Nahum

Here are my notes on Nahum in the form of a summary of its contents, life applications, and some additional (older) notes that I made:

SUMMARY

Nahum is a somewhat unique book in the Old Testament because its message, while relevant to God’s people, primarily had to do with the Assyrian Empire and, specifically, its capital city of Nineveh.

To understand the book of Nahum, it is best to be familiar with the book of Jonah. Over 100 years before Nahum uttered prophecy against Nineveh, God had sent another prophet, Jonah, to Nineveh with a message of judgment. When Jonah warned that Nineveh would be destroyed in a mere 40 days, the king initiated a national repentance and judgment was averted.

More than a century later (in Nahum’s day), the Ninevites had apparently repented of their repentance and were once again on the brink of divine judgment.

Summary of the Text

Nahum prophesied in the late 600’s (B.C.) sometime prior to the destruction of Nineveh in the year 612. He spoke of God’s powerful wrath against his enemies. Nineveh had proven itself mighty among the kingdoms of men, but they would not be able to survive the wrath of the King of Kings. True, the Assyrians had been used as a tool by God to discipline many other peoples (including God’s own people!), but now it was their turn to be judged for their oppression of those peoples. From the vantage point of those who had been oppressed, this final end of the Empire would be a moment of vindication. News of its fall would cause celebration for all who heard of it (including Judah).

APPLICATION

1.     We should not judge God’s character on the basis of an isolated incident, but on the full narrative of His revelation.

2.     We must think long and hard about the meaning of God’s wrath. Is it loving discipline? Is it a pulling back of grace and mercy? Is it direct violence?

3.     We may avoid the ‘wrath of God’ by trusting in the Lord, responding well to discipline, and living lives of worship.

4.     We may bring on the ‘wrath of God’ by living lived marked by pride, idolatry, violence, deceit, lust, and greed.

5.     The purpose of God’s temporal wrath is to expose the emptiness of the world and its institutions so that those who remain may learn from their mistakes.

6.     We shouldn’t complain about God allowing evil in the world if we’re simultaneously going to complain about God dealing with evil in the world.

7.     The Christian worldview includes assurance of ultimate justice. Most worldviews don’t even pretend to be able to accomplish this.

OLDER NOTES

Nahum is, perhaps, one of the most ignored books of the Bible. This is probably due to various reasons, including:

1. It's short (we just miss it)
2. It's in the OT (which is less read than the NT)
3. It's about God's wrath (we prefer God's more 'positive attributes')
4. It's not about Israel
5. It's about Nineveh (and Nineveh don't exist, so what's the point?)

Nevertheless, Nahum is in the Bible, part of the Christian canon of Scripture. We would do well to understand its subject (Nineveh) and the content (Nahum's prophecy).

Nineveh

Nineveh (which was located in modern day northern Iraq, near Mosul) is a very ancient biblical city. It is first mentioned in Genesis 10:8-12 when Noah’s Great-Grandson Nimrod built it. Eventually, Nineveh became the capital of the Assyrian Empire (911-609). Jonah famously warned Nineveh of an impending judgment from God in about 785 BC. But against Jonah’s wishes, they repented of their wickedness and the judgment was cancelled.

In 722 BC, the Assyrian Empire destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Archaeologists have discovered that Nineveh’s reached its zenith between 705 and 633 BC. But Nineveh’s again became wicked and Nahum was commissioned to prophecy against it one final time at some point b/w 663 and 612 BC when Nineveh was destroyed by the Babylonians.

* Archaeology has given us much information about ancient Nineveh. It's walls were about 8 miles in circumference, at least 30 feet high and sometimes 50 feet thick. A 1650x800ft palace was unearthed with a 20,000 clay tablet library inside, including notes of Assyrian triumph over Babylonian & Jewish (Hezekiah) kings and the epic of Gilgamesh. The city could have housed about 150,000 people.

Nahum

Pretty much everything we know about Nahum we learn in Nahum 1:1. He seems to have been a Jewish prophet who received a vision concerning the future of Nineveh (the capital city of the enemy).

If I were to ask you to ask you to list some of God’s attributes, what words first come to mind?

How does our list match up with 1:2?

How does the story of Nineveh illustrate the fact that God is slow to anger (1:3)?

To whom did Nahum deliver these prophecies? To the Ninevites? To the Jews? Both? Consider 1:12-15.

What can we learn from the accurateness of the prophecy, especially seen in 1:8, 2:6 & 2:8?

What was Nineveh being punished for according to 3:1, 4, 16?

Why could they be assured that judgment was coming (3:8-11)?

Based on the final verse (3:19), what was God’s new purpose for Nineveh?