Nahum
Name and Contents
Nahum, the name of the prophet and the book that contains his words, derives from the Hebrew word for “comfort.” It may be a shortened form of Nehemiah—“the Lord has comforted.”
The book is dominated by the genre of the “oracle against the nations,” which pronounces God's judgment on those other than Israel or Judah. While Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and other books contain such oracles against multiple nations, Nahum focuses on only one: Assyria. Throughout Nahum, God is cast as a mighty warrior whose armies violently defeat the foe. After an opening depiction of God as a cosmic power in ch 1, the book turns in chs 2 and 3 to vivid images of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, in the midst of siege and defeat. The images of warfare are stark and disturbing: captive slave women beat their breasts (2.7), dead bodies fill Nineveh's streets (3.3), and Nineveh itself is portrayed as a woman who is sexually assaulted by God (3.5–7). The author shows no pity for Nineveh or its inhabitants, instead delighting in its overthrow and claiming that all nations do the same (3.19).
Authorship, Date of Composition, and Historical Context
Nahum was written sometime after the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes (mentioned in Nah 3.8) in 663 bce. Because the book looks forward to the fall of Nineveh, accomplished by a coalition of Babylonians and Medes in 612 bce, it is often dated to just before that major event. Recent interpretation of the prophetic books, however, suggests that the oracles provide retrospective interpretations of Israel's history, so the book could date after 612 bce. To readers aware that Nineveh had indeed fallen, Nahum would reveal not only God's powerful hand in international affairs but also the role of prophets in preparing each generation for events to come.
Location in Canon
The book is the seventh of the twelve Minor Prophets (see the Introduction to the Prophetic Books). The books of Hosea, Amos, and Micah devote much attention to explaining that Israel and Judah fell because of the people's sin. The next three books of the Twelve, begun by Nahum, explain God's sovereignty over the nations through which God carried out that punishment. Nahum envisions God punishing Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire in the eighth century bce. The Assyrians are infamous to the biblical writers for their destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 bce; even after Assyria passed from world dominance, it remained a symbol for brutal imperial control, as seen in works of the Hellenistic period such as the books of Judith and Tobit. Following Nahum, Habakkuk pointedly calls for God's action against the Babylonians, and Zephaniah joins oracles against Judah with oracles against the nations and offers a glimmer of hope for both.
Many readers contrast Nahum negatively with the book of Jonah, which describes the Assyrians as repenting and insists that God cares about the Ninevites. The difference between the books, however, may be due less to different ancient assessments of the Assyrians than to the different messages and rhetorical strategies of the books. While Jonah demonstrates the depths of divine mercy by showing stereotypically evil Ninevites in the act of repentance, Nahum establishes the sovereignty of God over all tyrants by showing powerful Nineveh in defeat. Within the book of Nahum, the power of God is good news for Judah, as seen especially in ch 1, where God's anger is presented as an act of care for Judah: God will serve as a stronghold to those who seek divine refuge (1.7), caring enough about their affliction to become angry on their behalf.
Structure
The book can be outlined as follows:
Interpretation
Over the history of the book's interpretation, Nahum's celebration of Nineveh's violent overthrow has been variously assessed. In commentaries from Qumran (4QpNah) and early church fathers (such as Tertullian and Cyril of Alexandria), Nineveh becomes the symbol for the authors’ own enemies, and the awesome power of God is celebrated. Many modern interpreters, however, underscore the dangerous ideologies of the book, in which the oppressed imitates the oppressor, and evil is symbolized as a woman.
Julia M. O’Brien
1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.
2A jealous and avenging God is the Lord,
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and rages against his enemies.
3The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,
and he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither,
and the bloom of Lebanon fades.
5The mountains quake before him,
and the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who live in it.
6Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and by him the rocks are broken in pieces.
7The Lord is good,
a stronghold in a day of trouble;
he protects those who take refuge in him,
8even in a rushing flood.
He will make a full end of his adversaries,a
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
9Why do you plot against the Lord?
He will make an end;
no adversary will rise up twice.
10Like thorns they are entangled,
like drunkards they are drunk;
they are consumed like dry straw.
11From you one has gone out
who plots evil against the Lord,
one who counsels wickedness.
12Thus says the Lord,
“Though they are at full strength and many,a
they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no more.
13And now I will break off his yoke from you
and snap the bonds that bind you.”
14The Lord has commanded concerning you:
“Your name shall be perpetuated no longer;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
the carved image and the cast image.
I will make your grave, for you are worthless.”
2
A shattererc has come up against you.
Guard the ramparts; watch the road;
gird your loins;
collect all your strength.
2(For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob,
as well as the majesty of Israel,
though ravagers have ravaged them
and ruined their branches.)
3The shields of his warriors are red;
his soldiers are clothed in crimson.
The metal on the chariots flashes
on the day when he musters them;
the chargersd prance.
4The chariots race madly through the streets,
they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches,
they dart like lightning.
5He calls his officers;
they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
and the manteleta is set up.
6The river gates are opened,
the palace trembles.
7It is decreeda that the cityb be exiled,
its slave women led away,
moaning like doves
and beating their breasts.
8Nineveh is like a pool
whose watersc run away.
“Halt! Halt!”—
but no one turns back.
9“Plunder the silver,
plunder the gold!
There is no end of treasure!
An abundance of every precious thing!”
10Devastation, desolation, and destruction!
Hearts faint and knees tremble, all loins quake,
all faces grow pale!
11What became of the lions’ den,
the caved of the young lions,
where the lion goes,
and the lion's cubs, with no one to disturb them?
12The lion has torn enough for his whelps
and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he has filled his caves with prey
and his dens with torn flesh.
13See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn youre chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall be heard no more.
3
Ah! City of bloodshed,
utterly deceitful, full of booty—
no end to the plunder!
2The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!
3Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
piles of dead,
heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble over the bodies!
4Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,
gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,
who enslavesf nations through her debaucheries,
and peoples through her sorcery,
5I am against you,
says the Lord of hosts,
and will lift up your skirts over your face;
and I will let nations look on your nakedness
and kingdoms on your shame.
6I will throw filth at you
and treat you with contempt,
and make you a spectacle.
7Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,
“Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?”
Where shall I seek comforters for you?
that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
her rampart a sea,
water her wall?
Egypt too, and that without limit;
Put and the Libyans were herc helpers.
10Yet she became an exile,
she went into captivity;
even her infants were dashed in pieces
at the head of every street;
lots were cast for her nobles,
all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.
11You also will be drunken,
you will go into hiding;d
you will seek
a refuge from the enemy.
12All your fortresses are like fig trees
with first-ripe figs—
if shaken they fall
into the mouth of the eater.
13Look at your troops:
they are women in your midst.
The gates of your land
are wide open to your foes;
fire has devoured the bars of your gates.
14Draw water for the siege,
strengthen your forts;
trample the clay,
tread the mortar,
take hold of the brick mold!
15There the fire will devour you,
the sword will cut you off.
It will devour you like the locust.
Multiply yourselves like the locust,
multiply like the grasshopper!
16You increased your merchants
more than the stars of the heavens.
The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
17Your guards are like grasshoppers,
your scribes like swarmsa of locusts
settling on the fences
on a cold day—
when the sun rises, they fly away;
no one knows where they have gone.
18Your shepherds are asleep,
O king of Assyria;
your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
with no one to gather them.
19There is no assuaging your hurt,
your wound is mortal.
All who hear the news about you
clap their hands over you.
For who has ever escaped
your endless cruelty?