Nahum 2:1–13

2:1 Nahum’s depiction of Assyria’s fall as having already occurred begins with a call for the empire as a whole to prepare for an attack. This command is sarcastic, since the rest of the chapter affirms that the attack will succeed despite Assyria’s military power. That same confidence accounts for the brief reflection on how Assyria’s defeat will benefit Judah (v. 2).

2:2 This verse develops a fuller picture of how God’s intervention will benefit Judah, building on 1:11–13, 15, which mentioned Judah’s liberation from God’s covenant discipline (1:12) and Assyrian oppression (vv. 13, 15). Here “restoring” Jacob’s majesty could signify restoration of Judah’s sovereignty over her territory, as suggested by Psalm 47:4, or it could signify a change in Judah and her fortunes similar to the change in Jacob’s life when he wrestled with God and sought divine blessing with all his might (Gen. 32:22–32). Both meanings may be in view here: the elimination of Assyria would mean Judah would once again enjoy full control of her territory, while a spiritual change would fit the context well as the high point of a development that began with cessation of punishment for Judah’s sin in Nahum 1:12 and included Judah’s thankful celebration of God’s deliverance in 1:15. Both meanings encourage Judah to continue trusting the Lord and highlight her dependence upon him for her spiritual and political well-being.

2:3–10 Beginning in verse 3, the reader watches as the future battle for Nineveh unfolds in eight consecutive scenes. The first scene (v. 3) focuses on the approaching army, under the control of the “scatterer” (v. 1). Its expensive clothing, flashing chariots, and brandished spears show that it is well prepared and well equipped for the attack. The second scene (v. 4) is set later. In four parallel lines, this verse describes the movement of the attacker’s chariots, emphasizing their speed as they attack Nineveh. Sennacherib (704–681 BC) had broadened the streets of Nineveh, and its gates were wide enough for chariots up to 6.5 feet (2 m) wide to pass into the city, and so this scene focuses on the city proper (i.e., within Nineveh’s walls).¹ Ironically, it is now the enemy’s chariots that pass through the gates and streets of the empire’s capital city.

With the enemy already present in Nineveh, the third scene (v. 5) shifts to the Assyrian defenders. The voice calling out to “his officers” (the same term appears in 3:18) is probably that of the king, so that Nineveh’s defense involves the empire’s primary representative. The image of Assyrian officers stumbling clumsily as they make their way to the wall is in stark contrast to the attacker’s rapid and apparently easy progress.

The ineffective and tardy defense of Nineveh disappears after being mentioned in 2:5, as the remaining scenes predict the fall of the city. The fourth scene (v. 6) describes the opening of the “river gates” and the collapse of the “palace.” A canal from the river Khosr some miles away brought water into Nineveh by passing under its eastern wall and leaving the city by way of the western wall, and Sennacherib had built a number of sluice gates upstream to prevent the city’s flooding. There is no clear archaeological evidence, however, that water played a major role in Nineveh’s fall. How is this to be explained? Several responses have been given. First, the attackers may have caused a minor flood within the city (one that archaeological exploration is unable to detect) by using sluice gates on the Khosr upstream from Nineveh to create a buildup of water that, when turned loose, damaged parts of the city. Second, after the attack ended, the Medo-Babylonian attackers may have partially (but not completely) inundated the city in order to seal its destruction symbolically, as Assyria had done to Babylon some seventy years earlier.² Third, the flood language may simply apply flood imagery to Nineveh in order to announce its complete destruction, without intending to refer to a specific inundation of the city during its fall.

The fifth scene (v. 7) seems to prophesy the capture and spoiling of a statue of the goddess Ishtar, the patron deity of Nineveh (“its mistress”), whose temple stood near the royal palace in the city’s inner citadel. Others have understood “mistress” to refer to the city as a whole or to its king or queen. The verb used here (“stripped”), however, involves a physical object in other contexts (cf. Gen. 28:12 [“set up”]; Judg. 9:6 [“the pillar”]), making a reference to the city less likely, and the grammatically feminine gender of the object probably excludes the king while making possible a reference to Ishtar, often called the “Lady of Nineveh” in Assyrian texts. Further, the practice of taking a god’s cult statue into exile is widely attested, and the stripping and carrying away of the image would confirm that the goddess was powerless to defend her residence and chosen city. The laments of her temple personnel also echo those of other ancient Near Eastern texts in which a deity’s statue is captured by the enemy and carried away (e.g., the “Lament for Sumer and Urim”).

The sixth, seventh, and eighth scenes foresee events just before and after the city’s fall. In Nahum 2:8 the city’s defenders are overcome by fear and leave their posts, ignoring their superiors’ calls to remain and defend the city. The Assyrian leaders’ “Halt! Halt!” is the only time an Assyrian voice is heard in the book, and their desperate pleas make clear that Nineveh has fallen. The next scene (v. 9) also uses a repeated command (“Plunder . . . , plunder . . . !”) to depict the other side of the event foreseen in verse 8, with the defenseless city now being looted by the Medo-Babylonian army. Taking spoil from Nineveh is significant because of the immense amount of wealth collected in its treasuries, most of which had come in the form of vassal payments from client states that Assyria exploited, or spoils taken from conquered cities. Just a few years before Nahum wrote, e.g., a royal inscription of Assurbanipal (668–627 BC) boasts that he carried away from Thebes “heavy and countless” spoils, including “silver, gold, precious stones, . . . great horses,” and “two tall obelisks, fashioned of glittering electrum, whose weight was 2500 talents.”³

The final scene (v. 10) envisions the result of the attack in three terms whose similar sounds in Hebrew further emphasize the shocking, sudden, and complete fall of Nineveh (“Desolate! Desolation and ruin!”). This triple summary of the city’s fall is followed by four lines summarizing the reaction of its inhabitants to the catastrophe. Two of these reactions (“Hearts melt . . . ; anguish is in all loins”) describe the internal, emotional effects of this event on the Ninevites, while the other two (“knees tremble; . . . all faces grow pale”) provide visible proof of the dismay and despair of the defeated Assyrians.⁴

2:11–13 The last three verses of chapter 2 describe a God-centered response to the fall of Assyria. This response is the very opposite of the one in verse 10 and hints at the joy that will summarize the book’s final reaction to the fall of the Assyrian Empire (3:19). This section (2:11–13) focuses on the Assyrian king as the representative of the empire and adopts with great irony his frequent self-description as a lion who violently defeats his enemies. In the Assyrian annals, e.g., Adad-Nirari II (911–891 BC) self-identified as “a potent lion,”⁵ Sargon II (722–705) compared himself to a “wild lion who is lordly with frightfulness” on the battlefield,⁶ and Esarhaddon (680–669) purported that he “raged like a lion” against his enemies.⁷

Verse 11 of chapter 2 applies this image to Assyria by sketching a picture of a large pride (family) of lions made up of the dominant male, his lionesses, and several generations of young, emphasizing the security of this large pride in and around its den. Verse 12 depicts the lion’s violent existence with a wide variety of terms for his hunting activities (“tore . . . strangled”) and targets (described as “prey” and “torn flesh”), killed in order to provide for his pride.

This image, which accurately reflects much Neo-Assyrian ideology, is radically undone by the Lord’s response (v. 13). Much like his words to the Assyrian king in 1:14, here the Lord speaks directly to the Assyrian ruler and commits to destroying him and his empire because of the idolatrous and immoral violence by which it pursued material wealth and glory. God solemnly promises to destroy the empire’s army and its “messengers” (diplomats) responsible for negotiating treaties and delivering the king’s edicts to client states (cf. Isa. 36:13–20; 37:9–13).⁸