Introduction to
Nahum
Overview
The book of Nahum announces God’s response to human wrongs, whether against God or against other human beings. It begins with a hymn (1:2–8) that presents the final, perfect realization of God’s response to human sin. The hymn connects finding refuge in the Lord to survival of a final divine judgment (v. 7), and also connects ultimate destruction with continued rebellion against him (v. 8). As this hymn presents punishment and deliverance as consequences of either opposing or trusting God, it makes clear that God is not simply on the side of all Judeans, nor is he the enemy only of Assyria; all people will have to give an account of whether they have trusted him or have instead rebelled against him.
Against this ultimate horizon, the rest of the book of Nahum predicts and reflects upon the fall of the Assyrian Empire as punishment for its violence, idolatry, and prideful autonomy. Although Nahum focuses on the Assyrian Empire in the context of its abusive and oppressive relationship to Judah, it recognizes that God’s deliverance of Judah will also bring deliverance to other nations mistreated by Assyria. The fall of Assyria will be good news to those who suffered at its hands, and in Judah’s case it is part of God’s far-reaching plan to restore his covenant relationship with her.
Title
The book is named after the prophet whose oracles it records, Nahum of Elkosh (1:1). Nahum’s name means “compassion” or “comfort,” focusing the reader’s attention on the effect that God’s judgment of Assyria—and ultimately of sin in all its forms—will have on those who trust in him.
Author
There is no detailed information available concerning the life of Nahum of Elkosh, and even the location of his hometown is uncertain. The literary quality of his oracles and his obvious familiarity with Neo-Assyrian propaganda suggest he was closely associated with the Judean royal court, a primary recipient of Assyrian propaganda.
Date and Occasion
Nahum’s ministry and message are situated between the destruction of the Egyptian city of Thebes (No-Amon) in 663 BC, a past event on which the prophet reflects in 3:8–10, and the prophesied fall of Nineveh, which occurred in 612 BC. Because the book implies that Assyria was at full strength at the time of writing (1:12), Nahum’s oracles most likely date to 650 or earlier, as internal revolts began to weaken Assyria around that time.
The book of Nahum focuses on the Lord’s sovereignty over, and punishment of, Assyria for its self-glorifying mistreatment of Judah and other nations. Assyria oppressed, exploited, and used human beings as it saw fit, attributing its success to its king and the gods who supposedly supported and empowered him, especially the national god Assur. From the late tenth century BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire developed quickly, and apart from a period of stagnation from c. 815–750, its expansion was uninterrupted. In the second half of the eighth century BC, Assyria expanded to its southwest and so brought Judah and Israel under its direct control; the northern kingdom of Israel fell to Assyria in 722. Judah was weakened by Sennacherib’s attack in 701 but survived it and actually outlasted the Assyrian Empire. During much of the seventh century BC, however, Judah served as Assyria’s vassal and so was obliged to send it regular payments, accept its exploitation of Judah’s natural and agricultural resources, and contribute soldiers to its military campaigns.
Judah had little hope of escaping the Assyrian Empire’s grasp. Judah was vastly inferior as a military power, and Assyria did much to discourage its vassal states from rebelling by punishing in extreme ways those who did not remain submissive to the empire. Public beheading, flaying, and impalement were possible fates of those who rebelled. In order to transmit this stark reality to the representatives of foreign states who came to pay taxes and homage to the Assyrian king, artwork (bas reliefs) in Assyrian palaces depicted in great detail the violent punishment of rebel states. Assyrian kings also authored numerous inscriptions recounting their violence against such rebels. Assurnasirpal II (c. 883–859) offered a typical description of what followed an Assyrian victory: “I captured soldiers alive by hand. I impaled [them] on stakes in front of their cities.”1
Nahum announces and describes the imminent divine judgment that will put an end to this violent status quo by destroying Assyria. Although written before the event, Nahum anticipates Assyria’s fall in great detail, often representing it as if it had already occurred (e.g., ch. 2). The comfort the book announces is thus closely tied to the message of Assyria’s fall (1:15; 3:19) and more generally to God’s commitment to accomplish his perfect justice in due time.
Genre and Literary Features
Like most other prophetic books, Nahum includes a variety of literary forms. These include the opening hymn describing the Lord’s arrival to judge and deliver (1:2–8), short speeches of judgment and deliverance (1:9–15), longer prophecies of destruction (2:1–10, 11–13), a woe oracle (3:1–7), several taunts (3:8–11, 12–15c, 15d–17), and a sarcastic dirge (3:18–19).
Nahum is full of lively images, colors, sounds, and voices. Many of its images seem to ironically reuse Neo-Assyrian propaganda or ideology that presented the Assyrian king in particular as invincible. This literary resistance is especially clear in Nahum’s use of lion imagery (2:11–13) and the prediction that the Lord will eliminate the king’s name (glory and posterity), gods, and existence (1:14). The description of Nineveh’s fall in chapter 2 is full of colors and sounds emphasizing the power of the army that will conquer the city, and Nahum even hears (by anticipation) the defenders calling out “Halt! Halt!” to fleeing soldiers (2:8), as well as the attackers’ parallel call to “Plunder the silver, plunder the gold!” (2:9).
As these examples show, direct speech (i.e., quotation) is used to great effect in Nahum. In another notable case, the Lord’s announcements in first-person speech, “Behold, I am against you” (2:13; 3:5), present him as the enemy of the Assyrian Empire in the most direct way possible. Similarly, the sarcastic taunts of chapter 3, although spoken and written to a Judean audience, are addressed to an Assyrian audience.
Theology of Nahum; Its Relationship to the Rest of the Bible and to Christ
God as Victorious Warrior and Judge of Sin
The predominant image of God in Nahum is that of the Divine Warrior who triumphs over his enemy. As is the case throughout the OT, this conflict has a strong moral overtone. God’s combat is a response to his enemy’s aggression against him, as the Lord punishes human pride in its boldest and most blasphemous colors. This is emphasized by repeated references to “avenging . . . avenging . . . vengeance” in 1:2. As our brief glances at the empire’s ideology showed, Assyria was a concrete example of an empire that considered itself independent of God and able to combat him directly (1:9, 11; cf. 2 Kings 18–19). Similarly, the Lord’s enemies in Nahum 1:2–8 are not the type who surrender; instead, they persist in their rebellion against him until he destroys them (1:8).
This theme is fulfilled in the NT in surprising ways. While God threatens the unrepentant with judgment (Heb. 9:27), Christ’s first coming does not immediately bring about their ultimate judgment. Instead, the fullest revelation of God’s wrath against sin outside the context of final judgment is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. God’s punishment of the sins of others in Jesus Christ was such that his one and only Son was forsaken, deprived of the intimate fellowship and favorable presence of his Father (Matt. 27:46), and was “made . . . to be sin” (2 Cor. 5:21). In the cross, God is victorious over sin, destroying its power (Col. 2:13–15), defeating the Devil (1 Corinthians 15), and condemning all who reject Christ to eternal destruction in a final demonstration of his perfect justice (Rev. 20:9–10).
God as the Only Refuge and Deliverer
Although most of Nahum focuses on the combat through which the Lord will destroy his enemies, its message (which is addressed to Judeans) is ultimately one of hope and comfort, for God is rich in mercy and grace to those who trust in him. This is hinted at first by the echo in 1:3 of Exodus 34:6, describing the Lord as “slow to anger.” Despite his inexpressible wrath against sin, the Lord is able and willing to pardon those who have sinned against him yet nevertheless take refuge in him (Nah. 1:7). In other words, even God’s enemies can experience his grace when they abandon their opposition to him and seek reconciliation. Indeed, the OT affirms that even Nineveh—a major (and sometimes capital) city of Assyria—was offered such an opportunity through Jonah’s very unusual and direct call to abandon its enmity against Yahweh. It was only because their initial repentance did not endure that Nahum’s declaration of judgment came, a century later.
In the OT, the sacrificial system in particular bears witness to the mercy of God toward those who have offended him, for he instituted such a system in order to reconcile penitent Israelites to himself (Lev. 17:11). The future reality to which that system bore witness, the sacrifice of God’s Son in the place of sinners, put an end to the system that prefigured it (Hebrews 8). As a result of Christ’s finished work, believers are forgiven all their sins (Rom. 3:21–26), are sheltered from God’s wrath against sin (Heb. 2:14–15), have access to the holy of holies—where their high priest is seated and is always ready to help (Heb. 4:14–16)—and pursue service of God (Heb. 9:14) as they await their final salvation (Heb. 10:19–25; 12:1–24).
The Day of the Lord
The “day of the LORD” is a theme that runs across the canon of Scripture. While in the OT the phrase often refers to concrete historical events (e.g., the fall of Jerusalem; Lam. 2:21), even those cases overlap in significance with the fullest sense of the phrase, which refers to God’s decisive and final intervention in world affairs. The book of Nahum contains both of these senses of “the day”: the fall of Assyria is a limited, concrete manifestation of God’s wrath in judgment and mercy in deliverance, while the book’s opening hymn broadens its perspective to include the final fulfillment of the day of the Lord, in which he will punish the unrepentant and deliver those who trust in him.
The day of the Lord relates to the work of Christ in two ways. First, God’s wrath against sin was assuaged on the cross and thus no longer threatens those who trust in Christ (1 Thess. 1:10). Believers therefore may begin to enjoy here and now the full deliverance awaiting them at the end of the age, when they will enter the new heaven and new earth with a resurrected body and a soul perfectly cleansed from sin and fully committed to loving, worshiping, and serving God. The other side of the day of the Lord is much more somber, involving Christ as the judge of “those who do not know God and . . . those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:8). This two-sided reality, the glory of God in judging and in saving, is at the heart of the gospel the church proclaims, promising in Christ’s name full pardon and eternal life to a world that is under the threat of his just wrath.
Hope and Joy
Hope and joy are interrelated themes in Nahum, as well as elsewhere in Scripture. Joy takes account of future as well as present good, while hope looks forward to what will one day become reality. Nahum encourages both. First, in the more limited context of Assyria’s fall, Nahum encourages Judeans to rejoice in God’s promise to destroy Assyria (Nah. 1:15). The book foresees that not only Judah but also all nations mistreated by Assyria will clap their hands for joy when Assyria finally falls (3:19). Second, the hymn in 1:2–8 is structured so as to produce in the reader a crushing fear of the Lord’s imminent judgment (1:6), only to reveal at the last minute that escape is possible (1:7) but cannot be presumed upon (1:8). If the fall of Assyria is grounds for joy, how much more is deliverance from God’s ultimate judgment through the shelter that is God himself?
The twin themes of sober joy over God’s just punishment of the wicked and exuberant celebration of his abundant grace in saving some through the sacrifice of his own Son appear regularly in Revelation, a book that has much in common with Nahum. After an opening vision into heaven that overwhelms the reader with the outpouring of praise to the triune God for his salvation (Revelation 4–5), the book reflects repeatedly on the deliverance of those saved from or through persecution (Rev. 7:15–17) and on the just punishment of God’s enemies (Rev. 16:5–19:3; cf. both themes together in 11:17–18).
The message of Revelation is essentially the message of Nahum restated in light of God’s redemptive actions fully revealed in Christ. Believers who are presently oppressed and persecuted can trust God to deliver them in due time and are called to hold fast to him in faith and obedience to the gospel in the meantime (Rev. 22:10–15). Both Testaments encourage persecuted believers by reminding them that the most extreme manifestations of evil in the world today, even those surpassing in scope the violence and evil of the Assyrian and Roman Empires, will nonetheless be brought to an end. A hope anchored in the Word of God and its promises is fortified by the fulfillment of God’s past judgments against evil, waiting expectantly for the final fulfillment of his plan of redemption at Christ’s return (Heb. 6:11–20).2
Preaching from Nahum
Preaching from Nahum depends, first of all, on understanding the differences between the eschatological context of 1:2–8 and the historically specific nature of the fall of Assyria predicted in the rest of the book. The two parts of the book are clearly linked, but the opening hymn presents an ultimate judgment that includes all of humanity and that is rendered exclusively in accordance with the individual’s relationship to God. Each person is either God’s enemy or one who trusts in him for deliverance from his wrath against sin, and one’s nationality plays no role whatsoever in this final judgment.
The rest of the book, by contrast, deals with Assyria as an empire that exalts itself above God—and above Judah as the punished but repentant people of God. The political nature of the deliverance and punishment in this section is clearly focused on Judah and Assyria as nations. This kind of punishment and deliverance is only a faint shadow of the eschatological deliverance announced in 1:2–8. Understanding the similarities and differences between these two perspectives helps prevent misunderstanding the book as an expression of nationalism or xenophobia (since it is not simply Assyria that is subject to punishment) and forces the reader to understand historical judgments like the fall of Assyria as a foretaste of God’s unchanging commitment to do away with evil once and for all at the end of the age.
Responsible use of Nahum in preaching also requires the preacher to appreciate the idolatrous nature of human claims to autonomy and to resist the temptation to limit the sins of idolatry, autonomy, and rebellion against God to nation-states or other groups. Although the Assyrian Empire offers plenty of evidence for such attitudes on the part of the king, neither then nor now are such attitudes restricted to political leaders or to those without some religious affiliation. On the contrary, individuals in all societies tolerate, promote, or practice autonomy from the Lord and the other sins for which he condemns Assyria (3:1–5, etc.).
Since these attitudes and priorities are inevitably present in the cultures in which Christians find themselves, careful analysis of one’s culture and of one’s own heart is thus essential to identifying accurately the ways in which evil seeks to capture believers and unbelievers alike. Such analysis is also essential to Christian ethics and growth as described in the NT, which focuses on the believer’s renewal from the inside out. United with the resurrected Christ and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, believers are called to renew their minds (Rom. 12:1–2), putting off the old man and putting on the new (Col. 3:1–17) in constant pursuit of conformity to the image of the Son of God (Rom. 8:29). This inevitably involves being “in” but not “of” the larger culture in which we live and thus requires knowledge of our culture, the ways in which it opposes the gospel, and how the gospel challenges its claims.3
Interpretive Challenges
Apart from some difficult and obscure expressions here and there (e.g., Nah. 1:10), the main interpretive difficulty of Nahum is what some would call its heartless joy at the fall of Assyria: was not the empire mainly populated by those who had little or nothing to do with the evils for which the whole empire was to be punished? And did not the fall of Assyria deliver from divine discipline some Judeans who deserved it (1:12)?
In approaching these questions, it is particularly important to notice how Nahum defines the various groups it presents. Given Nahum’s focus on Assyria’s violence toward other nations, a focus on Judah and Assyria as distinct states is inevitable. But this is not the only way they are identified. Judah is also God’s chosen people who receives his gracious protection, yet at the same time it is a nation that until very recently was under covenant punishment (1:12) for its sinful leaders and citizens (notably Manasseh and Amon). The fact that every Judean will benefit from the fall of Assyria regardless of his or her spiritual condition is not proof that God has overlooked their sin. Rather, he has remained faithful to his promises by preserving a remnant, but also sparing along with them others who do not share their faithfulness. Importantly, this restoration is restricted to the temporal sphere; Judah’s newfound peace and liberty hardly imply that each and every Judean would escape God’s final judgment against sin (cf. 1:2–6, 8). That occurs only for those with a definitive relationship of faith and trust in Yahweh (1:7).
Similarly, Assyria is not merely represented by an army and an elite; it also includes a general population distinct from the elite in various ways (cf. the elite in 1:11, 14; 2:11–13; and the populace in 2:10; 3:18). Although Nahum announces the fall of the empire, he is announcing not the death of every Assyrian but rather the undoing of the empire through the destruction of its army, leaders, and political structures. This explains why Nahum foresees that some Assyrians would survive the fall of Nineveh and its king (2:10; 3:18).
God was surely just to do away with the Assyrian Empire. Indeed, he could have destroyed each and every Assyrian for his or her sins while remaining perfectly just. Yet the book’s focus on the empire means that the primary target of God’s punishment is those who embodied the empire. While Assyria’s fall inevitably involved hardship and perhaps even death for some of the general population, Nahum pays no attention to that reality, at least partially because he foresees different degrees of punishment. While the empire falls and never rises again, the majority of its population would simply have become Babylonian and continued their lives as citizens of that empire.4 Still, as was the case with Judah, God’s mercy as shown in some Assyrians’ survival of Assyria’s fall does not mean they were without sin or would survive God’s final and ultimate judgment (1:2–6, 8). For that to take place, they would have to turn to him in faith (1:7).
Outline
- I. The Threat of God’s Universal Judgment (1:1–8)
- II. Announcement of Assyria’s Judgment and Judah’s Deliverance (1:9–15)
- III. Anticipation of Assyria’s Fall (2:1–13)
- IV. Undoing Assyria’s Pride (3:1–19)
1 Brent A. Strawn, trans., “Calah Annals Text,” in Mark W. Chavalas, ed., The Ancient Near East: Historical Sources in Translation, Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 288.
2 See the articles on various aspects of persecution and faithful Christian witness in Unio Cum Christo 1 (2015).
3 See Leonardo De Chirico, “Post-Christian Confession in Secular Context,” Unio Cum Christo 1 (2015): 175–186; and the summary of Charles Taylor’s thought in James K. A. Smith, How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014).
4 There is no evidence in the OT or elsewhere that Babylon abused or killed large numbers of the civilians they subjugated; cf. Jonathan Goldstein, Peoples of an Almighty God: Competing Religions in the Ancient World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 95.