Nahum Commentary

No one likes being in the path of imminent disaster, nor is the menacing threat of enemy invasion a pleasant thought. Can God protect in such circumstances? Will God judge wicked aggressors? Nahum’s reply is a clear yes. Nahum’s prophecy assures us that God still controls earth’s history. His messages are a warning to oppressors and a comfort to the oppressed.

Setting

In Nahum’s time, the kingdom of Judah was in danger of being swallowed by a great superpower, the Assyrian empire. From Nineveh, the capital, the great king Ashurbanipal (668–626 BC) brought Assyrian might to its zenith. Its military power and cultural influence spanned the length and breadth of the ancient Near East. Even the age-old city of Thebes had felt the conqueror’s heel (3:8-10).

These circumstances were less than encouraging for Nahum and the people of Judah. Israel, their sister kingdom to the north, had already fallen to the Assyrians in 722 BC, and Judah now faced the same imperial enemy. To make matters worse, Ashurbanipal had recently captured Judah’s king, the wicked Manasseh (697–642 BC), and taken him to Babylon (2 Chr 33:10-11). Following his release from captivity, a repentant Manasseh (2 Chr 33:12-17) attempted to undo his former wickedness (2 Kgs 21:1-18; 2 Chr 33:1-9). Despite his efforts, his prior evil influence still permeated the land. A cloud of doom hung over God’s people. Thus, Nahum’s prophetic messages of Nineveh’s fall and of hope for Judah’s future were timely.

The seeds of Assyria’s fall were already being sown in Nahum’s day. After King Ashurbanipal repelled a strong coalition of enemies to the west and resisted his brother’s challenge to the throne, he busied himself with literary and artistic pursuits. Affairs of state languished, and Assyria grew increasingly weak. After Ashurbanipal’s death (626 BC), one after another of the great cities of Assyria began falling to foreign invaders. Then the unthinkable happened—Nineveh itself fell in 612 BC, as Nahum had predicted.

Summary

Nahum opens his prophecy by depicting God’s power in two striking poetic passages, 1:2-6 and 1:7-11. These poems portray God’s sovereign judgment against wickedness and his goodness toward those who put their trust in him. The opening verses give assurance that God will administer his justice fairly.

Nahum then explains what God’s sovereign justice means in the flow of history (1:12-15). No nation is so great that it will not pay for its evil, and God is aware of the plight of those who are oppressed. The prophet assures the people of Judah that they will soon know changed circumstances. Peace and stability will return, and God’s people will be able to enjoy the uninterrupted worship of God.

After predicting the siege of Nineveh and the return of normal conditions in Judah (2:1-2), Nahum describes the fall of the Assyrian capital in two vivid portrayals (2:3-10; 3:1-7). Between the two accounts, Nahum contemplates Nineveh’s destruction in a brief, taunting song. With biting satire, he declares God’s intention of bringing an end to proud Nineveh’s greed (2:11-13).

Nahum builds upon his second description of Nineveh’s fall through another satire of the city. Nineveh would be no more defensible than Egypt’s capital, Thebes (3:8-13), which Assyria had destroyed. Nahum closes his prophecy with yet another piece of satire (3:14-19). Sensing the hopelessness of Nineveh’s plight, he taunts the city’s citizens by urging them to call upon all their resources in order to defend themselves. Of course, that would do no good. Nineveh would lie fatally wounded with no one to help or even mourn her passing.

Author

Beyond the little that can be gleaned from his writings, nothing is known of Nahum, the author of this short prophecy. In the Hebrew text, he is identified as “Nahum the Elkoshite” (1:1). Elkosh could be his clan name, but more likely it was his hometown, which was probably located in southwest Judah. The details of the book show that he was well acquainted with the city of Nineveh.

Date

Nahum mentions the fall of Thebes (663 BC; 3:10) and predicts the fall of Nineveh, which occurred in 612 BC. Therefore, Nahum spoke these prophecies sometime between 663 and 612 BC. Exactly when he did so within this span of years is debatable. It may have been sometime late in the reign of Manasseh (around 648–645 BC), perhaps during Manasseh’s attempted reforms after being released from Assyrian captivity (2 Chr 33:12-16). Or it may have been later, during the early or middle part of righteous King Josiah’s reign (640–609 BC).

Meaning and Message

No empire, however great, is beyond God’s scrutiny. Sooner or later, all must give an account of their actions to the Lord. The reality of God’s righteous and sovereign justice lies beneath the predicted judgment of Nineveh and Assyria. He is in control of everyone and everything on earth, and he has concern for all who suffer, whether from the horrors and atrocities of war or from some other oppression. A burdened humankind can be confident that divine justice will ultimately prevail.

God is long-suffering (1:3), and his people must be patient. The assurance that this good and caring Lord (1:7) has a distinct purpose for his people (2:2) encourages them to a life of faith and trust. Beyond the book’s menacing tone lies the good news of hope (1:15). The prophet predicts a coming day when God’s people will once again worship him in wondrous peace and joy. They will at last be free from those who would take away their freedom.

Subsequent writers of Scripture found in Nahum’s good news a promise of the good news of Christ (Rom 10:15; see also Isa 52:7), who provides the opportunity for deliverance from sin. Knowing that the unbeliever faces an even greater doom than that of fallen Nineveh motivates a missionary effort to carry the good news of salvation and eternal life through Christ to a dying world.

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Prophecy of Nahum

The name of this prophet signifies a comforter; for it was a charge given to all the prophets, Comfort you, comfort you, my people: and even this prophet, though wholly taken up in foretelling the destruction of Nineveh, which speaks terror to the Assyrians, is, even in that, comforter to the ten tribes of Israel, who, it is probable, were now lately carried captives into Assyria. It is very uncertain at what time he lived and prophesied, but it is most probable that he lied in the time of Hezekiah, and prophesied against Nineveh, after the captivity of Israel by the king of Assyria, which was in the ninth year of Hezekiah, and before Sennacherib's invading Judah, which was in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, for to that attempt, and the defeat of it, it is supposed, the first chapter has reference; and it is probable that it was delivered a little before it, for the encouragement of God's people in that day of treading down and perplexity. It is the conjecture of the learned Huetius that the two other chapters of this book were delivered by Nahum some years after, perhaps in the reign of Manasseh, and in that reign the Jewish chronologies generally place him, somewhat nearer to the time when Nineveh was conquered, and the Assyrian monarchy reduced, by Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar, some time before the first captivity of Judah. It is probable that Nahum did by word of mouth prophesy many things concerning Israel and Judah, as it is certain that Jonah did (Kg2 14:25), though we have nothing of either of them in writing, but what related to Nineveh, of which though a great and ancient city, yet probably we should never have heard in sacred writ if the Israel of God had not had some concern in it.

NAHUM means "consolation" and "vengeance"; symbolizing the "consolation" in the book for God's people, and the "vengeance" coming on their enemies. In the first chapter the two themes alternate; but as the prophet advances, vengeance on the capital of the Assyrian foe is the predominant topic. He is called "the Elkoshite" (Nah 1:1), from Elkosh, or Elkesi, a village of Galilee, pointed out to JEROME [Preface in Nahum] as a place of note among the Jews, having traces of ancient buildings. The name Capernaum, that is, "village of Nahum," seems to take its name from Nahum having resided in it, though born in Elkosh in the neighborhood. There is another Elkosh east of the Tigris, and north of Mosul, believed by Jewish pilgrims to be the birthplace and burial place of the prophet. But the book of Nahum in its allusions shows a particularity of acquaintance with Palestine (Nah 1:4), and only a more general knowledge as to Nineveh (Nah 2:4-6; Nah 3:2-3).

His graphic description of Sennacherib and his army (Nah 1:9-12) makes it not unlikely that he was in or near Jerusalem at the time: hence the number of phrases corresponding to those of Isaiah (compare Nah 1:8-9, with Isa 8:8; Isa 10:23; Nah 2:10, with Isa 24:1; Isa 21:3; Nah 1:15, with Isa 52:7). The prophecy in Nah 1:14 probably refers to the murder of Sennacherib twenty years after his return from Palestine (Isa 37:38). The date of his prophecies, thus, seems to be about the former years of Hezekiah. So JEROME thinks. He plainly writes while the Assyrian power was yet unbroken (Nah 1:12; Nah 2:11-13 Nah 3:15-17). The correspondence between the sentiments of Nahum and those of Isaiah and Hezekiah, as recorded in Second Kings and Isaiah, proves the likelihood of Nahum's prophecies belonging to the time when Sennacherib was demanding the surrender of Jerusalem, and had not yet raised the siege (compare Nah 1:2, &c., with Kg2 19:14-15; Nah 1:7, with Kg2 18:22; Kg2 19:19, Kg2 19:31; Ch2 32:7-8; Nah 1:9, Nah 1:11, with Kg2 19:22, Kg2 19:27-28; Nah 1:14, with Kg2 19:6-7; Nah 1:15; Nah 2:1-2, with Kg2 19:32-33; Nah 2:13, with Kg2 19:22-23). The historical data in the book itself are the humiliation of Israel and Judah by Assyria (Nah 2:2); the invasion of Judah (Nah 1:9, Nah 1:11); and the conquest of No-ammon, or Thebes, in Upper Egypt (Nah 3:8-10). Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser had carried away Israel. The Jews were harassed by the Syrians, and impoverished by Ahaz' payments to Tiglath-pileser (2Ch. 28:1-27; Isa 7:9). Sargon, Shalmaneser's successor, after the reduction of Phœnicia by the latter, fearing lest Egypt should join Palestine against him, undertook an expedition to Africa (Isa 20:1-6), and took Thebes; the latter fact we know only from Nahum, but the success of the expedition in general is corroborated in Isa 20:1-6. Sennacherib, Sargon's successor, made the last Assyrian attempt against Judea, ending in the destruction of his army in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah (713-710 B.C.). As Nahum refers to this in part prophetically, in part as matter of history (Nah 1:9-13; Nah 2:13), he must have lived about 720-714 B.C., that is, almost a hundred years before the event foretold, namely, the overthrow of Nineveh by the joint forces of Cyaxares and Nabopolassar in the reign of Chyniladanus, 625 or 603 B.C.

The prophecy is remarkable for its unity of aim. Nahum's object was to inspire his countrymen, the Jews, with the assurance that, however alarming their position might seem, exposed to the attacks of the mighty Assyrian, who had already carried away the ten tribes, yet that not only should the Assyrian (Sennacherib) fail in his attack on Jerusalem, but Nineveh, his own capital, be taken and his empire overthrown; and this, not by an arbitrary exercise of Jehovah's power, but for the iniquities of the city and its people. His position in the canon is seventh of the minor prophets in both the Hebrew and Greek arrangement. He is seventh in point of date.

His style is clear, elegant, and forcible. Its most striking characteristic is the power of representing several phases of an idea in the briefest sentences, as in the majestic description of God in the commencement, the conquest of Nineveh, and the destruction of No-ammon [EICHORN]. DE WETTE calls attention to his variety of manner in presenting ideas, as marking great poetic talent. "Here there is something sonorous in his language there something murmuring; with both these alternates something that is soft, delicate, and melting, as the subject demands." Excepting two alleged Assyrian words (Nah 3:17), English Version, "crowned," or princes, and English Version, "captains," or satraps (used by Jer 51:27), the language is pure. These two, doubtless, came to be known in Judea from the intercourse with Assyria in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.

Next: Nahum Chapter 1