Preface.
The prophet brings his prophecy in line with his name, because Nahum means a comforter or a consoler. a) For the prophet comforts the tribe of Judah, which was almost in despair after the kingdom of Israel had been devastated and carried away by the Assyrians. b) This captivity had caused great fear and terror to all neighbors,c ) but especially to Judah, which the triumphant enemies mocked and boasted of the very certain victory. These he frightens with
a) He must do enough for his name.
b) This the prophets had foretold, and that it should never be brought back. Among these was Jonah, who, sent as an apostle to Nineveh, preached there with great fruit, namely so that the punishment was postponed etc.
c) Micah 1, 11. Sirach of the Vulgate): The neighboring house had raised a lamentation because Israel was distraught. This the prophets Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah comfort that they should trust in God and not worry about the power of the Assyrians, nor about their own littleness, but look to God's power.
He threatens the Assyrians and uplifts and strengthens the fainthearted others with the sweetest promises. For he says that it will happen that the Assyrians will again be weighed down by the Chaldeans with a heavy burden. d) For since the human heart is too weak to bear prosperity in modesty (for such are we by nature, that when all goes well we are hopeful, and when God's scourge ceases, sins heap upon sins), it happens that God punishes the lavish hearts most severely, destroying one kingdom by another, ruining one people by another. For thus he has disturbed the kingdom of the Assyrians by the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans by the Persians, the Persians by
d) This is the prophet's way of keeping the small part of the people in the faith against God, so that for a short time until Christ comes, the service given to the fathers, to whom it was promised that there would be no lack of one who would sit on the throne of David, would be preserved.
*We have already given information about these lectures in general in the first note to the previous relation. Therefore, it only remains for us to give the necessary information about the codex from which this writing is taken, and to show the location of it in the editions. - This interpretation (this we take from the Weimar edition) is reproduced according to the Zwickau manuscript No. 36, in which we also find Luther's "Lecture on the Book of Judges" (about which we have spoken in the preface to the third volume of our edition, p. VI), as well as a colorful mixture of sermons, letters, anecdotes, and legends. What comes from Luther in it covers three decades. The postscripts are by different hands. From page 63 to 112 is an extremely extensive revision of Luther's lectures on Zechariah, which, however, contains only the first four chapters. Then follows on pages 113 to 131 the interpretation of the prophet Nahum. This is not a direct college booklet, but in the same one, approximately of the nature of the Zwickau manuscript No. 3, in which the lectures from Joel to Micah are contained, is processed. However, this treatment receives a special value by the fact that another postscript, which corresponds in many places with the Altenburg, but especially with the Hallische manuscript, is used in not a few places in the text, but especially for numerous marginal notes. Some of these are, of course, superfluous, because they coincide in content with what the text offers. Our writing is printed for the first time in the Erlanger, exe^. opp., torn. XXVII, p. 7, then, compared anew with the manuscript and improved many times, in the Weimar edition, vol. XIII, p. 345. We have translated according to the latter edition. The marginal notes are indicated by letters, other notes by numbers.
the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, the Romans by the Goths and Turks. e) Thus we see that also the kingdom of Pabst is made shaky by the word of God.
In this way, he also predicts here the disturbance of the Assyrian empire, in which-
e) Thus great things do not stand long, because the hearts are puffed up against their creator. Thus the Assyrians, because they had accepted the preaching of Jonah, are in a very good kingdom, but go to ruin when riches flow to them. For it is impossible for nature to keep itself in check in prosperity and good days, that it should not, when the kingdom is thus in bloom, exercise all evil.
chem Nineveh was the seat of the kingdom, where Jonah was sent and brought them to repentance, and caused the punishment to be postponed but not cancelled. For seeing that God was reconciled, they were turned back to their former life, namely to their former vices, by the postponement of the threatened punishment. For this reason, he says, it will happen that they will be weighed down with a heavy burden, and the people of God will be freed from this burden of bondage. This is what he says in the beginning: "This is the burden over Nineveh" etc.