The Fall of Nineveh

Chapters 2 and 3 show the fall of Nineveh in two movements. Chapter 2 describes the assault and the taking of the city, as if the prophet were watching the scene. Chapter 3 says why it falls: it draws up the act of accusation against the great capital and closes on its ruin.

The assault on the city

The poem suddenly becomes swift and breathless, in the rhythm of the attack. The destroyer advances, the red shields and scarlet garments of the warriors gleam, the chariots dash in every direction in a clash of steel. Then comes the decisive image: “The gates of the rivers are opened, and the temple is thrown down to the ground.” Nahum 2:6. Nineveh was built on the bank of the Tigris, protected by its waters and its walls. According to ancient accounts, a flood swept away part of the ramparts during the siege; the gates that held back the rivers gave way, and the city was delivered up.

The city taken and plundered

Nineveh falls. Its inhabitants flee, and none can stop them. The victors rush upon the treasures heaped up by centuries of conquest: “Take ye the spoil of the silver, take the spoil of the gold: for there is no end of the riches of all the precious furniture.” Nahum 2:9. The city that had stripped so many peoples is stripped in its turn. The prophet sums up its fall with an image. The Assyrian kings liked to portray themselves as lions, and their capital was like a den where the plunder torn from the nations was piled up. That den is now empty: “Where is now the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions?” Nahum 2:11. The beast that devoured the peoples has vanished.

The city of blood

Chapter 3 explains the cause of this ruin. It opens on an accusation: “Woe to thee, O city of blood, all full of lies and violence: rapine shall not depart from thee.” Nahum 3:1. Nineveh had built its power on murder, lies, and plunder. The prophet compares it to a courtesan who seduces the better to enslave: through alliances and treaties that promised protection and prosperity, she drew the nations into dependence, then subdued them by tribute and deportation. “Because of the multitude of the fornications of the harlot that was beautiful and agreeable, and that made use of witchcraft, that sold nations through her fornications.” Nahum 3:4. God will repay her what she has done: she who humiliated the peoples will herself be exposed and covered with shame before all.

The fate of Thebes

To break Nineveh’s confidence, Nahum reminds it of a precedent. No-Amon was the name of Thebes, the great city of Egypt, set among the waters of the Nile and protected by them as by a rampart; it believed itself impregnable. Yet Assyria itself had conquered and plundered it half a century earlier. The prophet turns Nineveh’s own history against it: what it did to Thebes, it will suffer in its turn.

The final mockery

The book ends on a mockery. The prophet addresses the king of Assyria: his leaders sleep, his warriors lie on the ground, his people are scattered with no one to gather them. The wound is mortal: “Thy destruction is not hidden, thy wound is grievous: all that have heard the fame of thee, have clapped their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?” Nahum 3:19. The final question gives the meaning of the whole book. If all clap their hands at the fall of Nineveh, it is because all had suffered from its cruelty. The ruin of the oppressor is a deliverance for the peoples it crushed. Beyond Nineveh, Scripture sees in this fall the figure of every power that rises against God by oppressing the weak: none endures, and the judgment that strikes them down is the salvation of those they crushed.