Nahum.
Nahum.
§ 162. Nahum (
) means “preacher or teacher of repentance” or “comforter.” It is not evident as to when he lived and prophesied. From the circumstances, we can draw the probable conclusion that he lived before the Babylonian captivity, around the end of the kingdom of Hezekiah, and that he was a contemporary of Micah, ninety years after Jonah. His native city was Elkosh, an unknown city (Nah. 1:1). Some think that Elkosh was a district in the tribe of Simeon. He preached destruction to the Assyrians, who were going to afflict the Lord’s people, but especially to the city of Nineveh, the metropolis of the Assyrian kingdom. Although the Ninevites had repented at the time of Jonah, through which they had escaped the punishment divinely foretold them, later they nevertheless returned to their old wickedness, zealously practiced every kind of evil, insulted God, and grievously afflicted His people. Consequently, they finally fell into their long-deserved punishment.
The book has three chapters that contain both the prophecy of the destruction of the Assyrians (Nahum 1) and his explanation of the reasons for it (Nahum 2-3).