Introduction to Nahum

Author:

     Nahum is the author of the book. His name (נָחוּם Nachum) means “consolation.” Jonah (Jon 3:2-4), Nahum (Nah 1:1; 2:8; 3:7, 18), and Zephaniah (Zep 2:13) all prophesied to/against Nineveh.

Audience:

     Nahum wrote to his fellow Israelites in Judah (Nah 1:15).

Date of Ministry:

     Nahum prophesied sometime between 663-620 B.C. The author mentions the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes which occurred in 663 B.C. (Nah 3:8). He also predicts the fall of Assyria, which occurred in 612 B.C., so the book was written sometime in between.

Historical Background:

     Nahum writes about the cruelty of Nineveh and prophecies its destruction by God. Nineveh was an ancient city that was originally built by Nimrod (Gen 10:8-11). The city was located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, north of the Babylonian empire, and had existed for millennia before its fall in 612 B.C. The Ninevites were known for their great cruelty. Dr. Elliott Johnson writes:

• Nineveh was the capital of one of the cruelest, vilest, most powerful, and most idolatrous empires in the world. For example, writing of one of his conquests, Ashurnaṣirpal II (883–859) boasted, “I stormed the mountain peaks and took them. In the midst of the mighty mountain I slaughtered them; with their blood I dyed the mountain red like wool.… The heads of their warriors I cut off, and I formed them into a pillar over against their city; their young men and their maidens I burned in the fire” (Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, 1:148). Regarding one captured leader, he wrote, “I flayed [him], his skin I spread upon the wall of the city …” (ibid., 1:146). He also wrote of mutilating the bodies of live captives and stacking their corpses in piles. Shalmaneser II (859–824) boasted of his cruelties after one of his campaigns: “A pyramid of heads I reared in front of his city. Their youths and their maidens I burnt up in the flames” (ibid., 1:213). Sennacherib (705–681) wrote of his enemies, “I cut their throats like lambs. I cut off their precious lives [as one cuts] a string. Like the many waters of a storm I made [the contents of] their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth.… Their hands I cut off” (ibid., 2:127). Ashurbanipal (669–626) described his treatment of a captured leader in these words: “I pierced his chin with my keen hand dagger. Through his jaw…I passed a rope, put a dog chain upon him and made him occupy…a kennel” (ibid., 2:319). In his campaign against Egypt, Ashurbanipal also boasted that his officials hung Egyptian corpses “on stakes [and] stripped off their skins and covered the city wall(s) with them” (ibid., 2:295). No wonder Nahum called Nineveh “the city of blood” (3:1), a city noted for its “cruelty”! (3:19).^[1]

     God threatened to judge the Ninevites a century before Nahum. He did this through the preaching of Jonah (who preached circa 793-753 B.C.), who declared, “Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jon 3:4). The Ninevites responded positively to the preaching of Jonah, as “the people of Nineveh believed in God” (Jon 3:5). And, “When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it” (Jon 3:10). For whatever reason, the following generations resorted back to their cruel ways and put themselves back under divine judgment. Whereas Jonah emphasized God’s grace toward Nineveh’s repentance (Jon 3:10; 4:2), Nahum emphasized God’s wrath (Nah 1:2, 6) because of their pride and wickedness (Nah 3:1-4).

     Though historically a pagan and violent people, God used the Assyrians as His tool to destroy Israel in 722 B.C. because of their rebellion against Him (read 2 Ki 17:3-23; 18:9-12). Judah also rebelled against God and practiced many of the sins committed by Israel (2 Ki 17:19). The Assyrians came against them in 701 B.C. and captured 46 cities in Judah and besieged Jerusalem (2 Ki 18:13-37). However, because the Assyrians blasphemed God (2 Ki 18:29-35), and because king Hezekiah humbled himself (2 Ki 19:1) and prayed to the Lord (2 Ki 19:15-19), God intervened and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night (2 Ki 19:20-37).

     Nahum provides the divine perspective that God was the primary cause of Nineveh’s fall (Nah 1:13-14; 2:13; 3:5), and He accomplished this through the Babylonians and Medes whom He used as His disciplinary agents (Nah 3:1-4).

Nahum’s Message:

     God is going to judge and destroy Nineveh (Nah 1:15; 2:13; 3:5).

Outline:

1. Introduction – Nah 1:1
2. Judgment declared – Nah 1:2-15
3. Judgment delivered – Nah 2:1—3:19

 

^[1] Elliott E. Johnson, “Nahum,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1494.