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Nahum
the Prophet Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about Nahum, a biblical prophet. For other
uses, see Nahum (disambiguation).
Nahum (/ˈneɪ.əm/ or /ˈneɪhəm/;
Hebrew: נַחוּם Naḥūm) was a
minor prophet whose prophecy is recorded in the Tanakh, also called the Hebrew
Bible and the Old Testament. His book comes in chronological order between
Micah and Habakkuk in the Bible.[1] He wrote about the end of the Assyrian
Empire, and its capital city, Nineveh, in a vivid poetic style.[2]
Life
Little is known about Nahum's personal history. His name
means 'comfort',[3] and is derived from the same root as the Hebrew verb meaning
'to comfort'.[4] He may have come from the town of Alqosh in northern
Mesopotamia (Nahum 1:1),[5] however some scholars also attempted to connect
'Elkoshite' to Capernaum of northern Galilee.[6] He was a very nationalistic
Hebrew, however, and lived amongst the Elkoshites in peace. Nahum, called
"the Elkoshite", is the seventh in order of the minor prophets.
According to St. Jerome, Nahum's Elkosh was a little town in Galilee.[7] This
identification could explain how the famous New Testament city of Capernaum got
its name.[8]
Scholars with a preference for Hebrew manuscripts place
Nahum's prophecy after the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal's Sack of Thebes in 663
BC. This view is the current majority opinion because the city of Thebes is
referred to in the past tense in the Masoretic Text of Nahum 3:810.[9]
However, both the Septuagint and Vulgate refer to the city in the present
tense, and the former opinion held by scholars was that Nahum lived about a
century earlier, before both the captivity of the ten lost tribes and the Sack
of Thebes.[10][11] The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus[12]
places Nahum's life during the reign of Jotham. This view was also held by the
Catholic scholar Thomas Worthington in his notes for the original Douay-Rheims
Bible, writing: "Nahum prophesied about 50 years after Jonah [...] 135
before the destruction of Niniveh."[13] In this view, rather than
Ashurbanipal, Nahum's prophecy would have been directed at Tiglath-Pileser III,
who revitalized the Neo-Assyrian Empire into a world power again and conquered
most of the Levant, defeating and subjugating previously influential kingdoms,
including Aram-Damascus. Tiglath-Pileser was contemporary with the reign of
Jotham.
Works
Main article: Book of Nahum
Nahum's writings could be taken as prophecy or as history.
One account suggests that his writings are a prophecy written in about 615 BCE,
just before the downfall of Assyria, while another account suggests that he
wrote this passage as liturgy just after its downfall in 612 BCE.[14][15]
The book was introduced in Reformation theologian John
Calvin's Commentaries on Twelve Minor Prophets[16] as a complete and finished
poem:
No one of the minor Prophets seems to equal the sublimity,
the vehemence and the boldness of Nahum: besides, his Prophecy is a complete
and finished poem; his exordium is magnificent, and indeed majestic; the
preparation for the destruction of Nineveh, and the description of its ruin,
and its greatness, are expressed in most vivid colors, and possess admirable
perspicuity and fulness.
Rev.
John Owen, translator, Calvin's Commentary on Jonah, Micah, Nahum
There are indications that an acrostic underlies the
present text. Thus 1:2 begins with the first letter of the alphabet (א),
verse 3b ('in whirlwind') with the second letter (ב), verse 4 with the
third (ג), and so on until from 10 to 16 of the 22 letters have appeared.
In places the scheme breaks down: in the process of transmission, what was once
an alphabetic poem has now been seriously corrupted, rearranged, and
supplemented.[17]
Nahum, taking words from Moses himself, has shown in a
general way what sort of "Being God is". Calvin argued that Nahum
painted God by which his nature must be seen, and "it is from that most
memorable vision, when God appeared to Moses after the breaking of the
tablets."[18]
Although all three chapters fall below the standards set by
the developed Judaeo-Christian tradition concerning the nature of God and man's
relation with his brother man [...] it is one of the world's classic rebukes of
militarism [...] All tyrants are doomed. They make enemies of those whom they
attack and oppress; they become corrupt, dissolute, drunken, effeminate; they
are lulled into false security [...]
Charles
L. Taylor, Jr.[17]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Book of Nahum
The Book of Nahum is the seventh book of the 12 minor
prophets of the Hebrew Bible. The book has three chapters.[1] It is attributed
to the prophet Nahum. The most general historical setting of Nahum as a prophet
was 663 BC to 612 BC, while the historical setting that produced the book of
Nahum is debated, with proposed timeframes ranging from shortly after the fall
of Thebes in 663 BC to the Maccabean period around 175-165 BC.[2] Another view,
held by the ancient historian Josephus, proposes that the book of Nahum was
from the reign of Jotham.[3] This identification is supported by both the Greek
Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, both of which refer to Thebes in the present
tense rather than the past tense.[4][5] Its principal theme is the destruction
of the Assyrian city of Nineveh.[6]
Background
Scholars with a preference for Hebrew manuscripts place the
writing of the book after the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal's Sack of Thebes in
663 BC. This view is the current majority opinion because the city of Thebes is
referred to in the past tense in the Masoretic Text of Nahum 3:8-10. However,
both the Septuagint and Vulgate refer to the city in the present tense, and the
former opinion held by scholars was that Nahum lived about a century earlier,
before both the captivity of the ten lost tribes and the Sack of Thebes.[4][5]
The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus[3]
places Nahum's life during the reign of Jotham. This view was also held by the
Catholic scholar Thomas Worthington in his notes for the original Douay-Rheims
Bible, writing: "Nahum prophesied about 50 years after Jonah ... 135
before the destruction of Niniveh."[7] In this view, rather than Ashurbanipal,
Nahum's prophecy would have been directed at Tiglath-Pileser III, who
revitalized the Neo-Assyrian Empire into a world power again and conquered most
of the Levant, defeating and subjugating previously influential kingdoms,
including Aram-Damascus. Tiglath-Pileser was contemporary with the reign of
Jotham.
Some scholars hold that "the book of the vision"
was written at the time of the fall of Nineveh,[8] at the hands of the Medes
and Babylonians in 612 BC.[9][10] possibly around 615 BC, before the downfall of
Assyria.[11] For those who do not believe in the validity of prophecy, the
oracles must be dated after the Assyrian destruction of Thebes, Egypt in 663
BC, as this event is mentioned in Nahum 3:8.[8]