Nahum
Nahum was a minor prophet whose prophecy is recorded in the Tanakh, the Old Testament. His book comes in chronological order between Micah and Habakkuk in the Bible. He wrote about the end of the Assyrian Empire, and its capital city, Nineveh. Like Amos he did so in a vivid poetic style.
Nahum's name means "comforter," and he was from the town of Elkoshite, "God the ensnarer".[1]
There is a question as to the time and purpose of this writing. There are those who suggest that his writings are a prophecy written in about 615 BC or they may be an historical account written as a liturgy just after its downfall in 612 BC to remind people lest they forget. The form we now have may be both the result of the Prophecy and subsequent recorded final writing of an earlier prophecy.
A great deal of confusion has followed the interpretations of Nahum by men like Calvin. God has created a cause and effect universe and tyrants would have no power to wreak their havoc if the people had not already rejected the way of God and His righteousness as they had done in 1 Samuel 8. Charles L. Taylor, Jr. writes "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… ". [2]
Nahum | Nahum 1 | Nahum 2 | Nahum 3
Preceded by: Micah - Followed by: Habakkuk
- ↑ 0512 אֶלְקשִׁי ‘Elqoshiy [el-ko-shee’] patrial from a name of uncertain derivation; adj pr gent; [BDB-49a] [{See TWOT on 90 }] AV-Elkoshite 1; 1 Elkoshite= "God the ensnarer"
- 1) a native and/or descendant of Elkosh (location unknown)
- ↑ Taylor, C. L.-I. (1956). The Interpreters' Bible (first ed., Vol. VI Lamentations through Malachi, p. 954). (S. T. George Arthur Buttrick, Ed.) Nashville: Abingdon Press.