Nahum 1:6
Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.
The question who can stand before indignation and who can abide in fierceness of anger means no one can stand or remain before it, for fury is poured out like fire and even rocks are thrown down by it. No one can withstand such anger, which brings irresistible destruction as consuming fire and overthrows even what is hardest and most immovable. In its setting this belongs to the portrayal of God as slow to anger yet great in power who will not acquit the wicked, whose way is in the whirlwind and storm. He dries the sea and rivers, withers fertile lands, shakes mountains, melts hills, and burns the earth and all in it at His presence, while His fury breaks apart rocks like fire.
With a nation He is patient, offering mercy and calling it to repent and return while keeping account of its evil deeds. When the limit He has fixed is reached His patience ceases, the account is closed, mercy no longer pleads for it, and His wrath brings irresistible judgment that no one can withstand. His judgments may follow rejected invitations to return to Him and are intended to lead people to repentance and forsaking of sin. At the same time they display His power and just sovereignty to make people tremble before Him and to silence proud defiance like Pharaoh's refusal to obey.
The quaking, melting, burning, and overthrowing of earth, mountains, and rocks at His presence applies to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other upheavals and scenes of ruin. Such events are signs of His power and agents of judgment against wicked cities, showing He can overturn and destroy what people regard as firm and substantial. They are meant to make people tremble before Him and to silence proud defiance.
The verse describes the terror and overwhelming destruction of the final destruction of the wicked at the second advent of Christ and the day of the Lord just before His coming. Then fire from heaven will join fire within the earth, so that mountains burn and pour out lava, streams of molten rock convulse the earth, and the world and its wicked inhabitants are burned. The question who can stand expresses the terror of this judgment, when the earth is burned at His presence and mountains quake and melt in great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Still greater manifestations of this collapsing of mountains and rocks are expected shortly before Christ's coming.