NAHUM

Nahum – Means comfort, consolation.

Note – The destruction of the capital of Assyrian was comfort to Judah.

Theme – Nahum prophesies the fall of Nineveh.

Key Words   - The Judgment of Nineveh.

Key Verses   - 1:7,8; 3:5-7.

Key Chapter - 1

I. The fall of Nineveh.

a.       607 or maybe 612?

b.      20 years after the prediction of their fall by Nahum the Babylonians and Medes closed off the city. A flood of the Tigris river, destroyed part of Nineveh’s wall about 2 years after it’s the siege.

c.       The prediction of 2:6 would pave the way for the fall of Nineveh, under Jonah’s preaching this city was spared for about a century but returned to their sins, of violence, idolatry, and arrogance.

d.      The walls around Nineveh were 100 feet high which could accommodate three chariots riding abreast. On top of the walls were towers that rose another 100 feet. A moat surrounded the walls 150 wide and 60 feet deep.

II. Discovery of Nineveh’s ruins.

a.       The traces of this city had disappeared so good that most scholars believed this city of the Bible to be mythical. An Englishmen, Claude James Rich in 1820 was the first to sketch the ruins of Nineveh’s mounds. It was a man named Layard who in 1845 uncovered the ruins, which covered 100 acres. He uncovered the palaces, which revealed King Sennacherib’s library with over 100,000 volumes of history recorded.

b.      It revealed walls 90 feet high which covered about three city blocks.

III. Survey of Nahum.

a.       The destruction of Nineveh is decreed. 1

1. God is described as righteous, vengeance, powerful, and patient verse 1:2-3.

b.      The destruction of Nineveh is described. 2

1. God’s power is seen in all the dead bodies and destruction of the city verse 2:3-7

c.       The destruction of Nineveh is deserved. 3

1. Nineveh is characterized by cruelty and corruption verse 3:1-7