Lifted Skirts
Nahum 3:1-19
Woe to Nineveh
3 Woe to the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!
2 The crack of whips, the clatter of wheels, galloping horses and jolting chariots!
3 Charging cavalry, flashing swords and glittering spears! Many casualties, piles of dead,
bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses—
5 “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame.
18 King of Assyria, your shepherds slumber; your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them. 19 Nothing can heal you; your wound is fatal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands at your fall, for who has not felt
your endless cruelty?
This chapter looks like a poem, but not a beautiful one, but a blaming one. “I am against you,” declares the Lord Almighty. I have rarely read this kind of expression that God said in anger in the bible. Moreover, this sentence, “I will lift your skirts over your face.", catches my eyes, reminding me of my elementary school days. Some naughty boys used to do this kind of act to girls for fun.
I have never experienced it, but I had to be alert on the day when I wear a skirt, so the best way I chose is not to wear a skirt. I had no idea about Nineveh, so I searched the place and it looked devastated and perished. Also, It reminded me of Russia, which looks similar to Nineveh in many ways. They are so cruel, merciless, and greedy armed with splendorous and strong weapons and chariots, and so on.
They would be shameful and be isolated from the nations through this attack of its neighboring country, feeling its skirt lifted over its face. Though lifting a skirt is a metaphor, all the people in the world see and watch them doing shameful behaviors. In verse 7, " All who see you will flee from you and say, ‘Nineveh is in ruins—who will mourn for her?’ Where can I find anyone to comfort you?” Russia should remember this warning as well, not to mention of the countries that had been perished until now, like Nineveh.
I pray that Peace be upon Ukraine and Myanmar and everywhere!
