Old Testament

Nahum

Nahum is a single prophecy against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the empire that had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and crushed nations for a century. It opens with a hymn to the LORD who is slow to anger yet will not leave the guilty unpunished, then pictures Nineveh's fall and mourns it with a woe. It belongs in the Bible because it shows that no empire built on cruelty is beyond God's reach, and that the same God who judges the oppressor is 'a stronghold in the day of distress' for those who trust Him ().

Author: Nahum of Elkosh (1:1), otherwise unknown; his name means comfort. The site of Elkosh is uncertain, with suggestions in Judah, in Galilee and near Nineveh itself.
Audience: Judah, long under Assyria's yoke, who needed to hear that the oppressor's power would be broken (1:13, 15). The book addresses Nineveh and its king directly, but as a word of comfort for God's people.
When: After the fall of Thebes in Egypt to Assyria in 663 BC, which Nahum mentions as past (3:8-10), and before Nineveh fell to the Babylonians and Medes in 612 BC. Many place it in the decades before that fall.
Where: Spoken in Judah about a city some 500 miles away on the Tigris. Nineveh was among the largest and best defended cities of its day.
Genre: Nahum is an oracle against a foreign nation, a form found in many prophets, here making up a whole book. It is vivid poetry: a hymn of the LORD's coming (1:2-8, laid out in part as an alphabetic acrostic), rapid battle scenes, taunts and a funeral woe. Read it as poetry, letting the images of chariots, floodwaters and lions do their work, and remember that its first hearers had suffered under Assyria for generations.

Shape of the book

The LORD Who Avenges and Protects · ch 1A hymn to the jealous, patient and mighty LORD, followed by alternating words of doom for Nineveh and comfort for Judah, ending with a herald of good news.
Nineveh Falls · ch 2The attack is described as it happens: red shields, chariots in the streets, the river gates opened, the city plundered, and the lions' den emptied.
Woe to the City of Blood · ch 3Nineveh's lies and cruelty are exposed, it is compared with fallen Thebes, and the king of Assyria is told that all who hear will clap at his fall.

Themes

Patience and Justice in God. draws on -7: the LORD is slow to anger, yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Jonah quoted the mercy side of the same passage when Nineveh repented (); Nahum shows the other side when, generations later, the city returned to its violence.
Judgment on Cruel Power. Nineveh is a 'city of blood', full of lies and plunder (), that hunted nations like a lion () and enslaved them by sorcery and seduction (). The book closes by asking who has not felt Assyria's constant cruelty (). God's justice is good news to the oppressed.
Refuge for Those Who Trust. In the middle of the storm hymn comes the line that the LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of distress, who cares for those who trust in Him (). The same power that topples Nineveh shelters Judah.
Comfort and Peace for Judah. Words to Judah break into the oracle against Nineveh: the yoke will be broken (), a herald brings good news of peace (), and the LORD restores the splendor of Jacob ().

Where Christ is

The New Testament does not quote Nahum directly, so its connections to Christ are echoes. Its herald of good news on the mountains is the same picture Isaiah uses and Paul applies to preaching Christ, and its portrait of a seductive, violent city stands behind Revelation's Babylon. Its God, both judge and refuge, is the God whose justice and mercy meet at the cross.

Good News on the Mountains. Echo. Nahum's herald announces peace because the oppressor is gone (), in words nearly identical to . Paul quotes Isaiah's line for those sent to preach the gospel of Christ, so Nahum's smaller rescue belongs to the same pattern as the greater one. (; ; )
The Fall of the Violent City. Echo. Nineveh, the harlot city whose sorceries enslaved nations (), is one of the patterns behind Revelation's Babylon the great, whose sorcery deceived the nations and whose fall is final. The Lamb's victory is the last word over every empire built on blood. (; ; )
Judge and Refuge. Echo. Nahum holds together a God who does not clear the guilty and who is a stronghold for those who trust Him (, 7). Paul says God showed His righteousness at the cross so that He is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (; ; )

Reading well, key terms and common misreadings

Read it well

Read Jonah alongside Nahum. Both concern Nineveh and both draw on Exodus 34:6-7; Jonah shows God's mercy to a repentant city, Nahum His justice on a city that returned to violence.
Notice the shifts in who is addressed. Many lines speak to Nineveh, others to Judah, and the change is often marked only by 'you' and the content, so read slowly.
Use 2 Kings 17-19 for background: Assyria destroyed Samaria in 722 BC and besieged Jerusalem in Hezekiah's day. That history explains why Nineveh's fall was good news.
Note that verse 1:15 in English Bibles is 2:1 in the Hebrew Bible, so verse numbers in chapter 2 differ by one in some tools.

Key terms

Burden, oracle מַשָּׂא (massa) — The heading of the book (1:1). The word comes from lifting up, and it is used for weighty prophetic messages, often against nations.
Jealous קַנּוֹא (qanno) — The zeal of the rightful Lord for His people and His honor, as in Exodus 20:5 and 34:14. It is not petty envy but the fierce commitment of covenant love.
Slow to anger אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם (erekh appayim) — Literally long of nostrils, from Exodus 34:6. Nahum pairs it at once with God's great power and His refusal to clear the guilty (1:3).
Woe הוֹי (hoy) — A funeral cry used by prophets to announce doom. It opens chapter 3 as a lament over a city no one will mourn.

Easy to misread

Reading Nahum as a nationalist gloating over enemies. The book's ground is God's character and Nineveh's cruelty to many nations, not Judah's superiority; Judah too is judged elsewhere by the same standard.
Setting Nahum against Jonah, as if one shows a merciful God and the other an angry one. Both quote the same self-description of God in Exodus 34. Mercy was real for repentant Nineveh, and judgment was real when it returned to bloodshed.
Taking the violent images as approval of violence for its own sake. They are poetic pictures of judgment on a city that had done the same to others (3:19), and the book's hope is peace (1:15).

Further reading: David Guzik, Enduring Word · Matthew Henry on CCEL · BibleProject overview video