Nahum

Nahum is the thirty-fourth book of the Bible and the seventh of the minor prophets. The book is traditionally attributed to the prophet Nahum of Elkosh, about whom nothing else is known. It is dated somewhere between the fall of the Egyptian city of Thebes in 663 BC (which Nahum mentions) and the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC (which Nahum predicts).

The entire book is a sustained oracle of judgment against Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. A century earlier, the prophet Jonah had been sent to Nineveh, the city had repented, and God had spared it. By Nahum's time, Nineveh had returned to its old cruelty and had destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel.

Nahum describes the city's coming destruction in vivid poetic detail. He pictures the cavalry charging through the streets, the city gates opened to the river, the queen taken captive, the inhabitants fleeing while the survivors are mocked. He celebrates the end of an empire that had built its power on the suffering of others.

The book ends with the destruction complete and the kings of the earth applauding. The historical city of Nineveh did indeed fall to a coalition of Babylonians and Medes in 612 BC.