Nahum prophesied when the Assyrian power was collapsing, at the death of Ashurbanipal, the last king in 626. In 612 the Medes and Babylonian allies attacked and destroyed Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians. Even before that, however, the Assyrians were losing their control over the people whom they had enslaved and who thoroughly hated them. The Jews were among them. Nahum’s poems show the heart of a patriot who believes that the Lord governs the history of the nations.

What do you plot against Yahweh?

1 Oracle against Nineveh. This is the book of the vision which Nahum of Elkosh has seen.

2 Yahweh is a jealous and avenging God,
Yahweh takes vengeance in his wrath;

3 Yahweh is slow to anger
though immense in power.
He does not overlook the evil.
In storm and whirlwind is his path;
clouds are the dust of his feet.

4 He rebukes the sea and dries it;
he drains rivers of their water.
Bashan and Carmel wither;
the blossoms of Lebanon fade.

5 Before him the mountains quake
and the hills melt;
the earth trembles
and all the peoples.

6 Who can stand before his fury?
Who can face his blazing anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and the rocks are rent asunder.

7 Yahweh is good for those who hope;
in the day of trouble he shelters them.
He remembers those who trust in him

8 when the flood engulfs them.
He utterly destroys his adversaries
and pursues his foes into darkness.
What are you plotting against him?
Yahweh will bring it to an end,

9 oppression will not rise a second time.
Yahweh gives his foe no quarter,
he stores up fury for his enemy.

10 They will be entangled
devoured like thorns,
and be consumed like dry stubble.

11 Yahweh will take off Juda his enemy
the one who plots evil.

12 Thus Yahweh says to Judah:
“Though they be strong and many
they will be annihilated.
Though I had afflicted you,
no more shall I afflict you.

13 I will break their yoke from your neck
and tear away your shackles.”

14 To the people of Nineveh,
here is Yahweh’s decree.
“No descendants shall bear your name.
I will abolish from your temple
the carved image and the molten idol.
I will make your tomb an object of shame.”

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Comments Nahum, Chapter 1

• 1.1 This introductory song presents the central theme of Nahum’s prophecy: Yahweh is concerned about being acknowledged on earth as the only God; he is present in everything that takes place in nature, and above all, in the faithfulness towards his friends.

Trusting in God’s words, in a terrible poem Nahum prophesies the destruction of Nineveh blow by blow: it symbolizes liberation from all kinds of slavery.

Through Nahum, the Bible approves the happiness of all little people upon seeing the destruction of the powerful who ignored all their rights and dominated them through terror.

1 See, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, one who proclaims peace.
Judah, celebrate your feasts
and carry out your vows.
For the wicked have been destroyed,
they will not attack you any more.

3 Yahweh will now restore
Jacob’s magnificence, like Israel’s splendor.
For they had been plundered,
laid waste as a ravaged vineyard.


Nineveh shall fall

2 Against Nineveh a destroyer ad vances.
Watch the road, man the fortress;
brace yourselves, muster your for ces.

4 The shields of his soldiers are red;
his warriors are crimson-clad.
His chariots gleam as if on fire
when mustered in battle array,
while prancing horses and frenzied horsemen
wait impatiently for bloody action.

5 As chariots storm through the streets
and dash madly through the squares,
they look like flashing torches
or darting lightning bolts.

6 The picked troops are called out;
ranks break at their charge.
Having set up the mantelet
they rushed toward the rampart.

7 The river gates are thrown open,
and the palace defense collapses.

8 The goddess is taken captive
together with all her handmaids,
moaning like doves and beating their breasts.

9 Nineveh looks like a pool
with its waters running away:
All flee: “Stop, stop!”
but no one comes back.

10 All kinds of wealth, gold and silver –
it is an endless treasure, a heap of the most precious things.

11 Waste and ruin, desolation and emptiness, failing hearts and trem bling knees,
terror and agony on all blanched faces!

12 Where now is the lion’s cave,
the den of the cubs
where the lion would bring his prey,
and the cubs lie down undisturbed?

13 The lion tore to pieces for his whelps,
and strangled for his mates;
he filled his caves with prey
and his dens with mangled flesh.

14 Yahweh Sabaoth speaks:
I have come against you.
I will send up your chariots in smoke,
give your cubs to the sword;
wipe the earth clear of your plunder,
and your envoys’ voices will be heard no more.

The city of blood

1 Woe to the bloody city, city of lies and booty,
O city of unending plunder!

2 But what! Crack of whips,
rumble of wheels and clatter of hoofs!

3 See the frenzied chargers,
the flashing swords and glittering spears,
the heaps of the wounded,
the dead and dying
– we trip over corpses!

4 The harlot is paying for her harlotries,
her deadly charms, her sorceries.
She traded nations with her prostitutions
and caught peoples by her spells.

5 “I am against you,” Yahweh Sabaoth says.
“I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness
and the kingdoms your disgrace.

6 I will pelt you with filth,
I will treat you with contempt
and make of you a shameful show,

7 so that all who look on you
will turn their backs in disgust
and say: Nineveh – a city of lust – is in ruins.
Who will mourn for her?
Where can we find one to comfort her?

8 Are you any better
than Thebes by the Nile,
surrounded by water,
her rampart the river,
and the water her wall?

9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her stay,
Put and Libya were her allies,

10 yet she was carried away
and held captive among the exiles.
Her infants were dashed to pieces
at the head of every road;
lots were cast for her nobles,
her great men bound in chains.

11 You, too, shall drink of this:
you will also hide from your enemies.

12 Your fortresses are like fig trees
laden with early-ripening fruits
Re which fall, when shaken,
into the waiting mouths.

13 Look at your braves – they are like women!
Your gates are wide open,
the bars consumed by fire,
and the enemies freely enter.

14 Brace yourselves for the siege: draw water,
strengthen the bulwark,
tread the clay and the mortar
and repair the brickwork.

15 There the fire will devour you
and the sword will cut you down
though you were numerous as locusts,
beyond count like grasshoppers.

16 You had multiplied your merchants
more than the stars of the sky;

17 like grasshoppers were your officials
and your soldiers like swarms of locusts
which settle on the walls on a cold day.
But the sun appears, they fly away and they are gone, no one knows where.

18 O king of Assyria, your shepherds slumber,
your nobles lie down fast asleep,
while over the mountains your people scatter,
and there is no one to gather them up.

19 Nothing can heal your wounds; your injury is fatal.
All clap their hands
when they hear about your fall.
for who has not suffered constantly
the plague of your cruelty?