An Oracle of Divine Reckoning for Nineveh

Nahum 3:1-19

Main Idea: The prophet Nahum utters a lament over Nineveh since they are as good as gone.

1. I. The Conquest of Nineveh (3:1-7)
2. II. The Comparison with Thebes (3:8-10)
3. III. The Collapse of Nineveh (3:11-19)

The time has come for Nineveh to face divine reckoning for its wickedness before the God of the universe. The Assyrians must face the reality of the God they ignored and denied when they subjugated and mistreated God’s people, Judah. The policies of Nineveh toward the nations, especially Israel and Judah, are now coming back to haunt it. In this oracle the prophet Nahum will utter a lamentation over Nineveh.

The Conquest of Nineveh

Nahum 3:1-7

The prophetic lamentation over Nineveh begins with what is referred to as a “woe oracle.” The Hebrew term routinely prefaces oracles that involve lamentation or pronouncement of judgment. There are four elements mentioned in verse 1 that depict the character of Nineveh. Death, deceit, plunder, and prey were all found in abundance in Nineveh. The culture of Nineveh was characterized by profound human corruption.

Blood is the first term characterizing the Assyrian capital and its culture. The term is a metaphor for a culture of death that reigned in Nineveh and throughout the empire. The Assyrians brought death to many nations and peoples throughout the ancient Near East. The imperial ambitions of Nineveh’s kings subjected countless lives to death and destruction as the Assyrian military expansion continued to spread ever so widely. Not only did they bring death to many, there was also a reigning culture of death in the Assyrian capital itself. Nahum exposes Nineveh for its internal corruptions as well as its external imperial ambitions. Nineveh had been known as a wicked city since at least the time of Jonah in the eighth century BC. Jonah 1:1 says that the word of the Lord came to Jonah: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because their wickedness has confronted Me.” God had declared divine judgment on the city more than a century before Nahum’s oracles against it (Jonah 3:4-10). But Nineveh’s repentance during the time of the prophet Jonah delayed the final judgment on the city until the time of Nahum. Blood will be spilled in a city of blood. Death is coming to a culture of death.

Not only is Nineveh characterized by a culture of bloodshed, but it is also a culture that is “totally deceitful.” Nineveh had a policy of deceiving its vassals and enriching itself at their expense. It may have promised prosperity, but it produced only misery and oppression for all those under its hegemony. An example of Nineveh’s empty promises can be seen in Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 BC. After Judah’s King Hezekiah exhibited signs of independence from Assyria, King Sennacherib of Assyria responded by invading Judah’s territories and besieging Jerusalem itself (2 Kgs 18:13-18). During the siege of Jerusalem, Sennacherib’s field general confronted Hezekiah’s officials with an offer of false peace. Here is a portion of his statement:

Don’t let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord by saying: Certainly the Lord will deliver us! This city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria. Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: “Make peace with me and surrender to me. Then every one of you may eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and every one may drink water from his own cistern until I come and take you away to a land like your own land—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey—so that you may live and not die. But don’t listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you, saying: The Lord will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land from the power of the king of Assyria?” (2 Kgs 18:30-33)

This is a statement full of lies and distortions intended to deceive the inhabitants of Jerusalem into surrendering to Assyria. The Assyrian official denied the sovereignty of the Lord over His people Judah. He sought to undermine the people’s faith in the word of the Lord as well as to undermine their confidence in the leadership of King Hezekiah. He made promises that were never intended to be kept. The inhabitants of Judah would not experience prosperity. They would only experience systematic oppression if they surrendered. This is an example of the propaganda machine that the Assyrian Empire had perfected. It was full of deceit. Surely the Lord would make Assyria accountable for its policies and actions against Judah, God’s people. Nahum’s message confirms the day of reckoning is coming to Nineveh. God will not be mocked by any earthly ruler.

Nineveh was also “full of plunder, never without prey” because it successfully ransacked and ravaged so many other nations as it subjected them to defeat and deportation. Assyria devoured everything in its path, taking advantage of opportunities to enrich itself at the expense of conquered peoples.

Verses 2-3 contain powerful, poetic, and pointed imagery in which Nahum calls forth the sights, sounds, and scariness of the coming onslaught. It’s as if the prophet can hear the sounds and sights of the invasion in progress: the whip, the wheel, the horse, the chariot, the horseman, the sword, the spear. These were the common realities of war and warfare. The assault is envisioned as happening with lightning speed with the use of horses and chariots. Sword and spear highlight the lethality of the assault. Many slain and many corpses indicate the result of the assault on Nineveh. Because Assyria shed much blood throughout the ancient Near East, there would be much bloodshed in it when the day of reckoning arrived. This is an awful, gruesome scene of human carnage and catastrophe the prophet envisions for Nineveh. The numbers of dead bodies will be more than can be counted. People will stumble over the dead because there will be so many slain.

When God’s divine judgment and justice are carried out, no one can withstand it. There are no defenses against His divine judgment. There is no escaping His divine judgment. People will pay for their sins, whether individuals or nations. God’s wrath cannot be placated by people. God will punish sinners. The only way to avoid divine punishment is through repentance and faith in the divine Word of God: Jesus. Just as Assyria in all its greatness did not escape God’s judgment, neither will people escape God’s divine judgment today if they do not repent. Jesus warned a group of people in Luke 13:3, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as well.”

Nahum compares Nineveh to a prostitute and a sorceress in verse 4. This is not the only place where prostitution and sorcery are cited as the justification of divine judgment (see Lev 19:26; 20:5-6; 2 Kgs 9:22-24; 2 Chr 21:12-15; Jer 3; Ezek 16; 23; Mic 5:10-15). Nineveh had been a prostitute pedaling its prostitution for a long time, and it continued to do so. Its prostitutions and sorceries were “continual.” In other words, Nineveh habitually practiced spiritual prostitution and sorcery as a matter of international policy in its dealings with other nations.

The metaphor of prostitution is applied to Israel and Judah regarding their breaking the spiritual covenant with Yahweh. But for Nineveh, prostitution was more of a political metaphor as well as being literal. Assyria set aside any semblance of morality and practiced political prostitution by selling its military aid for money, enticing poorer, weaker nations to ally with them. They also practiced sacred prostitution in their religious rituals for the goddess Ishtar. They used a form of political sorcery to attract allies, but they also relied on sorcery and superstition for guidance.

Nahum asserts it was because of the many harlotries of the harlot, beautiful and gracious, “mistress of sorceries” that Nineveh would be judged. God takes no pleasure in literal, spiritual, moral, or political whoredom by nations or individuals. He characterizes Assyria as an attractive prostitute and sorceress who is charming and persuasive in her appeal. Nineveh’s harlotry and witchcraft misled nations and tribes of peoples throughout the ancient Near East.

The Lord declares that He is against Nineveh and will expose the shame of the prostitute (vv. 5-6). The Lord vows to expose the shame of Nineveh to the other nations like one who would expose the nakedness of a prostitute. This metaphorical depiction of God’s treatment of Nineveh graphically demonstrates the gravity of the sins of Assyria and the severity of the divine punishment.

The reaction from those nations who witness the Lord’s severe punishment of Nineveh will be predictable, according to verse 7. Onlookers will only be able to state the obvious: “Nineveh is devastated.” Nineveh will go from dominance to devastation when the Lord is finished punishing its sins. There will be no sympathy for Nineveh, no compassion, no comforters. No one will come to her rescue in the day of divine judgment. There will be nothing remaining for which to mourn. Verse 7 ends with two rhetorical questions: “‘Who will show sympathy to her?’ Where can I find anyone to comfort you?” The obvious answer is no one, nowhere; no one would have compassion toward the Assyrians when they collapsed.

Let us remember that the reason the demise of Nineveh is good news for God’s people is because it signifies an end to a brutal reign of oppression that has lasted in varying forms for more than two centuries. Assyria would experience its own brutality. It would taste the bitter fruit of its own policies toward other nations. It would know the fear, pain, and misery it had inflicted on many others. God’s people would get to see the Lord execute justice on their behalf. God is the Judge of nations. Rulers do not get away with wrongdoing forever. God knows every deed, and He will deal with evildoers according to His standard of righteousness and justice. By bringing Assyria to an end, the Lord was at the same time showing compassion to His people who had suffered greatly under Nineveh’s policies.

The Comparison with Thebes

Nahum 3:8-12

The prophet continues with another rhetorical question in verse 8. The answer is implicit in the question. If Thebes had so much protection and yet it failed, then Nineveh awaits the same fate. Thebes, located about 450 miles south of modern Cairo, was the capital of Egypt’s Upper Kingdom for much its history (Brand and England, Holman Illustrated, 1579). Thebes had natural barriers due to its geographical location that made attacking the city particularly challenging. It was on the eastern bank of the Nile River and was the center of worship for the Egyptian god Amon. The city was situated among a system of rivers and canals in and around it that were supplied by the Nile (Roberts, Nahum, 70n8).

Thebes also had a network of allies surrounding it that made attacking the city even more unlikely (v. 9).^[19]“Cush” is also known as ancient Nubia, ancient Ethiopia,^[20]and modern Sudan. This is the territory immediately south of Egypt on the Nile River. During the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty (ca. 780–656 BC), Egypt was ruled by kings who were of Nubian ethnicity. This is probably why Nahum pairs Cush and Egypt together to show the reinforced strength of their alliance. “Put” is most likely a part of Libya, Egypt’s neighbor to the west, although its exact identification is uncertain.^[21]These allies formed what appeared to be an invincible barrier of protection for Thebes.

Despite this protection, Thebes was sacked in 663 BC by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (v. 10). By making this comparison with Thebes, Nahum is employing a particularly pointed version of prophetic irony precisely because it was Nineveh who overthrew Thebes. If invincible Thebes could be overthrown, Assyria should never think it could not be overthrown too, especially since Assyria itself was the nation that succeeded in doing it. There are no invincible nations before God. The Lord can always raise a greater nation in the future to conquer today’s most powerful nations. God sovereignly rules over the earth He created. He sets the times and places for all peoples and nations. They all rise and fall according to His divine purpose and plan. Psalm 33:12 (ESV) says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” The nation or people that trust in the Lord will be blessed by the Lord. Nations who do not trust the Lord as their God will suffer complete ruin forever.

The fate of Thebes was awful according to Nahum. The youngest and most vulnerable were destroyed by the Assyrians! This is an example of a common practice of not sparing even the youngest lives from the sword. To many people in the postmodern world these atrocities are unthinkable, yet even today they still happen in warfare. Not only did the Assyrians brutally kill countless infants, but the Theban nobles were humiliated like prisoners of war. The Assyrians gambled for and imprisoned Theban leaders as they devastated the land.

Nahum proceeds to apply the lesson of the fall of Thebes to the Assyrians (v. 11). The metaphor of drunkenness as part of divine judgment is also found in Isaiah 19:14 concerning Egypt: “The leaders have made Egypt stagger in all she does, as a drunkard staggers in his vomit.” Lamentations 4:21 declares judgment on Edom in similar words: “Yet the cup will pass to you as well; you will get drunk and expose yourself.” Nahum declares that Nineveh’s leaders will be subject to the same intoxication of divine judgment. They will try to shield themselves from the onslaught by hiding, but nothing they do will save Assyria. Their faculties will be so impaired that it will be as if they are drunk. Roberts comments, “The metaphor of the drunken woman . . . should probably be read as an indication that Nineveh’s defenses have been breached and that she is naked and open to the abuse of her conquerors. That is why she must seek a place of refuge” (Nahum, 74–75). Sinners suffer from severely impaired reasoning because they do not trust in the Lord. They rely on their own unredeemed thoughts and become like drunkards when it comes to their choices. In the day of divine reckoning they can only run and attempt to hide. But God is the only refuge in the day of distress and judgment.

Nineveh is ripe for impending judgment from the Lord. In verse 12 Nahum uses the fig tree as a simile to expose Nineveh’s ripeness. Assyria’s defenses are no longer capable of protecting it from disaster. Its fortresses are like ripe figs ready to be eaten! Their defenses are ready to be overtaken with little or no resistance. The Assyrian Empire has become weakened to the point that it will no longer be able to withstand armies that come against it. Historically, one reason for the decline of Assyria’s strength had to do with the fact that the empire was severely overextended and had begun to crumble under its own weight.^[22]Isaiah 28:4 uses the metaphor of ripe figs to illustrate the ripeness of Samaria for divine judgment during the mid-eighth century BC prior to her fall at the hands of Assyria. Samaria’s leaders “will be like a ripe fig before the summer harvest. Whoever sees it will swallow it while it is still in his hand.” In Mark 13:28-29 Jesus gave a parable about the ripeness of the fig tree indicating the Lord’s imminent coming in judgment:

Learn this parable from the fig tree: As soon as its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that He is near—at the door!

If the first ripening of the fig tree is an indication of the nearness of the Lord’s coming, how much more when the figs have ripened early. Nineveh is more than ripe for ruin. Such will be the end of all nations and kingdoms that do not honor the Lord as the sovereign God over all the earth. Assyria will be eaten alive! In the same way, sinners are ripe (and not ready) for the coming judgment.

Nahum’s message of judgment for Nineveh is good news for God’s people and bad news for Assyria. The gospel is to be understood as the good news over against the bad news. The bad news is that divine judgment is coming for all who do not trust in the salvation of the Lord. The good news is that God will judge sinners and He will save the righteous. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21).

The Collapse of Nineveh

Nahum 3:13-19

Nahum completes his prophetic message against Nineveh by calling attention to the weaknesses in the Assyrian military machine (v. 13). His reference to the troops being “like women” is not intended as an insult toward women. It is a cultural simile describing the failure of courage among the members of the Assyrian military. Because of the weakness of the military, the defenses of the city are vulnerable to attack. There is no ability to resist invaders. Nahum predicts that fire will destroy the city gate. The city gate was one of the most important places for defense.

Nahum goes on to taunt Nineveh in verse 14. This taunting language is similar to Nahum’s taunt in 2:1: “Man the fortifications! Watch the road! Brace yourself! Summon your strength!” In 3:14 he employs five imperatives to make his point of irony that no matter how much Nineveh prepares, its demise is inevitable.^[23]Nahum reveals aspects of the process of preparation for an oncoming military attack. The prophet rhetorically urges the storing and usage of water and the making of mud bricks to build walls and barriers to reinforce their fortresses.

Verses 15-17 make up a section the theme of which revolves around an extended simile regarding fire, sword, and locusts. Despite their most valiant efforts, Nahum declares that the fire and the sword will consume Nineveh like locusts who consume large fields of food. He does not seem to suggest that locusts will devour Nineveh, but it does appear that Nahum is saying fire will have the same level of destructive force as locusts. In a twist on the usage of the simile, in verse 15b Nahum taunts Nineveh to multiply like locusts because he knows that will not help Assyria defend itself. Verses 16-17 continue the extended simile, comparing the size of the Assyrian regime with a swarm of locusts. “The multitude of Assyria’s troops, traders, and officials must have made it very difficult for Nahum’s Judean audience to believe his proclamation of Nineveh’s imminent fall” (Roberts, Nahum, 75). Nineveh can multiply all the troops it wants, but it will be to no avail. God has decreed the collapse of Nineveh and its empire.

Nahum’s final words are directed to the king of Assyria, although Judah—God’s people—are the immediate recipients (vv. 18-19). Whether the king of Assyria ever actually knew about Nahum’s prophecy concerning him does not ultimately matter because he will get what he deserves. The king’s advisors and deputies are unreliable. The reference to “slumber” and “sleep” probably has to do with the fact that his officials are clueless. “The King of Assyria may be oblivious to what is happening across his kingdom, but he shall learn of the effects of negligence and dissipation on the part of his leadership soon enough” (Robertson, Nahum, 127). The reference to the Assyrian people being “scattered” recalls the “one who scatters” mentioned by Nahum in 2:1. The damage to the king of Nineveh, his people, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire will be untreatable and incurable.

Judah and all the other nations will rejoice over the death of Assyria because it will mean an end to the long and bitter experiences of its cruel policies (v. 19b). Nahum ends his prophecy with a rhetorical question: “Who has not experienced your constant cruelty?” Shelton comments concerning the cruelty of Assyrian policies and practices,

At the time of Nahum’s prophecy every nation on earth had experienced, in one degree or another, the barbarity of Assyria’s rulers—the exploitation, the oppression, the violence. Both the Scriptures and the monuments testify to Assyria’s wickedness: their audacious boast of cruelty and of the pitiless crushing of nations; the rows of impaled prisoners; captives through whose lips rings were fastened, whose eyes were put out and who were then flayed alive. (Nahum, 68)

This explains the rationale for Nahum’s prophetic message concerning Nineveh, the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. God will not be mocked by individuals or nations. God will judge all nations according to His righteousness, and His Word will have the final say in all the affairs of humankind.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What constitutes a “culture of death”? Are there any ways that the country you live in is similar to Nineveh?
2. How does one recognize deceit in a national leader of your own country or of an enemy? Does a Christian have any advantage in doing so?
3. Why did Nahum call Nineveh a prostitute? What constitutes spiritual or political prostitution today?
4. Why did God condemn sorcery? What are some subtle forms of sorcery being practiced today?
5. Does the country you live in seem invincible today? Why should Christians not put their hope in nations and states and leaders?
6. Nineveh was ripe for judgment; Nahum compared Assyria to figs. What makes metaphors and parables effective in expressing truth? What metaphor could you use with your friends to speak of the imminence of judgment?
7. Why does “too big to fail” not apply when God brings judgment on an institution or a country?
8. What attributes of God do we learn about through reading the book of Nahum?
9. Where is the gospel in the book of Nahum? What are the bad news and the good news in the book of Nahum?
10. How might the book of Nahum be applied to current international events?