God and the Other Nations in the Prophets

The prophets in the Old Testament are examples of great men of God that relay His

teaching and communication here on Earth before the new covenant. Before the time of Christ

and the gift of Scripture, God’s word and standard were spoken to key individuals, known as

prophets. These prophets were men chosen by God that met a certain criteria, and they were the

ones who would relay God’s word to the nations. God as the creator of all things has a care,

love, and even an expectation for the nations of the world to live according to His word spoken

by the prophets. A misguided reading of the Old Testament would find a God that seems to be a

God of wrath and anger against both people and kingdoms. However, a correct reading of the

Scriptures would find a God that loves His creation and is just in the decisions that He makes.

God as creator loves His creation, but God as the sovereign God has a master plan and will use

His creation to see His plan come to pass. It is both this love and sovereignty that that one

should see in reading the Old Testament. The nations and how God responds and relates to them

in the Old Testament speaks volumes as to how God both loves, and moves, in order to see His

plan come to completion, and a careful study and reading of the Scriptures can be summarized as

follows: Since God is the creator of all things, events happen because He causes them to

happen. In relation to nations, God shows His utmost power and control, punishes

according to His will, and provides out of His love for them.

All throughout history, man has always prided himself in being the best or in control of

certain situations but this has always been a false assumption in comparison to the God of the

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Scriptures. God uses man and the nations in order to achieve His greater purpose. If a nation

rises or falls, it is due to God. The creator has always had a firm grasp on the creation and in

relation to the nations, the same is true. The nations were created by God and are controlled by

God, so much so that God says He will “shake all the nations” (Hag 2:7) if He sees fit for it to

accomplish His purpose. From reading the Prophets, it is clear that God controls the nations by

being God of all the nations, by using the nations for His purpose, and moving the nations to

serve His purpose.

The prophets speak of many nations who dabble in and practice false worship, but the

true God of the Scriptures makes it known who the God of nations is. Only the true God would

be able to “cut off the nations; destroy the corner towers” (Zeph 3:6) while a belief in a false god

would turn up empty claims and failed promises. In a time with many nations worshipping an

abundance of false gods, there would have been a problem discerning the one true God and who

to give worship to. The God of the Prophets is far different from the false gods who the nations

worshipped. It is God who is in control and uses the nations for His purpose (Ezek 30:22-25).

God, in order to show His authority over all the nations, takes them and uses them at His disposal

saying “I will discipline them at My discretion.”(Hos 10:10). The nations are mere resources for

God to use and call on for his bidding. God is in control and is God over all the nations. God is

the one that holds all the talents and resources and it is God that disperses them as He wishes. If

any nation is blessed with prosperity, it is because God allowed it. But any destruction is also

because He allowed it. Any who challenge God’s control or authority over the nations would

realize that if in opposition, “God comes to sift the nations in a sieve of destruction”(Isa 30:28)

showing His absolute power over the nations and displaying His lordship over them and

ultimately accomplishing His greater purpose.

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God has a purpose for the things that He does. In order to bring to pass the things He

wishes, He uses people or things that seem opposite or insignificant in the beginning but after

time and perspective, God’s greater plan for good was often revealed. Often times God used the

inconceivable (Isa. 1:7) to do His will; He even used and directed whole nations. God would use

massive nations that seemed to counter His agenda (from man’s perspective), but in fact in

comparison to God, the nations were just tools at God’s command and servant to do and serve

His greater purpose. (Isa 10:16). God uses the unbelievable to accomplish His will, partly to

show that it is the God of the universe that is causing things to happen. Things happen and God

tells the people to “look at the nations and observe—be utterly astounded! For something is

taking place in your days that you will not believe when you hear about it!” (Hab 1:5). God is in

control and it is evident with His use of entire nations. The nations would think it was they that

were accomplishing great things, and doing the impossible but it was just another example of

God’s control of the nations by taking them, using them, and conforming them to His perfect

plan. (Isa 13:17, Hab 1:12) Not only does He just use them, He also moves them.

It would be one thing for God to simply use the actions and decisions of a particular

nation and alter them in order to fit His plan but God has an even greater control with His

relations to the other nations. For various reasons and purposes, God will move an entire people,

an entire nation, but this is just another form of His control. In order to show His lordship to a

particular nation, He used His lordship of another nation and moved it to punish the first. It did

not matter the circumstance or distance (Jer 5:15). God brought a nation from far away to punish

another. God said “I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north” and I will use

them to “pour disaster…for all the evil they did when they abandoned Me to burn incense to

other gods.”(Jer 1:14,16). To God it does not matter the difficulties, for to God there is no such
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thing, for God has such a control on the nations He simply moves them, strategically, as chess

pieces to serve His purpose. Control was one way God related to the other nations in the

Prophets, but also He relates through His divine punishment and provision.

Punishment is thought of as something negative in many contexts but without it, a subject

will not know right from wrong or what is acceptable or not. God in one sense should be seen of

as holy and mighty deserving reverence and respect but in a complete different sense, God

should be viewed as a father figure. A figure that teaches, encourages, and also disciplines as a

father would that loves his children. God as a heavenly father teaches through the discipline that

He gives and this is true now and was even true in the age of the Prophets. A great deal of

discipline from man’s heavenly father comes in response and due to man’s sinful nature. In

reading the Prophets, one would read where God says “I will not relent from punishing” (Amos

1:3) an individual for sins such as “pursuing a brother with a sword” (1:11), “burning to lime the

bones of the king” (2:1), “exiling a community” (1:6) or “ripping open a pregnant woman”

(1:13) and a whole gamut of other sins, but it is man’s sin that causes God to punish and is

another relation between He and the nations. Throughout the Prophets, God punishes the nations

for their unfaithfulness and disobedience, their false worship, and also for certain ungodly

actions.

God as creator has expectations for His creation and one of those expectations is to be

faithful to Him and obedient to His ways. In the Prophets, one can find that God relates to the

nations by punishing them, not because He found joy or pleasure in it but because the nations

had grown to be unfaithful and disobedient. God comes to the nations and says “I am against

you” (Nah 3:4) because instead of being obedient to God’s ways and faithful to Him as their

Lord and God, the nations turned to continual prostitution and consistent practice of sorcery.
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With the nations practicing and performing in such sinful ways, the “wickedness would confront

God” (Jon 1:2) and something had to be done. The nations were created by God, in order to

worship God and for them to practice in this way, God would show how He expects them to

honor only the true God and punish them for their wrong doings. The wickedness that had begun

to spread throughout the nations, God punishes by promising that He will lift their skirts showing

their nakedness to the other nations, and that He will throw filth and treat the nations with

contempt, making a spectacle of them. (Nah 3:4-6). God used the other nations not in sin as

accountability for the ones living in wickedness, God would compare to those who were living

righteously. To be unfaithful and disobedient to God who had created you and given you so

much (everything) was a disgrace and something that God would not stand for. God is a jealous

God, and promises to take vengeance on this kind of behavior, and will treat them as enemies.

(Nah 1:2). Not only have the nations in the Prophets other than Israel or Judah been disobedient

and unfaithful, many had established false worship and this is a practice that is contrary to God

being the nation’s one and only heavenly father and that involved punishment.

False worship is contrary to the first commandment that God gave for all His creation to

follow but with the many nations and differing beliefs, false gods and practices in the Old

Testament began to flourish and God took action against the nations. God related to the nations

through punishment and now it was for false worship. The concept of false worship was a direct

violation to what God wanted for His people. God wanted His people to follow and obey and

worship Him and only Him, and to allow a relationship to form between man and God but many

nations chose to follow false gods, to worship something created by hands, rather than the

creator of all things. There would come times when reports would come in where the nations

would cry that their idol, or statute, or god had fallen and that all of the idols of their gods had
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been shattered on the ground (Isa 21:9) and this was the work or promise from the one true God,

man’s heavenly father. Also, God would grow upset at the nations who would seek alliances

with other nations other than the God of the universe. To form an alliance with other

insignificant nation in comparison to God was an act of putting faith in something other than

God and this was grounds for punishment as well. Man’s heavenly father longs to be the

provider and sustainer for His people but false worship destroyed every possibility of that

happening. Scripture speaks of nations carrying out plans and actions that aren’t God’s and

making alliances against God’s will, piling sin on top of sin (Isa 30:1) but it is all unnecessary

and sinful against God and worthy of punishment. God declares that the alliances made with

those other than God for protection will be completely worthless (Isa 30:7) and a punishment for

false worship. The nations of the Old Testament, far too easily placed their faith in false gods

hoping to be doing the right thing, but they were really disrespecting the God that created all

things and required their full obedience and who Himself said I am a jealous God and should not

have any other gods before me.(Nah 1:2). Unfaithful living and false worship in result of sin

brought punishment from God to the outside nations found in the Prophets but also punishment

came from particular actions done.

By far, no one born with a sinful nature has lived a perfect life but this does not excuse

God’s righteous judgment and punishment for sins committed. Nor does this provide an excuse

for the expectations that He placed on the ones created in His image for the nations not fall

subject to sin. God’s expectation for the nations is so high and He is so repulsed by consistent

sin in the life of His creation that one day soon the day of the Lord will come and the nations will

pay for what they have done. On the day of the Lord, one will receive the sin that he did to

another and a sinner will get what he deserves. (Oba 1:15). The judgments that God makes are
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without human revenge and emotion for they are justly made and not to be considered unfair.

God is a gracious God but also just and will punish the nations for the actions they do to

themselves or unto others. One day God will punish the nations for their sin and give them what

they deserve and this includes many and multiple sins such as those that plot evil and conspire

wickedness against the Lord (Nah 1:11), ones that regard their hearts as that of God (Ezk 28:6-

10), and finally, God will even punish those that laugh and applaud the fall of others (Ezk 25:6-

7). Man’s sinful actions are not without consequences and this is one way God related to the

nations outside Israel and Judah that are described in the Prophets, but there is one final

relationship that is evident in the Prophets between God and the nations; God’s provision for the

nations.

Previously this paper has discussed practices of sorcery, prostitution, false worship,

disobedience, unfaithfulness and several others while even a loose reading of the Prophets one

would find incest, murder, and numerous other sins but one fact still remains after all those

things are said and done. God is God of love and provision. God as a creator and heavenly

father loves and cares for His creation and children and this includes provision for the nations.

In bringing up past thoughts in this paper, the nations are mere tools and resources for God to use

at any time in any way and the very things that the nations acquired were given by God. God is a

God of provision because the nations would not exist if God did not want them to. Everything

that man has, man only has it because God wanted Him to and this brings us to seeing God’s

provision for the other nations found in the Prophets. When seeing this relationship of provision

for the nations, one finds God’s care for the nations and God’s punishment of others because He

cares for them.

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Many nations did not put God high on their list of priorities in terms of worship and

obedience but God never stopped loving them. There were times when God told a prophet to get

up and go speak to a nation because they were a nation of sin that was confronting God (Jon 1:2)

but God still cared for them even though their wicked sin. In response to this sinful nation, God

asks why He should not care for this great city that has more than 120,000. (Jon 4:11). The city

was vast and was full of people that were created to love God and for this, God cared for them.

It did not matter the particular sin, for God created this city and He knew their sins and still cared

for them. There were nations that had acted in ways deserving destruction or severe persecution

by God, but destruction never came to pass. It was not in God’s perfect plan to destroy these

particular nations because of His love and care for them. Some nations abandoned God and

served foreign gods in distant lands but because of God’s care for the nations God responded

saying “I will not finish you off.” (Jer 5:18). God had every right to punish and destroy this city

that practiced iniquity for they were not faithful, but God also had every right to spare. God

would much rather bless than curse and for this reason and for His love for them, God gave them

a second chance. After receiving the grace from God, the nation that had lived in sin and

darkness took heed the warning that God gave them and after hearing how much God loved

them, the nation turned from their evil ways and God relented from the disaster that He had

threatened to do to them..(Jon 3:10). God is a good God that loves and cares for the nations and

is a stronghold in days of distress and He cares for those who take refuge in Him. (Nah 1:8).

Time after time God does punish, but He punishes in a righteous way that sinful man could never

fully understand but to serve His purpose at a time when it was expected and deserved, God did

not punish. God relieved His anger or turned His anger away from the nation deserving

punishment, but this just shows God’s heart and care for the nations and that He truly is a God
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that would rather bless than curse, but God also shows His love for the nations in another way.

God shows His care for the nations by punish those that punish His people.

In this final way we see how God relates to the other nations that are found in the Prophets

by punishing the nations that are punishing His people. God longs for a people that will follow

after Him and love Him and in response, God as the creator of the Heavens and of Earth and the

heavenly father of all man will protect those people. God has a great love for the people who

obey Him and a great power over the nations, and will punish those that are harming the ones

that obey God. Followers of God place a trust in Him to protect them saying in confidence that

God will “trample down the nations in wrath and that God will come out to save His people.”

(Hab 3:12). God has such a power over all the nations and has the right to punish as He sees fit

and to “crush the leader of the house of the wicked and strip him from foot to neck” (Hab 3:13)

and this is something only that He can do out of His care for the nations. God loves His people

and promises to take care of them by punishing the others. God speaks with such kind and

protective words when He speaks to Israel saying you will no longer be hurt by the prickling

briers or painful thorns from the nations that persecute you. (Ezk 28:24). God will punish and

execute judgments against all their neighbors who treat them with contempt and then all will

know that He is God. (Ezk 28:26). God cares for the nations and here one can see that He is

showing His care and love by punishing those that punish His people.

Whether God is punishing the nations for something that they have done or providing for

them for He cares for them, everything that God does and how He relates to the nations is

control. God is the one that gives the gifts and the resources and God is the one that moves

entire nations to serve His purpose, and finally God is the one that chooses whether to forgive or

punish a nation for their actions which all flow out of His utmost control over them. God has a
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master plan that will be completed for He is the one that causes things to happen, all to serve His

purpose. God’s relation to the nations is all about His purpose and His plan for He just uses the

nations. In comparison to God, the nations are insignificant and worthless but are important

because they are important to God. God cares and loves the nations and uses them. The fact that

God uses them to bring about His perfect plan show His love, for He could just disregard and

leave the nations to destruction, but He does not do that. The nations are just tools but they are

valuable tools if they choose to worship and honor Him. God is in control and He has always

been in control. The things that happen in this world are because God is causing them to happen

all to serve His purpose. The nations exist because God wanted them to exist and His

relationship with the nations ensures that it is not man calling the shots but is in fact God.; rest

in the fact that God the Creator of all things has everything under control.

John Sanders…john.sanders@sebts.edu

3, 630 words
GOD, CREATOR OF HEAVENS AND EARTH CREATED THE NATIONS
TO SERVE HIM AND HIS GREATER PURPOSE

God and the Other Nations in the Prophets

A Term Paper

Presented to

Professor Chip McDaniel

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

OTS 5110C Pentateuch and Historical Books

John Sanders

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

May 20, 2009