Nahum and the Assyrian Empire

The book of Nahum is a poem turned entirely toward a single event: the fall of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. “The burden of Ninive. The book of the vision of Nahum, the Elcesite.” Nahum 1:1. In three chapters, the prophet announces the ruin of the city that had crushed so many peoples. It is a word of judgment against the oppressor, and at the same time a consolation for those it oppressed.

The prophet Nahum

Almost nothing is known of Nahum. He is called the Elcesite, from a village whose location remains unknown. No account reports his life; only his poem has come down to us. His name, in Hebrew, means “consolation,” and this name already tells the meaning of the book: the announcement of the oppressor’s fall consoles the oppressed.

The Assyrian Empire

To understand Nahum, one must know Nineveh. Assyria was then the greatest power of the Near East, and Nineveh its capital, a vast and dreaded city. The Assyrian kings waged wars of a cruelty that terrified the peoples: cities razed, whole populations deported, the conquered tortured in public to spread terror and discourage any revolt. In 722 before Christ, Assyria destroyed Samaria and put an end to the kingdom of Israel, the northern kingdom, whose people it deported. In 701, its king Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem and ravaged Judah. In 663, its armies took and plundered Thebes, the great city of Egypt. No power seemed able to resist it.

The fall of Nineveh

This power nonetheless collapsed in a few years. Weakened by revolts and internal struggles, the Assyrian Empire declined quickly. In 612 before Christ, a coalition of Medes and Babylonians besieged Nineveh and destroyed it. The city that had made the world tremble vanished almost without a trace. Nahum composed his poem in the years that preceded this fall, which he announced as the judgment of God.

Judgment and consolation

For Judah, which had suffered the Assyrian threat for more than a century, the fall of Nineveh was a deliverance. Nahum recognizes in it the work of God’s justice: the God of Israel judges the nations, no power, however great, escapes his justice, and he does not forget those who suffer. The ruin of the oppressor is the other face of a promise, that of the protection of his people.