Nahum

LeRoy Eims

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.