“And it will come about that all who see you will shrink from you and say, ‘Nineveh is devastated! Who will grieve for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you? … There is no relief for your breakdown, your wound is incurable. All who hear about you will clap their hands over you, for on whom has not your evil passed continually?” (Nah 3:7, 19).
In Scripture, cities are often personified, and here the prophet addresses the Assyrian city of Nineveh. He compels the city, and all who belong to it, to consider the legacy it will leave behind. Nineveh’s funeral will be devoid of mourners, and instead marked by cheers of joy from those who hear she is finally gone.
It is the lives of those who put “God and his kingdom” first that are celebrated long after they are gone.
Such is the legacy of a person or society whose motto is “Me first!” Having devoted life entirely to self, such a person dies without true friends, surrounded only by those who used and abused him and who openly celebrate when he is finally gone.
By contrast, those who can say in this lifetime, “if I perish, I perish” (Esth 4:16), “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21), and “if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Cor 13:2), leave behind memories that are truly a blessing. It is the lives of those who put “God and his kingdom” first (see Matt 6:33) that are celebrated long after they are gone.
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:3–5).
