Nahum: Judgment on Nineveh

The character of God, 1:1-7	The judgement of God, 1:8-3:19
His anger, vv. 2-3a	Announced, 1:8-15
His power, vv. 3b-6	Described, 2:1-3:7
His goodness, v. 7	Assured, 3:8-19

Major characters

• Nahum (“comfort” or “consolation”) — The Elkoshite (unidentified location). Probably written between the fall of No Amon (3:8-10) in 663 bc, and the fall of Nineveh in 612 bc. Jonah would have prophesied to Nineveh about 760 bc, about 150 years before its final destruction.

Major themes

• The character of God
  • Jealous, 1:2
  • Vengeance, 1:2
  • Angry, furious, 1:2, 6
  • Good, 1:7
• The certainty of judgement
• “The vindication of vengeance” (G. Campbell Morgan)

Nineveh

Nineveh, built by Nimrod (Gen. 10:11), became the capital of Assyria. At the time of Jonah, it was “an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent” (Jon. 3:3), with a population of 120,000 “persons who cannot tell their right hand from their left” (Jon. 4:11).

Assyria was “one of the cruelest, vilest, most powerful and most idolatrous empires in the world” (BKCOT), and truly worthy of God’s wrath and anger.

In 612 BC, this great city was so completely destroyed that it “became like a myth until its discovery by Sir Austen Layard and others in the nineteenth century” (New Unger’s Bible Dictionary).

The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble;

And He knows those who trust in Him.

Nahum 1:7