Nahum prophesied about
the destruction of the city of Nineveh, the
capital of the nation of Assyria. If Nineveh sounds a bit
familiar, it might be because you’ve listened to the first instalment in this series
about the book of Jonah! In some ways, Nahum is like a sequel to Jonah.
The date of writing of
Nahum can be narrowed down to somewhere between 660 BC and 630 BC. We can
deduce this because of the historical events that Nahum refers to during his
prophecy (unless of course you don’t believe in predictive prophesy!). Like
Micah last week, we don’t know anything about Nahum apart from the fact that
his home town was called Elkosh. It’s not certain where this was, but it was
probably in Judah because at
the time of his prophesy, the kingdom
of Israel had ceased to
exist.
The ten tribes of the
Northern Kingdom of Israel had fallen to the Assyrians in about 722 BC. The
Southern Kingdom of Judah had not suffered the same fate, despite an attempted
siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib of Assyria
shortly after the fall of Samaria.
Instead, the Kingdom of Judah had become a sort of vassal state to Assyria. The Assyrian kingdom had been established by acts
of terrible violence, torture and cruelty and forced deportations of thousands
of people, under the leadership of Tiglath-pileser III. His campaigns were
ruthless and highly successful, conquering most of the known world at the time.
Nineveh was a great city, the
capital of Assyria. Jonah had been sent by God
with a message of warning to Nineveh,
telling of God’s imminent judgement on them for their evil behaviour.
At that time, much to
Jonah’s surprise and disgust, the people of Nineveh did repent and God spared them.
However, a century later, we see that the repentance did not last, and Nineveh has fallen back
into evil, idolatry, violence and depravity.
Nahum’s key message is
that God is going to judge and overthrow Nineveh.
Nahum means ‘comfort’ and his message would have brought comfort to the people
of Judah
who were living under Assyrian oppression.
Nahum is written in the
style of ancient war poetry. The first verse of the book tells us that Nahum
received the prophecy in the form of a vision. The way he writes his book is
like the eye-witness account of a war correspondent. God is pictured as a
divine warrior, coming to judge the Assyrians for their evil deeds. God had
used Assyria as a tool of judgement on his own
people, but the Assyrians were held accountable for the wicked nature of their
conquests and the ways they had lived their lives in alienation from God.
In chapter one, the
book opens with a poetic description of God on the war-path. God is described
as jealous (for his honour and his people), wrathful, righteously angry and all
powerful. Even the rock-solid mountains melt before him and the seas dry up completely.
Nothing and no-one can stand against him. At the same time, God is also
described as slow to anger, good, knowing those who seek him, compassionate and
seeking his people’s freedom from their oppressors. The message that Nahum proclaims
is simultaneously terrible and wonderful, and it all depends on the reader’s
perspective and relationship to God.
At the end of Nahum
1, Judah
is urged to keep the feasts, i.e. the celebrations of their history that remind
them of God’s salvation purposes and commemorate his saving works for them in
the past. Judah
will be restored once more. We should
not miss the significance of this - the Messiah would one day come from the
remnant of Judah.
Nahum 2 launches into
a prophetic account of the overthrow of Nineveh.
The imagery is vivid and it’s almost as if Nahum is present in the city,
watching the events unfold. The invading army arrives in the outskirts of Nineveh and the call goes
out to ‘man the walls’ and take up arms. The invasion comes with speed and
devastation, chariots thundering and swords and spears flashing and glinting in
the sun. The invading soldiers are clothed in red with red shields, possibly
indicating the original colour of the shields or their staining with blood.
Siege towers are built and the river gates are opened to flood the city and
destroy the royal palace.
It’s helpful here to
consider what we know from historical accounts of the overthrow of Nineveh. Nineveh was attacked by a coalition of
armies, principally of the Medes and Babylonians, in 612 BC. The city was
sieged for a period of time which may have been as short as a few months. The
invading armies closed the gates of the river Khoser, which flowed through the
city, allowing the water to build up. The gates were then opened, unleashing a
flood on the city which destroyed much of the important architecture and
allowed the invaders to penetrate the city walls and finish the overthrow of
the city.
Nahum 2 contains more
vivid images of the invasion with graphic descriptions of the piles of dead
bodies in the streets of the city. God asks Nineveh
whether she has considered herself better than Thebes. Thebes
was a great city in Egypt
which was invaded by the Assyrians in about 664 BC. Thebes had appeared to be immune to attack
with a natural sea defence and many allies. However, the Assyrians had conquered
the city. They were now going to get a taste of their own medicine.
The book ends with
Nahum surveying the aftermath of the siege and invasion. The final words are a
taunting song declaring the finality of the destruction.
The ruins of Nineveh can be found today near the modern Iraqi city of Mosul. They were not
discovered until the 19th century - prior to this all reference to Nineveh disappeared from
the pages of history. When the ruins of the city were uncovered, many unburied
skeletons were found. The city was razed to the ground. Nahum’s prophesies were
fulfilled.
The book of Nahum
reminds us that God is all powerful, omnipotent. He is not a tame god who is
passive and powerless but he acts on behalf of his people. He is a God of
justice who cannot pass over sin and evil but he must act justly to uphold his
own honour and the welfare of his chosen people Israel. Moreover, God had promised
to spare a remnant of his people, specifically from the tribe of Judah, in order
that the Messiah, the deliverer, would come from his people. The future of the
people of Israel
often seemed under threat but God always faithfully preserved and restored a remnant
to preserve the line of Abraham.
God is able to work
even the most impossible of circumstances and most wicked of people into his
sovereign plan. The seemingly ordinary list of names in the genealogy of Jesus
described in Matthew chapter 1 encompasses accounts of infertility, prostitution,
bereavement, displacement, adultery, murder and exile. God truly is able to
make all things work for the good of those who love him, according to his
purpose (Romans 8:28).
God can even use wicked
and pagan people in order to judge his own people and work for their ultimate
good. In a few weeks’ time we will look at this issue in more detail as we look
at the way Habakkuk wrestled with this.
Whatever opponents or
battles you face in your lifetime, none of them are too big for God to handle.
The military might of the Assyrians was legendary and they built one of the
greatest empires the world has ever seen. Yet even they were relegated to the
pages of history, the ruins of their prized capital city lying undiscovered for
centuries. Our perspective is so limited. We struggle to comprehend the span of
human history, and yet humans are such a brief vapour, like the dew that
evaporates from the morning grass. Peter says in the first chapter of his first
letter:
“All people are like
grass, and all their glory is
like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and
the flowers fall, but the word of the
Lord endures forever.” 1 Peter 1:24-25
All earthly things will
pass and only God will endure. Yet, incredibly, he cares about each one of us
and knows every detail about us.
The whole of history is
centred around the life of Jesus, God in the flesh, who came to rescue us.
Jesus is the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end. He stands in authority above all human
institutions and authorities, both the good and the evil ones. His kingdom is
incomparably greater than the most mighty of human kingdoms and yet it is established
in an upside-down order where the first are last and the last are first. We
pray “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” because Jesus has been
given all authority in heaven and on earth. One day his kingdom will be unified
and complete. Then, as Paul says ‘at the name of
Jesus, every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’
(Philippians 2:10-11).
