This week we begin our study of the prophet Nahum, the seventh of our twelve prophetic books. There are no biographical details about Nahum other than the name of his hometown, Elkosh. Nahum is not mentioned in any other biblical text outside of his own book. The location of Elkosh has been lost to history. Fourth century Christian theologian Saint Jerome claimed Elkosh was a village in northern Galilee. Without any additional archaeological discoveries, Jerome’s tradition has mostly held. There was, however, an ancient Assyrian village named Alkosh near the Tigris River, just north of Mosul in modern times. If Nahum was part of the Israelite community living in the Assyrian diaspora, his parents were likely deported there in previous Assyrian raids. If the anti-Assyrian prophet was writing against the land of his subjugation, it would certainly add an interesting twist to the text. But the vivid way in which Nahum describes the hills, vineyards, and valleys of Israel points to his being a native of Israel or Judah, not someone born in the diaspora.
Nahum does not give an explicit date in his superscription or name a king that would help with dating. Based off clues from the text, however, Nahum likely ministered around the middle of the seventh century BCE. In his third chapter, he mentions the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes as a historical fact (3:8). Historians know Thebes fell in 663 BCE so the prophet had to have written sometime after that major historical event.
With the way Nahum describes the great strength of Assyria, the empire was still a powerhouse in the prophet’s day. None of Nahum’s prophecies indicate that he witnessed signs of Assyrian weakening. In 612 BCE, Nahum’s prophecies were fulfilled when an alliance of Babylonians and Medes managed to overtake Nineveh, Assyria’s capital. The fall of Thebes and Nineveh give us the parameters for dating Nahum. He had to have ministered sometime between 663 BCE and 612 BCE. Further narrowing of his dates is not possible.
This week we begin our study of the prophet Nahum, the seventh of our twelve prophetic books. There are no biographical details about Nahum other than the name of his hometown, Elkosh. Nahum is not mentioned in any other biblical text outside of his own book. The location of Elkosh has been lost to history. Fourth century Christian theologian Saint Jerome claimed Elkosh was a village in northern Galilee. Without any additional archaeological discoveries, Jerome’s tradition has mostly held. There was, however, an ancient Assyrian village named Alkosh near the Tigris River, just north of Mosul in modern times. If Nahum was part of the Israelite community living in the Assyrian diaspora, his parents were likely deported there in previous Assyrian raids. If the anti-Assyrian prophet was writing against the land of his subjugation, it would certainly add an interesting twist to the text. But the vivid way in which Nahum describes the hills, vineyards, and valleys of Israel points to his being a native of Israel or Judah, not someone born in the diaspora.
Nahum does not give an explicit date in his superscription or name a king that would help with dating. Based off clues from the text, however, Nahum likely ministered around the middle of the seventh century BCE. In his third chapter, he mentions the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes as a historical fact (3:8). Historians know Thebes fell in 663 BCE so the prophet had to have written sometime after that major historical event.
With the way Nahum describes the great strength of Assyria, the empire was still a powerhouse in the prophet’s day. None of Nahum’s prophecies indicate that he witnessed signs of Assyrian weakening. In 612 BCE, Nahum’s prophecies were fulfilled when an alliance of Babylonians and Medes managed to overtake Nineveh, Assyria’s capital. The fall of Thebes and Nineveh give us the parameters for dating Nahum. He had to have ministered sometime between 663 BCE and 612 BCE. Further narrowing of his dates is not possible.
Bible Fiber #22: Nahum 1:1-8
Welcome to Bible Fiber where we are encountering the textures and shades of the prophetic tapestry in a year-long study of the twelve minor prophets, one prophet each month. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
Authorship
This week we begin our study of the prophet Nahum, the seventh of our twelve prophetic books. There are no biographical details about Nahum other than the name of his hometown, Elkosh. Nahum is not mentioned in any other biblical text outside of his own book. The location of Elkosh has been lost to history. Fourth century Christian theologian Saint Jerome claimed Elkosh was a village in northern Galilee. Without any additional archaeological discoveries, Jerome’s tradition has mostly held. There was, however, an ancient Assyrian village named Alkosh near the Tigris River, just north of Mosul in modern times. If Nahum was part of the Israelite community living in the Assyrian diaspora, his parents were likely deported there in previous Assyrian raids. If the anti-Assyrian prophet was writing against the land of his subjugation, it would certainly add an interesting twist to the text. But the vivid way in which Nahum describes the hills, vineyards, and valleys of Israel points to his being a native of Israel or Judah, not someone born in the diaspora.
Nahum does not give an explicit date in his superscription or name a king that would help with dating. Based off clues from the text, however, Nahum likely ministered around the middle of the seventh century BCE. In his third chapter, he mentions the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes as a historical fact (3:8). Historians know Thebes fell in 663 BCE so the prophet had to have written sometime after that major historical event.
With the way Nahum describes the great strength of Assyria, the empire was still a powerhouse in the prophet’s day. None of Nahum’s prophecies indicate that he witnessed signs of Assyrian weakening. In 612 BCE, Nahum’s prophecies were fulfilled when an alliance of Babylonians and Medes managed to overtake Nineveh, Assyria’s capital. The fall of Thebes and Nineveh give us the parameters for dating Nahum. He had to have ministered sometime between 663 BCE and 612 BCE. Further narrowing of his dates is not possible.
Critical biblical scholars reject any notion of the prophets receiving supernatural visions. When they date the prophetic books, they assume the prophets were only able to interpret the political and military events contemporary to them. If divine disclosures are outside of the realm of possible, Nahum was probably written right before Nineveh’s destruction, when signs of her downfall were surfacing. Or some Nahum scholars even say the text was written after 612 BCE. The prophet would have tweaked his writing to make it seem as though he had been predicting Nineveh’s fall all along.
Dating Nahum’s composition is important, as his dates decide whether the prophet was writing predictively about Assyria’s fall or retrospectively. In my opinion, the predictive nature of his prophecy is important to his purpose. Nahum’s message of hope, by way of predicting Assyria’s defeat, would have seemed impossible to the people of Judah. The fulfillment of his prophecy could only be credited to the divine hand of God working in history.
Message
Though exquisitely written, the book of Nahum is singular in message, as the prophet explicitly titles his prophecy: An oracle concerning Nineveh. Nahum has one foreign nation in its crosshairs: the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh, as the capital of Assyria at the time, is synonymous with the whole of the empire. Nahum does not waste a single prophetic breath on chastising the people of Judah or any other foreign nation. If you remember, Obadiah had the same laser focus when it came to the Edomites. To the people of God, Nahum only offers comfort, no correction. In fact, the name Nahum is a rare word for “comfort.”
Nahum’s method for offering comfort is by delivering his prophecy with a tone of expectant triumphalism. He was writing to the people of Judah who had been beaten back and scaled down to a small fraction of their former nation. At no point does he indicate his proclamation against Nineveh was addressed to the Ninevites. The people living in overcrowded Jerusalem were still reeling over the memory of Assyria’s destruction of the northern kingdom. Assyria’s strategy for ruling all her vassal states relied on fear and deterrence, and the people of Judah had lived under that threat for almost two centuries. As long as the empire constantly conquered new lands, they could pay their mercenaries, stoke chaos in the realm, and decentralize any potential opposition.
Style
Scholars studying the literary qualities of the Hebrew Bible all hold up Nahum as one of the most distinguished writers out of all the prophets. His use of staccato repetition matches the content of his message: Nineveh’s destruction will be as abrupt and determinative as the drumbeat of the poetry. Nahum also has mastered the language of taunt. Other prophets list out the offenses of foreign nations, and all the prophets are experts of strongly worded language and sarcasm. Nahum ups the ante, taunting and insulting Assyria as an enemy of God.
Nahum’s preamble identifies itself as a book, or rather a scroll, right at the outset. The first verse says: “The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh” (1:1). No other prophetic text self identifies as a written composition. Some scholars have proposed that Nahum was circulated among the people of Jerusalem to give them courage during the most intense periods of Assyrian persecution.
Most of the other prophetic books give off the aura that they were vocalized, delivered as sermons or lectures, before they were committed pen to paper, or more specifically stylus to scroll. In a society committed to orally transmitted teachings and traditions, the prophetic texts often indicate they were hymns, liturgies, or speeches before they were converted to written compositions. Nahum’s stylistic devices point to a text that was first expressed in written form.
Theophany
As a whole, Nahum is not a theological text. The first eight verses are the exception. Nahum opens with a Divine Warrior Hymn, praising Yahweh as a powerful fighter who will bring victory for His people over the Assyrian enemy. Some scholars believe the hymn was designed to stand on its own, like a Psalm, and was only later joined to the rest of Nahum’s oracles. Indeed, there are lots of similarities with Nahum 1 and Psalms 7, 91, and 98. These Psalms were used by the Israelites as aspirational prayers before battles or celebration hymns after victories. Nahum is using the same style as those Psalms, but in his case he is celebrating a victory over Israel’s enemies that has yet to happen.
In the divine warrior hymn, Nahum highlights the jealousy and vengeance of God. The Hebrew word for avenge is one of the most frequently used words in the whole text. The hymn begins, “a jealous and avenging God is the Lord,the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies” (1:2). Some English translations prefer zealous over jealous in this verse because jealous has a negative connotation in English associated with loss of control over one’s emotions. But jealous in the context of God’s character is a covenant term, showing the exclusivity of the relationship between God and His people.
I understand that the focus on God’s wrath can be off putting for us as modern readers. Of course we all prefer texts focusing on God’s love, compassion, and mercy. And yet, the way Nahum builds the Judeans confidence in Assyria’s fall is by promising them that God will fight on their behalf. They have witnessed the Assyrian empire commit brutal acts in the name of expansion, but thus far Assyria has only grown in strength and racked up more success. What God’s people cannot see is the long-term plans of Yahweh, and his ultimate plan for administering justice.
Acrostic
The divine warrior hymn rolls out as a series of theophanies (1:4-5). Yahweh rides on the clouds. With a word, he rebukes the sea. With a step, the mountains quake, hills melt, and the earth heaves. His wrath pours out like fire. The divine name is used repeatedly in the relatively short text as a way of exaltation. All this comes through in our English translations. However, something else is going on in the literary structure of the hymn that is only evident in Hebrew.
In 1865, the Hebrew scholar Frohnmeyer noticed that Nahum’s divine warrior hymn forms a partial alphabetic acrostic. Each couplet begins with a successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet, although some letters are skipped. Alpeh starts the second verse, Bet starts the third verse, and Gimel starts the fourth. Dalet is omitted. Heh starts the fifth verse. Why is the acrostic disturbed in places and why is the whole alphabet not part of the acrostic? Possibly, lines of the hymn were lost over time. Or some scholars believe there is not an actual acrostic but it’s merely a coincidence.
Alphabetic acrostics are a well-known phenomenon in the Hebrew Bible. They were an interesting poetic device, used for beautification and to help with memorization of hymns. Psalms 119 is the most developed of all the acrostic psalms with each of the 22 sections titled with a successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet. But other Psalms and even portions of Proverbs and Lamentations also include acrostics.
Exodus
Textual critics argue that Nahum’s first hymn is too different in style and content from the rest of the book and therefore must have been a late addition to the text, an effort to give the nationalistic prophecies of Nahum a more theological basis. However, that argument has lost ground as biblical studies have progressed. An equal case has been made that the hymn is the ideal preamble to Nahum’s pronouncement. The rest of Nahum focuses on the sin and punishment of Nineveh, but here at the start Yahweh’s sovereignty is made clear as proof that His wrath is only stirred when it is just.
Nahum 1:3 is a partial citation of Exodus 34:6. The prophet praises Yahweh saying, “The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished.”
Other prophets also call back to Mount Sinai and the moment God revealed to Moses the fullness of his character. You could say that Exodus 34:6 is the John 3:16 of the Hebrew faith. Out of the prophets, Exodus 34:6 is referenced in Joel 2:13, Micah 7:18, Jonah 4:2, and Isaiah (12:4). There on the mountain, as Yahweh passed in front of Moses, he proclaimed himself as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
However, also at this critical moment of revelation, Yahweh told Moses that despite his compassion, he does not “leave the guilty unpunished.” Biblical history plays out in a manner that sometimes evokes the compassion of Yahweh and sometimes calls for His vengeance. Jonah knew that the compassion and mercies of God would ignite to spare Nineveh of her deserved punishment. Nahum drew the opposite conclusion. Once Yahweh’s grace had been exhausted, His goodness had to be expressed through His abounding power.
Many people mistakenly believe that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is full of vengeance and wrath while the God of the New Testament is full of love and grace. I hope if you are listening to this podcast you understand that we can not untether the Yahweh of the Old Testament from the New, not if you believe as I do that all of scripture is the story of God constantly and progressively extending Himself to humanity.
For example, just look to Romans 1 to see the jealous and justice driven side of God expanded on by the prophet Paul. Paul understood that God’s character was continuous from creation to revelation. Paul wrote, “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
Just as the Assyrians were without excuse, we are without excuse. The universal standard for holy living and humility before our creator remains.
For next week, please read the rest of Nahum 1 and Nahum 2. We will discuss the reverse messages of both Jonah and Nahum as their two very different oracles applied to Nineveh. I want to explore how we read Nahum while considering the backstory of Jonah.
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Shabbat Shalom