a bunch of bullies. I don’t know, it’s kind of nice to see the bully meet a bigger force.

John Bytheway: 00:42:49 And look how positive verse 15 is next. This is Isaiah, “Behold upon the mountains, the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth peace. Oh Judah, keep thy solemn feasts.” So here’s the burden of Nineveh and then kind of a little advice for Judah here at the end. Am I getting that right?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:43:08 Yeah. And actually a very joyful message, that last phrase that you read, John, this idea of keep thy solemn feasts, “Hey, it’s time. The war is over. That friction, that anxiety that exists because of Assyria is over, it’s time to get back to your routine.” And those solemn feasts that are referenced there, this is the holidays that were pilgrimage holidays. So this is Passover, this is the festival of Pentecost, the festival of Tabernacles or Sukkot. The idea is it’s time to come back to Jerusalem. If maybe you’ve been trepid because you’ve been hearing all these rumors about what Assyria is going to do and maybe you remember the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and their besieging of Jerusalem.

  00:43:54 And maybe you said, “I’m not going to participate in vows and ordinances because of that destruction.” The message here is to those who are of the covenant, come back. And to modernize this, as I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think we’ve been through an interesting time the last couple years where things have been rough, and our routines and traditions have been interrupted. As I read this verse, I almost read it as a way of saying, “Let’s get back to normal, let’s get back to going to the temple, let’s get back to giving our vows and our oaths to God. That interruption is over, now it is time for us to continue to keep God’s commandments.”

Hank Smith: 00:44:39 You need to no longer fear Assyria. That’s awesome.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:44:43 And that’s the last part too, “For the wicked shall no more pass through thee. He is utterly cut off.” If you’ve noticed, this is kind of bracketing what’s happening because you get this reference to the wicked that we saw back in verse 11. So verse 15, the wicked, and then you have this wicked counselor who’s against God. We start with the reference to this wicked one and then we end with it. The word here in Hebrew is Belial, which in Qumran tradition and in later Jewish tradition, this is a servant of the adversary. And so we get a number of texts that are talking about this wicked one who’s fighting against God. We start with him standing in opposition to God in verse 11, and then we get the promise in verse 15 that he will no longer interfere with your life and that he is utterly cut off from the righteous.

Hank Smith: 00:45:35 Yeah, this is a hopeful chapter. With all the destruction that’s in it, it’s still a hopeful chapter for the covenant people.

John Bytheway: 00:45:42 Yeah. I look at 7 and 15 and say, “Those are some positive notes in the middle of, okay, we know how powerful God is, we know what he can do, what he will do, but stay firm in the faith and you’ll be okay.” “He knoweth them that trust in him.”

Hank Smith: 00:46:00 That’s a great summary, John.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:46:02 So there you go. Nahum’s not maybe quite as weak or boring as we may have originally thought.

Hank Smith: 00:46:08 Yeah, this is fun. Yeah.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:46:08 As I was preparing, I found it fascinating that the Book of Nahum is only quoted in General Conference a handful of times. If you do a search on Nahum, the Book of Nahum is quoted nine times in General Conference in the entire history of the church.

Hank Smith: 00:46:25 Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:46:26 And if you look at it, that’s actually the lowest amount of quotations of any Old Testament book.

Hank Smith: 00:46:33 Poor Nahum. And we’re finding out this is pretty good stuff.

John Bytheway: 00:46:37 Yeah, so don’t say that, that’s not the minor prophet definition though, right?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:46:42 Yeah. Only nine references to Nahum and what we’ve gone through right there, there’s so many themes that we have heard. And maybe that’s the message of hope for Nahum is that Nahum’s messages are being heard in our day just not directly from his prophetic exposition.

John Bytheway: 00:46:57 We’ve talked about this before, but I’d love our listeners to get acquainted with scriptures.byu.edu or the app is called Citation Index. And that’s I think probably where you went, isn’t it? To discover how often Nahum had been mentioned in Conference?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:47:14 Exactly. John, you revealed my secrets. So somebody out there was probably thinking, “Wow, that was pretty cool.” And no, I second that wholeheartedly. It’s an amazing resource.

John Bytheway: 00:47:25 So helpful. Yeah, I have my students look at that, that if you ever have to give a talk on a verse of scripture, why don’t you just use this? And boy, those who do that, they’re not done, they have to update it again every six months. Thanks to them for keeping that wonderful database going.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:47:41 Absolutely. Well, should we move on to chapter two if we didn’t have enough fun with chapter one? Chapter two is going to start to narrow down exactly who we’re talking about. Again, if you look back through chapter one, you’re not seeing any direct reference to Nineveh. You get these allusions and using their propaganda language, but now we’re going to start to actually see more direct language about Nineveh. And maybe where we can start is where it’s talking about Nineveh and then we can go back and see how the Lord’s talking about this. But if we go to verse six in chapter two. So Nahum chapter two verse six, it says, “The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved.” For us as modern readers, we may not be familiar with the fact that the gates that are referenced there, are gates that were built by Sennacherib, one of these great leaders of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and actually the one who establishes Nineveh as the capital of Assyria. Nineveh was not a capital for Assyria for very long.

  00:48:47 It was established by Sennacherib at the very end of the eighth century BC, or the late 700s. And then it’s going to be destroyed in 612. And so for less than a hundred years, Nineveh is the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Knowing that this capital is fairly new, one thing we know is that when Sennacherib set up Nineveh as the capital, he used gates to regulate the amount of water that was coming in from the Tebiltu and the Khosr rivers that are branches of the Tigris River. There’s rivers running through the city, but they created gates to prevent flooding of the city. That reference to gates right there is very pointed to Nineveh. And the prophecy is saying, “Okay, so be familiar that this is what we are going to see, is your city is going to be destroyed by the very things that you trust to not destroy your city by water.” And for a modern audience to read that and to think, “Do I trust in things that I’m in control of that God may actually take away if I’m not putting my trust in Him?”

Hank Smith: 00:49:58 Oh, what a great application. Thanks for that. All right, what do you want to do next, Josh?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:50:03 So now that we know that we’re talking about Nineveh, and we actually will get a direct reference to Nineveh in verse eight, we get that reference to gates, it starts to get us thinking about a city with gates that’s controlling water, but then we get verse eight, “But Nineveh is of old like a pool of water, yet they shall flee away, stand, stand,” in the Hebrew, it actually says, “Stop, stop, shall they cry but none shall look back.” People will flee the city as it’s being destroyed. We do know from historical records that Nineveh was destroyed by water.

  00:50:36 So the name Nineveh is fascinating because it means house of fishes. So it gives you this idea that Nineveh is famous for these pools and this connection to water. And so there’s an irony to the fact that people who had learned so well to manage water and to become a city that’s renowned for its utilization of water, would then be destroyed by that very thing. One scholar, he actually says, “The token of its strength is now a simile for its downfall.”

John Bytheway: 00:51:07 Wow.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:51:08 And how often do sometimes we get puffed up in our own pride of who we are or what we are doing, and that it ultimately leads to our distancing ourselves from God and then our own downfall.

Hank Smith: 00:51:20 It says that the Lord can make our weaknesses our strengths, but we’re the ones who often make our strengths our weaknesses.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:51:27 So good.

John Bytheway: 00:51:28 Remember President Oaks’ talk, our strength can become our downfall. And it just helps you to see that this is art, this is literature beyond just a report of what’s happening. This is crafted and it’s beautiful and it’s symmetrical and elegant sometimes when you see what you just described, the very thing they were famous for is what’s going to destroy them. And I think Isaiah did that too, “You refuse the waters that go softly, so I’m going to bring upon you a flood.”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:51:56 And John, that’s the beauty of these prophets. People don’t study them because they are hard to understand, but sometimes the most beautiful things in life take effort to understand. And again, we do have this humility of we don’t know everything that Nahum’s trying to say. If you read a commentary, a modern commentary on the book of Nahum, I’m surprised at how often scholars say, “Well, here’s all the potential interpretations, but we’re not quite sure and we don’t quite understand.” And how amazing is that for you and I as we study this text with the Holy Ghost, as we prayerfully seek to get insight, to be able to say, “God will reveal to me that meaning, and I’m not going to limit myself to someone else’s interpretation of the text.” And the prophets preserved their messages, I think for that very reason, so there wasn’t just one clear cut interpretation, but that the interpretation would be able to penetrate the souls and the hearts of those who would read it.

John Bytheway: 00:52:56 Well, that’s exactly how you asked us to start. Is this a message for me? And then the application becomes something that can be tailored by the Holy Ghost for our ears and read it as if, “What do I do with this? What does this mean for me? Am I Nineveh in this case?”

Hank Smith: 00:53:13 Yeah.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:53:13 That actually with 8, 9, and 10, we end the third canto or that third verse of Nahum’s song. And verse 11 in chapter 2 picks up with the fourth. And again, we’re going to get very pointed references to Nineveh. In verse 11, we read, “Where is the dwelling of the lions and the feeding place of the young lions where the lion, even the old lion walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid?” As you read that, you’re like, “Whoa, wait, we just got done talking about a city and rivers and now we’re talking about lions? What’s going on here?” But the Assyrian king uses a lion as the symbol of his kingship. And we actually see this in Isaiah chapter 5, verses 24 through 30. So if we go to Isaiah 5, we’re going to see the same language that’s going to be used against Assyria.

  00:54:05 Isaiah in chapter 5, verse 29 is actually going to use the same language. “Their roaring shall be like a lion. They shall roar like young lions. Yea, they shall roar and lay hold of the prey and they shall carry it away safe and none shall deliver it.” Verse 30. “And in that day, they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea. And if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow and the light is darkened and the heavens thereof.” So this is quoted in the Book of Mormon, but those verses are actually directly applicable to Assyria. So we get bookends in Isaiah chapter 5, verses 29 and 30. We’re saying, “Assyria is on the horizon to come and destroy Israel, so you better get your act together because they’re going to come.” And then Nahum is going to use the exact same language to say, “Where are you now? Where’s that great lion that destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel? Where’s the one who’s tearing and bringing food and spoils back to his nation?”

  00:55:06 Well, verse 13, “Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts. I will burn her chariots in the smoke and the sword shall devour thy young lions and I will cut off thy pray from the earth and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.” We get Assyria used as a device to punish ancient Israel for their unfaithfulness to God, but Nahum’s going to come and say, “Your strength is no longer there and now you are going to be left desolate just like you’ve left others.”

Hank Smith: 00:55:41 Josh, I’m noticing with the overrunning flood, with the gates of the rivers, with using lions as a symbol, the Lord knows Nineveh, Nahum knows Assyria and what they’ve used as their most, I guess you would say, their pride. They’ve referred to themselves as an overrunning flood, they have the technology of damning the river, the king is using the symbol of a lion as himself. And here the Lord is using all of this to let him know, “Your time has come to an end.”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:56:11 Yeah. And I think that message is prevalent throughout scripture. I had the opportunity to be in Turkey this last week, and we were standing in Laodicea and thinking about the letters that John sent to each of the churches and how personal the message from the Lord was. I can’t help but think these are negative messages, but does the Lord give me individual messages that are tailored specifically for me? My wife and I when we first got married, one of the things that I’m sure many Latter-day Saints couples do, we exchange patriarchal blessings to read what the other’s patriarchal blessing had to say. I will never forget my wife looked me in the eye and she said, “Josh, that blessing is so you. That blessing is so you.”

  00:56:55 I think that we need to remember that in our day, is God speaks to his people in their language. And that’s not always languages in Spanish, or Japanese, or English, or Portuguese, or that way, but in the language that we understand and that speaks to our heart. And these words here would’ve spoken directly to the heart of the Assyrians if they were humble enough to listen.

Hank Smith: 00:57:18 Wow. Does it continue into chapter three, the same message?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:57:22 Yeah. So things get a little bit different here. And actually, chapter three is what some scholars will actually call a taunt towards Nineveh. Nahum kind of pulls the Elijah card and mocks what’s about to happen to them and actually uses some language that’s pretty harsh.

John Bytheway: 00:57:41 Man, verses 4, and 5, and 6, you’re like, “Whoa.” Is that what you’re talking about?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:57:47 Exactly. Nahum again, he’s going to use things that they were familiar with, but 4, right? “Because of the multitude of thy whoredoms of the well favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts that selleth nations through her whoredoms and families through her witchcrafts.” And this isn’t just pointed to the city, but the patron goddess of Nineveh was Ishtar, and Ishtar was a goddess of sex and war. These words here are actually almost leveled to Nineveh’s patron goddess. In the ancient world, you have to remember that cities were oftentimes built around the God or goddess that they revered and the temple in the middle of the city would be for that God or goddess.

  00:58:31 And the strength of the city was directly tied to that goddess or God, and the people viewed it if that goddess or God and that temple was destroyed, it shows that we are weaker than the God of the people that destroyed us. I love what J. D. W. Watts said, “With lustful visions of riches and power, Ishtar beguiled nations into war and conquest. Like the Devil in Christian thought, she tempted and demonized all who came within her influence.” Now we’re getting the outcome of what these people have venerated for almost a century is that they’re going to pay the price for putting their trust in a false God.

Hank Smith: 00:59:18 A lustful false God. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:59:21 Look at verse six. “I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.” I hate it when people cast abominable filth on me.

Hank Smith: 00:59:33 Or set me as a gazingstock.

John Bytheway: 00:59:34 Yeah, it takes a lot of laundry detergent to get that out, but that’s really strong words.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 00:59:41 And then verse seven, it continues. “And it shall come to pass that all they that look upon thee, shall flee from thee. And say, “Nineveh is laid waste. Who will bemoan her? When shall I seek comforters for thee?” This is where I want to bring in my Dead Sea Scrolls discussions. In the commentary on Nahum that we found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, they quote this verse, and part of me when I first saw this, I went, “Whoa, of all the verses to quote from Nahum, why are we quoting chapter three? And what’s going to happen here at the end?” But this is what they say, so after quoting verses six and seven, as we just read, it says, “This refers to the cities of the east, for the skirts are the Gentiles in their filth and in their abhorrent idols. I will throw your abominations at you, I will treat you with scorn, I will make you repulsive so that everyone who sees you will avoid you.”

  01:00:37 This is where it gets really interesting and how people are making scripture apply to themselves. So they quote verses six and seven, and then the Qumran community, and the authors of this text, they say this, “This refers to the flattery seekers.” Now, for most of our audience, that word flattery seekers isn’t going to mean anything, but this was a veiled reference to the Pharisees and those who another translation for flattery seeker is seeker after smooth things.

John Bytheway: 01:01:09 Well, that’s an Isaiah verse.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:01:11 Yeah. These are individuals who are seeking to make things smooth. God doesn’t expect things of you. I think of the Elder Holland quotation that we make a God in our own image who pats us on the head and tells us to go pick marigolds and to not have expectations. That’s these flattery seekers. For the Qumran community, they viewed the Pharisees as people who were making religion easy with no expectations. But then look at this, and I don’t want to perpetuate this as prophecy, but I think when we’re trying to find application in ancient texts, we can use this. The community continues and says this, “In the last time, their bad deeds will be manifest to all Israel and many will perceive their wrongdoing and reject them and be disgusted with them because of their criminal arrogance. And when the glory of Judah is made manifest, the simple hearted folk of Ephraim will withdraw from their company and abandon the ones who deceived them and ally themselves with the God of Israel.”

Hank Smith: 01:02:13 That sounds like Jesus to me, Josh.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:02:17 Doesn’t it?

Hank Smith: 01:02:19 And those who followed him, right?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:02:21 Yeah. “The simple hearted folk of Ephraim.” And as Latter-day Saints, we often talk about the connection between the ancient tribe of Ephraim and the modern covenant people. And while Ephraim does get a bad rap in this text, I don’t want to overstep that the prideful in Ephraim actually get called out for their lies and their deception and trying to tell people that they’re more righteous than they are. This simple hearted folk of Ephraim will withdraw from their company. And man, if there’s a group that I want to be a part of, it’s that simple hearted group of Ephraim.

Hank Smith: 01:02:55 It reminds me of Peter, James, and John, the fishermen of Galilee, the simple hearted folk of Ephraim. They followed the Lord, turned their back on the Pharisees. What a great commentary. That’s right out of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:03:09 Yep, that’s directly from a text called pesher, Nahum, which is numbered 4Q169. But that’s what it talks about, I can’t help but fill akin to a text like that and wanting to say, “Yeah, that’s who I want to be. I want to be a simple hearted folk of Ephraim.” Maybe that’s what we can call this episode, simple hearted folk of Ephraim.

Hank Smith: 01:03:32 I wanted to read something from Elder Holland because we talked about that the Lord is going to bring down this lustful city. He described how serious this was way back in the 1900s, way back in October of 1998, he talked about sexual sin, “Exploiting the body of another,” which means exploiting his or her soul. And he said, “In doing so, one desecrates the atonement of Christ which saved that soul and which makes possible the gift of eternal life.” And then he said this, “And I can see why the Lord is coming down so hard on this particular sin.” He says, “And when one mocks the Son of righteousness, one steps into a realm of heat hotter and holier than the noon day sun. You cannot do so and not be burned.” And it sounds like Nineveh has reached the breaking point.

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:04:27 Yeah. And I think this is the right time to bring it up. In Habakkuk chapter two, we’re going to get the exact same warning as Habakkuk is speaking, but in Habakkuk chapter two verse 15, we read, “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness.” We get these twin sins of drunkenness and sexual promiscuity. So it’s another message that’s going to continue as we move through the prophets, we get a glimpse of it here with Nineveh. But Nineveh is not by any means the only nation in the history of the world that is guilty of these sins. I think we can look in the world today and we can say the exact same thing. Those words of Elder Holland weren’t just being said in 1990, but are equally important in 2022.

Hank Smith: 01:05:19 Absolutely. The fall of Nineveh, that’s the book of Nahum. Josh, what’s the major takeaway then from Nahum? If I’m at home listening, what would you say, “Okay, I’ve read my three chapters because of Josh’s help, I was able to understand it, at least some of it. What’s the major takeaway then?”

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:05:40 I’m always one who loves people’s last words. And I don’t know if these were his last words or not, but in verses 18 and 19, I have cause to pause as I read these verses. He says this, after everything has been destroyed and Nineveh is now no longer the grandeur that it was, he says, “Thy shepherds slumber, Oh king of Assyria. Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust, thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. There is no healing of thy bruise, thy wound is grievous. All that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee, for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?” I pause because the idea here is that the shepherd of Assyria has forsaken them.

  01:06:28 And the fact that we’re bringing in shepherd language that we see in other places such as 1 Kings 22:17, or Zechariah 10:2, this shepherd has left them. But the ultimate message is going back to the beginning of the text, “And our shepherd will not leave us.” Going back to verse seven in Nahum chapter one, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. And he knoweth them,” and again, I’m going to use this other translation, “to those who seek refuge in him.” Nineveh put their trust in the wrong shepherd. And because of that, they were led astray. But we are disciples of the Good Shepherd, who if we find refuge in Him, we will be protected.

Hank Smith: 01:07:13 Yeah. Man, after you read that verse 19, it almost felt like a, “Thus we see,” was coming from Mormon. This is Alma 30:60, “Thus we see the end of him who perverted the ways of the Lord, thus we see that the Devil will not support his children at the last day, but thus speedily drag them down to hell.” And then you did your own thus we see, Josh. Thus we see those who put their trust in the true shepherd will be okay, will be safe. Well, wow. Nahum is quite a book, isn’t it?

Dr. Joshua Matson: 01:07:44 I think we should quote it more in General Conference.

Hank Smith: 01:07:45 Yeah, it needs to be quoted. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. And he knoweth them that trust in him. What a message.

John Bytheway: 01:07:55 The only Lamanite sermon that we have preserved in the Book of Mormon, Samuel the Lamanite, the actual words of some of the Lamanites when they were righteous. And Samuel the Lamanite, this is Helaman 13:38. This sounds like the flavor of Nahum to me. “Behold, your days of probation are passed. Ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late and your destruction is made sure. You have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain. You have sought for happiness in doing inequity. Which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness, which is in our great and Eternal Head.” And I don’t know, I just keep thinking that this sounds kind of harsh with the things that God is prophesying here, but there comes a time when it’s everlastingly too late. That’s what I was thinking of.

  01:08:46 And the consequences do come. And of all of the lies that the adversary tells us, I think of 2 Nephi 28. There’s no devil, there’s no hell. The one that’s not stated there that I think is implied is, there’s no hurry, take your time. And I think all the consequences are now coming for the wickedness. And so maybe I was looking at it a little more negatively than you guys were, because I love those verses in there too about he knows those who trust him, but when I apply it to myself, I think get your act together now, don’t procrastinate that as Samuel the Lamanite said. The time comes when it’s everlastingly too late and there’s always a grace period, but the grace period runs out even on your credit cards, right? The grace period comes to an end.

  01:09:34 Please join us for part two of this podcast.