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.
This week we are finishing the first chapter of Nahum and reading the second chapter. Normally, I try and keep our weekly readings nice and clean, assigning whole chapters, but I thought Nahum’s Divine Warrior Hymn had to be separated from the rest of the book’s pronouncements of judgement against Assyria and oracles of hope for Judah. Nahum 1:9 marks that transition point from hymn to prophecy.
Jonah
In most of the Bible canons, Nahum is placed before Habakkuk and after Micah. This placing makes thematic and chronological sense. Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah emphasize God’s punishment while the first six prophets focus on Israel and Judah’s rebellion. But in the Septuagint, Nahum follows Jonah as a continuous discourse on God’s relationship with the Ninevites who at one time evoke his compassion and at another time provoke his wrath. In Jonah, Nineveh’s sparing displayed God’s power. In Nahum, His power is displayed in Nineveh’s destruction.
Around 150 years separate the life of Jonah from the life of Nahum with Jonah being the earlier of the two. If you read the prophets with no awareness of their relative chronology, it would be easy to assume that Nahum preceded Jonah and that his prediction of Nineveh’s fall was the oracle eventually delivered by Jonah. Or worse yet, reading Jonah and Nahum in tandem makes it appear that their messages contradict each other. Are the people of Nineveh recognized for their repentance and forgiven for their wickedness or not? Did God forgive the Ninevites and then change His mind?
In a sense, Nahum is the sequel to Jonah. In Jonah, the wickedness of Nineveh came up before Yahweh and He determined to destroy the great city (Jonah 1:1). In response to Jonah’s reluctantly delivered warning, however, the whole of the people and their king repented. Their repentance was so humble, sincere, and forthright that Yahweh relented and withdrew His punishing hand. In fact, the repentance of the Ninevites is one of the only two times in the entirety of the Book of the Twelve that people heard the words of a prophet and responded with a sincere change of heart on a national level. (Joel is the other example.)
Based off everything we know about Assyria from 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and ancient historical records, Nineveh’s revival did not last beyond a generation. Not only did they return to their violent and evil ways, but they also crossed a red line. In 722 BCE, the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel, ravaging the land, slaughtering the Israelites, and scattering the survivors throughout the empire. They proceeded to terrorize all the towns of Judah and only failed in their attempted takeover of Jerusalem. The Assyrian empire had exhausted the limits of God’s mercies.
No wonder Nahum states at the outset, “The Lord will by no means clear the guilty” (1:3). As the prophet Jeremiah said, God cannot “let the way of the guilty prosper” (Jer. 12:1). Nineveh’s punishment may have been delayed by repentant hearts during Jonah’s day but God’s forgiveness of the Ninevites was not eternal or unconditional.In the words of Nahum: “No adversary will rise up twice” (1:9).
In Jonah, Yahweh speaks gently to the rebellious prophet, like a patient teacher asking rhetorical questions to nudge the student to the correct answer. In Nahum, Yahweh rides on the clouds, melting mountains and shaking the earth’s foundations with each step. Still, it is not Yahweh whose fundamental character has changed from one book to the next. “For I the Lord do not change,” wrote Mal