Heading (1:1)

Nineveh (1:1). After this heading, the name of the Assyrian capital does not reappear until 2:8. In 1:8, 11; 2:1, the Hebrew has feminine grammatical forms (“her” and “you”), which refer to Nineveh (the NIV supplies the name). Where the city is meant, it stands for the king in particular, and for all the inhabitants.

Angry Gods

Throughout the ancient Near East, people imagined their gods reacting like human beings. Calamities that overtook towns and kingdoms resulted from divine displeasure. A Babylonian text relates the disasters that kings experienced when they failed to give proper respect to the temple of Marduk in Babylon, and several Sumerian poems from early in the second millennium B.C. lament the downfall of major centers because the gods were angry with them. In the Moabite Stone, the god “Kemosh was angry with his land.”A-1

However, angry gods could be soothed and change their verdicts, as Chemosh did. In another example, Sennacherib viciously destroyed major buildings in Babylon in 689 B.C. in revenge for the city’s repeated rebellion and handing over his son, who was viceroy there, to be killed by the Elamites. Assyrian scribes asserted that Marduk was angry with the Babylonians for their impiety and lawlessness, so he decreed a period of seventy years’ abandonment for the city. Yet Sennacherib’s son Esarhaddon (681–669 B.C.) claimed the period was reduced: “Merciful Marduk–soon his heart was appeased … and he decreed its resettlement for eleven years,” allowing Esarhaddon to start restoring the city.A-2

As Marduk set a limit on the period of Babylon’s desolation, so the Lord did for Judah (1:12). Yet the Lord gave a final verdict on Nineveh; there would be no mercy (see comment on 1:2).

Mesha Stela

Jill Walton, courtesy of the Louvre

Nahum (1:1). The name means “comforted,” but it may be a shortened form of Nehemiah, “The Lord has comforted,” or Naham-el, “God has comforted.”

Elkoshite (1:1). Like Amos and Micah, Nahum is identified by his hometown, not by his father’s name. Several locations have been proposed for Elkosh, not mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. None of the suggestions is wholly convincing, but Nahum probably did live in Judah.