Nahum

When God’s Patience Ends

Nahum is the sequel nobody wants to read. A century and more after Nineveh repented at Jonah’s preaching, the city had gone back to its old ways, and then some. Jonah’s generation put on sackcloth. Their grandchildren put Israel in chains. Nahum carries God’s final word to that city, and it is not an invitation. It is a verdict. The book is hard reading. But it is good news to everyone Assyria had crushed, and it holds a warning every generation needs: God’s patience is real, and it is not endless.

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Authorship & Setting

“The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite” (1:1). That is all we know of the man. The location of Elkosh has never been settled. Some have placed it in Galilee, and the name Capernaum may mean “village of Nahum.” Others place it in Judah, and a later tradition points to a town near the ruins of Nineveh itself. Wherever he was from, his burden was for Judah’s comfort and Nineveh’s fall.

The book gives us its own time frame. Nahum speaks of the fall of “populous No” (3:8), the great Egyptian city of Thebes, as something already done. Assyria sacked Thebes in 663 BC. And Nineveh still stands in the book, so it was written before the city fell in 612 BC. That puts Nahum somewhere in the half century between, likely in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah. Assyria was still at or near the height of its power. Predicting its fall was like predicting the collapse of the greatest empire on earth.

It came to pass exactly. In 612 BC a coalition of Babylonians and Medes besieged and destroyed Nineveh. The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus preserved a tradition that a flooding river broke down part of the city wall, which fits Nahum’s “gates of the rivers shall be opened” (2:6). The city was burned and abandoned. It was so completely buried that its location was lost to most of the world until excavators uncovered it in the 1840s.

Key Figures

• Nahum — the prophet whose name means “comfort,” sent with a message of doom for Nineveh and relief for Judah.
• Nineveh and the king of Assyria — the “bloody city” (3:1), a lion that filled its den with prey (2:12), whose “wickedness passed continually” over every nation (3:19).
• The wicked counsellor — one who “imagineth evil against the LORD” (1:11), an Assyrian leader plotting against Judah. Many connect this with Sennacherib, whose army once surrounded Jerusalem (2 Kings 18–19).
• Judah — the afflicted people, told that their oppressor’s yoke will be broken and their bonds burst (1:13).
• The herald on the mountains — the messenger whose feet bring good tidings and publish peace (1:15).

Hebrew Word Study

נַחוּם — Nachum

“Comfort” or “consolation,” from the root nacham. It is the same root Isaiah uses: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God” (Isaiah 40:1). It seems a strange name for the man who brings the harshest book in the prophets. But to a people under an oppressor’s boot, the news that God will break that boot is comfort. Judgment on the wicked is mercy to the oppressed.

נָקַם — naqam

“To avenge,” to take just vengeance. The word hits three times in one verse: “God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries” (1:2). In Scripture, vengeance is not a private grudge. It belongs to God, which is exactly why believers are told to let it go (Romans 12:19). He will set it right, and He will do it justly.

מָעוֹז — ma’oz

A “stronghold,” a fortress or place of refuge. “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him” (1:7). Nineveh trusted in its walls, its rivers, and its armies. Every one of them failed. In the middle of the storm Nahum describes, one fortress stands: the LORD Himself. The same God who is fire to His enemies is shelter to those who trust Him.

מְבַשֵּׂר — mevasser

“One who brings good news,” from basar, to announce glad tidings. “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!” (1:15). Isaiah uses the same picture (Isaiah 52:7), and the Greek Old Testament renders this word with the verb that gives us “evangelist” and “gospel.” Paul quotes it for everyone who preaches Christ (Romans 10:15).

Eight-Movement Narrative Outline

MOVEMENT ONE

The Jealous God Who Avenges (1:1–6)

The book opens on God’s character. “The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (1:3). These words echo Exodus 34:6–7, the same passage Jonah quoted in his complaint. Jonah fixed on the first half: gracious, merciful, slow to anger. Nahum preaches the second half: He will by no means clear the guilty. Both halves are true. Nineveh had experienced the first. It would now meet the second. “Who can stand before his indignation?” (1:6).

MOVEMENT TWO

A Strong Hold in the Day of Trouble (1:7–11)

Right in the middle of the thunder comes the verse to hold onto: “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him” (1:7). He knows His own by name. For His enemies, He will make “an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time”(1:9). Whatever Assyria imagines against the LORD will come to nothing.

MOVEMENT THREE

The Yoke Broken, the Feet on the Mountains (1:12–15)

To Judah, God says, “Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder” (1:12–13). Then a runner appears on the hills with good news: “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows” (1:15). The oppressor is finished. It is time to worship.

MOVEMENT FOUR

The Shields Are Red (2:1–7)

Nahum puts us inside the siege. “The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet” (2:3). Chariots race through the streets and jostle in the broad ways; “they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings” (2:4). Then “The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved” (2:6). The strongest city on earth comes apart in a single chapter.

MOVEMENT FIVE

The Lion’s Den Emptied (2:8–13)

Nineveh drains like a pool as its people flee (2:8). Its treasure is plundered: “Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold” (2:9). Assyrian kings loved to picture themselves as lions and lion hunters. Nahum turns the image on them: “Where is the dwelling of the lions?” (2:11). The lion that tore prey for its cubs and filled its den with ravin will hunt no more. Then the most terrifying sentence a nation can hear: “Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts” (2:13).

MOVEMENT SIX

Woe to the Bloody City (3:1–7)

“Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not” (3:1). Nahum shows the charge sheet: a city built on bloodshed, deceit, and seduction, selling nations through its whoredoms and families through its witchcrafts (3:4). The shame Assyria inflicted on others is turned back upon itself. “Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her?” (3:7). No one comes to mourn.

MOVEMENT SEVEN

Art Thou Better Than No? (3:8–13)

“Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it?” (3:8). Assyria had sacked Thebes, a city with the Nile for a moat and Ethiopia and Egypt for allies. It fell anyway, and Assyria did it. Now the question comes home. Why should Nineveh expect better? Its fortresses are like ripe figs that fall into the mouth when the tree is shaken (3:12). What we did to others is no defense when it comes around to us.

MOVEMENT EIGHT

No Healing for the Wound (3:14–19)

Nahum mocks the preparations: draw water for the siege, make the brick strong. It won’t matter. Nineveh’s merchants multiplied like the stars and its officials like locusts, but they fly away when the sun comes up (3:16–17). The last verse is a death notice: “There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?” (3:19). Like Jonah, the book ends with a question. Jonah’s asks, should not I spare? Nahum’s asks, who has not suffered from you? Both are answered in history.

Christ Typology

The feet of Him that brings good tidings.Nahum’s herald runs over the hills to announce that the oppressor is broken. Paul takes this very picture and applies it to everyone who preaches Christ: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15). The greater good news is not the fall of an empire. It is the defeat of sin, death, and the devil. Christ “came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh” (Ephesians 2:17).

The Breaker of the yoke. “Now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder” (1:13). Jesus opened His ministry by reading that He was sent “to preach deliverance to the captives… to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18). He breaks the yoke of the old oppressor and offers His own in its place: “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

The Stronghold. Nahum 1:7 describes a refuge for those who trust Him in the day of trouble. In Christ, God has given us exactly that. We “have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18). The only safe place in the storm of judgment is inside the fortress, and the fortress is a Person.

The Judge who will not clear the guilty.Nahum reminds us that the Lamb is also the Judge. The same Jesus who welcomed sinners will one day judge the nations in righteousness (Acts 17:31), and Revelation shows the kings of the earth hiding from “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16). The only way God can be both slow to anger and unwilling to clear the guilty is the cross, where He did not clear our guilt. He carried it. That is how He can be “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”(Romans 3:26).

Personal Application

Put Jonah and Nahum side by side and one lesson stands out: a revival in one generation does not save the next. Nineveh repented under Jonah, and within a few generations it was worse than before. Mercy received is not mercy kept. God’s patience is a door held open, not a door that stays open forever. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). If you have been putting off something God has put His finger on, do not assume the door will wait.

Nahum also frees you from carrying your own vengeance. Assyria’s victims could not bring it down. God did. Whatever has been done to you, and whoever did it, justice belongs to the LORD, and He does not forget. That is why you are free to forgive, to pray for your enemies, and to leave the outcome with Him (Romans 12:19). You do not have to keep the ledger. He does.

And in the middle of a hard book, hold on to verse 7. “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.”Nations rise and fall. Empires that look permanent end up buried under the sand. The one who trusts in the LORD is known by Him, sheltered by Him, and will still be standing when the dust settles.

To God be all the Glory!

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