Name, Date, and Occasion
This short book is named for the prophet Nahum, whose vision comprises prophecies of woe against Nineveh sometime between 663 and 612 BC. Nahum’s name sounds like a Hebrew word associated with “comfort” and may be short for “(God) comforts” (see note on 1:1). For a first-time reader, however, the book of Nahum, with its emphasis on divine wrath and severe judgment, may seem anything but comforting.
The key is to note that the book’s “woes” are directed against the immeasurably cruel Assyrians and their great city Nineveh. If a century earlier the Ninevites had repented under the ministry of Jonah, their repentance clearly did not continue. And so Nahum’s message that their “endless cruelty” (3:19) will be brought to an end is comforting indeed. For more on the date and occasion, see Historical Context.
Canonical Context
The book of Nahum comes near the middle of the Book of the Twelve (also called the Minor Prophets). While Jonah’s mission, set in the early eighth century BC, leads to the Ninevites’ repentance and escape from judgment (much to Jonah’s dismay; see Jonah 3:6—4:5), Nahum’s late seventh-century prophecies foretell in graphic detail the judgment soon to befall Nineveh and the Assyrians, who have returned to their former wickedness and cruelty (see Historical Context).
The order of the central four books of the Twelve in Hebrew and English is Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. Not only does this order follow the assumed chronological order in which the respective prophets ministered, but it also suggests a certain symmetry in which the outer books, Jonah and Habakkuk, involve direct interaction between God and his prophet, while the inner books, Micah and Nahum, focus on judgment against Israel/Judah and Nineveh, respectively. Taken together, the four books emphasize that God is both just and merciful (cf. the Lord’s explicit self-description in Exod 34:6–7).
Historical Context
Nahum 3:8 refers to the defeat of the Egyptian city of Thebes, which occurred in 663 BC at the hands of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669–627). That establishes the earliest possible date for the composition of the book. The latest possible date is the fall of Nineveh itself to the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC, which Nahum anticipates. Within this range, an early date seems the more likely since the book presents Assyria as still strong. After the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, Assyrian power waned rapidly.
In its heyday, Assyria was infamous for its cruelty (see notes on 3:3, 10, 19). During the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), the northern kingdom of Israel was forced to pay tribute and eventually, toward the end of the reign of the next Assyrian king (Shalmaneser V, 727–722), was conquered (in 722) and its leading citizens sent into exile, never to return. Now, in Nahum’s day, the surviving southern kingdom of Judah faces the same threat. Manasseh, the ruinously wicked king of Judah, has already experienced exile to Babylon under the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (2 Kgs 21:1–18; 2 Chr 33:1–20), and fear of further Assyrian aggression is rife in Judah. To Nahum’s contemporaries, prophetic messages of Nineveh’s impending doom would indeed have been words of “comfort.”
Literary Characteristics
The book’s one-verse introduction names its genre (prophetic utterance and vision), topic (the fate of Nineveh), and spokesman (Nahum, the Elkoshite). Apart from that, the book consists entirely of poetry. And brilliant poetry it is! In places clipped, rapid, and immediate, the prophetic woes, taunts, and prophecies of judgment bombard readers/hearers with image after image (cf. 3:2–3), conveying the sense of being eyewitnesses to the anticipated fall of Nineveh.
Themes and Theology
1. An Avenging God. To readers accustomed to thinking first and foremost of God’s grace and mercy, the opening lines of Nahum’s first prophecy seem shocking: the Lord is “jealous . . . avenging . . . filled with wrath,” one who “vents his wrath against his enemies” (1:2). But the reader is quickly reminded that the Lord is also “good” (1:7).
2. A Good God. “Slow to anger” (1:3), “the LORD is good” and “a refuge in times of trouble” (1:7). Indeed, “he cares for those who trust in him” (1:7). For all who bend the knee to him, the goodness of God is a comfort, for he is “great in power” (1:3).
3. A Powerful and Active God. Far from remaining aloof and removed from the world and its affairs, the Lord controls the forces of nature (1:3–5) and oversees the affairs of humankind. He is a terrifying presence to his enemies (1:6) and a comforter to his own people (1:12–13).
4. A God of Good News. God’s good news is not just for Israel and Judah but for all who experience the “endless cruelty” (3:19) of the Assyrians or other tyrannical oppressors. Nahum’s powerful message, that Nineveh is doomed, with its broader implication that tyranny and cruel injustice will not always endure, is good news indeed: “All who hear the news [of Nineveh’s doom] . . . clap their hands” (3:19). From his ancient vantage point, Nahum sees a day coming when “messengers” of cruel injustice “will no longer be heard” (2:13). Instead, he sees “the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace” (1:15). For Nahum, this would be a messenger of the final end of Nineveh. But in the fullness of time Nahum’s words grew in significance and were linked with the Good News of Christ’s defeat of the most tyrannical oppressors of all: sin and death (Rom 8:1–2; see Rom 10:14–15 and note the context).
Outline
I. Opening (1:1)
II. The Lord’s Anger Against Nineveh (1:2–15)
III. Nineveh to Fall (2:1–13)
IV. Woe to Nineveh (3:1–19)
