The book of Nahum

Main theme

The God who is slow to anger but just does not leave evil unpunished: he announces the fall of Nineveh, the bloody city, and peace for Judah, for he is a refuge for those who trust in him.

Outline

1. Nahum 1 — The God who judges and protects

   Portrait of the LORD, avenger of his enemies and refuge of his own; sentence against Nineveh and promise to Judah.

2. Nahum 2 — The assault on Nineveh

   The messenger of peace for Judah and the spectacular capture of the city.

3. Nahum 3 — Woe to the bloody city

   Nineveh’s crimes, the example of No-Amon and a wound without remedy.

Key points

• The whole book is “the burden of Nineveh,” capital of Assyria, about a century after Jonah’s preaching (1:1).
• God is both “slow to anger” and just: he “will not at all acquit the wicked” (1:3).
• “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble” for those who trust in him (1:7).
• God promises Judah to break the Assyrian yoke and burst its bonds (1:13).
• Upon the mountains appears the messenger who proclaims peace: the oppressor is cut off (1:15).
• Nahum describes the fall of Nineveh in advance: chariots, the gates of the rivers opened, the palace dissolved, plunder (2:3-9).
• Nineveh, the “bloody city,” will suffer the fate of No-Amon, which she had herself conquered (3:1, 8-10).
• The book ends on a wound without remedy and a question: upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually? (3:19).

Jesus in Nahum

“Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace” (1:15): Paul applies this image to the preachers of the gospel (Rom 10:15; Isa 52:7). The true good news is the defeat of enemies more fearsome than Assyria: at the cross, Christ spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them (Col 2:15). Nahum also reminds us that God does not leave evil unpunished (1:3): in Jesus, he is both just and a refuge, for Jesus is the one “which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess 1:10).

Did you know?

• Jonah and Nahum, the two books devoted to Nineveh, both end with a question: one on God’s compassion, the other on the city’s wickedness (Jonah 4:11; Nah 3:19).
• According to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, a flood of the river opened a breach in Nineveh’s walls at its fall, which recalls “The gates of the rivers shall be opened” (2:6).
• Nineveh was so thoroughly buried that even its exact location was forgotten; its ruins were not excavated until the nineteenth century.