Nahum

This is the heavy message of judgment against the city of Nineveh. It is the book of the vision that Nahum, the man from Elkosh, saw.

1The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

NoteNineveh was the capital of Assyria, the empire that had wiped out the northern kingdom of Israel and forced Judah to pay tribute for roughly a century. Its fall in 612 BC is the event this book announces. "Burden" translates massa, a technical term for a prophetic announcement, almost always one of doom; the same word means a load that has to be carried, and the pun is deliberate. Elkosh was Nahum's home village; nobody now knows where it was.

2The LORD is a jealous God, and he pays back those who do wrong. The LORD pays back wrong and is full of anger. The LORD takes revenge on those who oppose him, and he stores up anger for his enemies.

2God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

Note"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH, which readers avoided saying aloud. "Jealous" renders a Hebrew word used almost only of God: it means refusing to share what is rightfully yours with a rival, closer to a husband's exclusive claim than to envying what someone else has.

3The LORD is slow to become angry, and his power is great, and he will never let the guilty go unpunished. His path runs through the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust stirred up by his feet.

3The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Note"Slow to anger... will not acquit the guilty" quotes a fixed formula about God's character that Israelites knew by heart (Exodus 34:6-7); "acquit" is courtroom language, to declare someone not guilty. Storm, whirlwind and thundercloud were the standard way the ancient Near East pictured a god arriving in force, so the imagery would have read to the first hearers as a war god on the march.

4He speaks sharply to the sea and dries it up, and he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Mount Carmel wither, and the blossoms of Lebanon wither too.

4He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.

NoteBashan, Carmel and Lebanon were the three most dependably green places Israelites knew: Bashan the rich grazing plateau east of the Sea of Galilee, Carmel the wooded ridge on the coast, Lebanon the cedar-covered mountains to the north. Naming all three is a way of saying that even the places that never dry out are drying out.

5The mountains shake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles when he comes near, and so does the whole world and everyone living in it.

5The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.

NoteThe Hebrew verb behind "the earth is burned" is uncertain. Ancient translators read it as "heaves" or "lifts up," which is why modern versions say the earth trembles or quakes; the older reading "burned" is a guess at the same consonants.

6Who can stand up to his anger? Who can survive the heat of his rage? His fury pours out like fire, and even rocks are shattered before him.

6Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

7The LORD is good. He is a safe place to hide on the day of trouble, and he knows and cares for those who trust him.

7The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.

NoteA "strong hold" is a fortified refuge, typically a walled height people fled to when raiders came. "Knoweth" here translates a Hebrew verb that means recognizing someone as your own and looking after them, not merely knowing facts about them.

8But with a flood that sweeps over everything, he will put a complete end to Nineveh, and he will chase his enemies into the darkness.

8But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

NoteThe Hebrew says only "he will make an utter end of her place", the feminine pronoun has no stated owner in this verse, and it is understood from the book's opening to mean Nineveh. Nineveh stood on the river Tigris, so a flood could be meant literally, or as the standard image of an invading army pouring over a country.

9Whatever you plot against the LORD, he will bring it to nothing. This trouble will not rise up a second time.

9What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.

Note"Imagine" in 1611 English meant to devise or scheme, not to picture something in the mind. The same word appears again in verse 11.

10They will be tangled together like a mass of thorn bushes, and soaked like men who are drunk, and they will be burned up like straw that is completely dry.

10For while they be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.

NoteThis is one of the most damaged and disputed sentences in the Hebrew Bible; the three images (tangled thorn bushes, drunkenness, and dry stubble that catches fire instantly) are clear enough separately, but how they connect grammatically is genuinely unrecoverable. Translations differ widely here, and any smooth English version is a reconstruction.

11Nineveh, someone has come out of you who plots evil against the LORD, an adviser who plans wicked things.

11There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the LORD, a wicked counsellor.

NoteThe plotter is not named. Ancient and modern readers alike have taken him to be an Assyrian king, most often Sennacherib, who besieged Jerusalem in 701 BC. "Wicked counsellor" is literally "a counsellor of belial", belial meant worthlessness or ruin, and only in later Jewish writing became a name for a demonic figure.

12This is what the LORD says: "Even though they are many and joined together, they will still be cut down and pass away. Judah, I have made you suffer, but I will not make you suffer again.

12Thus saith the LORD; Though they be quiet, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through. Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.

Note"Though they be quiet" renders a Hebrew word that may mean at full strength and unharmed, or bound together in alliance; both readings are current. Midway through the verse the person being addressed changes from Nineveh to Judah, though the Hebrew does not say so: it simply switches, and translators supply the name.

13Now I will break their yoke off your neck, and I will snap the chains that hold you."

13For now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder.

NoteA yoke was the wooden bar fastened across the necks of plow animals to control them. Breaking a yoke was the standard image for the end of foreign domination: an empire's yoke meant tribute payments, forced labor and conscripted soldiers.

14The LORD has given an order about you, Nineveh: "No descendants will carry on your name. I will destroy the carved idols and the metal idols in the temple of your gods. I will dig your grave, because you are worthless."

14And the LORD hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown: out of the house of thy gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make thy grave; for thou art vile.

Note"That no more of thy name be sown" uses farming language for descendants, to have your seed cut off is to have your family line and your name end with you. "Graven" and "molten" images are two manufacturing methods: idols carved from wood or stone, and idols cast from poured metal. "I will make thy grave" can mean either that God will prepare the burial, or that the temple just mentioned will become the grave; the Hebrew allows both.

15Look at the mountains: there are the feet of a messenger bringing good news and announcing peace! Judah, hold your festivals and do what you promised God. The wicked will never march through you again, because they are completely destroyed.

15Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.

NoteIn Hebrew Bibles this verse is numbered as chapter 2, verse 1. The picture is of a runner appearing on the skyline ahead of the army, carrying word of how a distant battle went, the identical wording appears in Isaiah 52:7. The "solemn feasts" are the pilgrimage festivals that required travel to Jerusalem, which an occupied or raided country could not safely hold; "vows" were promises to bring an offering if God rescued you, paid at the temple once the danger passed.