Nahum
Two prophets had to do with
Nineveh: Jonah and Nahum, about 150 years apart. Jonah preached a message of
mercy, Nahum a message of doom.
Little is known about Nahum
the prophet. His name is contained in the word "Capernaum" which
means "village of Nahum." This may mean than he was a resident or
even the founder of that city which later was a center of Jesus' ministry.
Nineveh's destruction is
foretold in astounding and graphic detail. Nineveh had been founded by Nimrod
shortly after the flood. At the time of Nahum's prophecy Nineveh was the queen
city of the earth. She was mighty and brutal beyond all imagination; head of a
warrior state built on the loot of other nations. Limitless wealth from the
ends of the earth poured into her coffers. Nahum likens it to a den of ravenous
lions, beasts of prey, feeding on the blood of nations.
The city was about 30 miles
long and ten miles wide. It was protected by five walls and three moats, built
by the forced labor of un‑numbered thousands of captives. It had a population
of nearly a million. The inner city was about three miles long and a mile and a
half wide and was protected by walls 100 feet high.
At the very height of
Nineveh's power Nahum appeared with his prophecy. Within about twenty years
after Nahum's predictions an army of Babylonians and Medes closed in on
Nineveh. After a two-year siege, a sudden rise of the river washed away part of
the walls.
Nahum had predicted that the
river gates would be opened for the destroying army. "The gates of the
rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." (Nahum 2:6)
The attacking Babylonians
and Medes swept in to their work of destruction. Nahum foretold prancing
horses, cracking whips, clattering wheels, bounding, raging chariots, flashing
swords, and great heaps of dead bodies (Nahum 2:3-4; 3:1‑3). It all came
to pass exactly as Nahum had pictured it. Nineveh had been a violent and brutal
city.
In recent years the annals
of the Assyrian kings have been found in which they themselves had their own
exploits recorded. They were great warriors. They were unbelievably cruel. They
skinned their prisoners alive, or cut off their hands, feet, noses, ears, put
out their eyes, pulled out their tongues, and made mounds of human skulls to
inspire terror in their enemies.
Nahum calls Nineveh the
"Mistress of witchcrafts" which of course means that she was steeped
in the occult and devil worship. It is no wonder that the city produced such
cruelty and wicked abominations. But just as Nahum had pictured it, the vile
and bloody city passed into oblivion. Its destruction was so complete that even
its location was forgotten. When Alexander the Great fought a famous battle
near the site of Nineveh; he did not even know that a city had once been there.
What Nahum had emphasized
was that the destruction of Nineveh was the work of God. The Medes and
Babylonians had been His instruments, but God had passed judgment on the
corrupt city. It is another instance of God's dealings with the nations of the
world.
It is a great truth that
needs to be emphasized in our own day to realize that God is dealing with the
nations of today as He dealt with those of ancient times. There is a truth that
runs throughout the whole Bible: God punishes sin (Romans 6:23).
When God makes known His
will to nations or individuals and they refuse to follow, the Judgment of God
is sure. God's Word will stand.
© Copyright
2002, LeRoy Eims