The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
Nahum 1:2-3BSB
The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath His feet.
Earlier text
Exodus 20:5BSB
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Nahum 1:2-3 draws on the Sinai theophany's self-revelation in Exodus 20:5, where God declares Himself "a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children." Nahum's opening hymn redeploys this covenantal language—jealousy (קַנּוֹא), vengeance (נֹקֵם), and the refusal to leave the guilty unpunished (לֹא יְנַקֶּה)—against Nineveh rather than idolatrous Israelites. The effect is to show that God's moral character disclosed at Sinai is not restricted to the covenant community but governs all nations. Assyria, which has brutalized God's people, now faces the same visiting of iniquity (פֹּקֵד) that the Decalogue warned Israel about.