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WOW Oct. 8, 2025

Dr. Al Potter

Nahum

God’s Judgment on Nineveh

Comfort for Judah: Nineveh would be destroyed 1:1-15

1. The Prophet and his book 1:1
2. The nature of the book of Nahum
3. The prophecy deals with one subject – judgement of Nineveh
4. More than 100 years earlier Jonah had spoken to this same city
5. Jonah illustrates the remission of God’s judgement
6. Nahum illustrates the execution of God’s judgement
7. Historical background to Nahum [from Hobart Freeman]
8. Assyria was at the height of its power, having extended its power into Israel, even as far as Judah and distant Egypt
9. Ashurbanipal was the last great Monarch of the Assyrian Empire
10. His wars were numerous and characterized by ruthlessness and cruelty.
11. He boasted of his violence and shameful atrocities which included

Tearing off the limbs of his victims

Putting out their eyes, impaling them

Boiling them in tar; skinning them alive

1. The people of Judah had witnessed for many years an almost endless succession of the cruel Assyrian invaders into their land
2. It was upon this cruel nation that Nahum was called to pronounce the impending doom
3. Ninevah fell in 612 BC at the hands of the Babylonians and Medes in fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy

Note: It was the capital of Assyria, a large city on the Tigris River which stretched 2.5 miles along the river, it was eight miles in circumference and had a population of nearly 600,000. The city had fifteen gates and 50-foot-high walls thick enough for three chariots to ride on side by side. It was a city notorious for idolatry and immorality [Nahum 3:1, 19].

1. Date of Nahum
2. From 3:8-10 it is apparent that it was written after the destruction of No-amon [Thebes in Egypt] in 663 BC
3. Moreover, the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC is viewed as yet future
4. The fact that no king is mentioned in the superscription points to the reign of the wicked Manasseh [686-642 BC] – the name suppressed because of evil reputation – Note, this would be a thing unlikely if Josiah [640-609 BC] had been reigning
5. Hence, Nahum’s prophetic ministry may be dated about 650 BC
6. Nahum the man [from Hobart Freeman]
7. The name means “comfort” or “consolation.” An apt expression of the comfort his message brought to Judah.
8. His name probably has reference to the prophet’s message of comfort to Judah from the threats of Assyrian oppression
9. The name occurs nowhere else in the OT
10. He is called “the Elkoshite” – i. e. a native of Elkosh
11. Perhaps Capernaum which means “city of Nahum, originally called Elkosh, but later changed to Capernaum in honor of Nahum
12. Perhaps referring to an old well called Bir-el-kaus located in Southern Kingdom of Judah which would fit reference to Judah in 1:15
13. Nahum used many metaphors, similes, rhetorical questions, and figures of speech to describe God’s judicial indignation toward Nineveh’s brutality and to proclaim its impending destruction.

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