Nahum (Prophet)

Overview

• Testament: Old
• Role: Prophet
• Book(s): Nahum
• Period: Approximately 660–612 BC; before the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC; after the fall of Thebes (~663 BC, referenced in Nahum 3:8)

Profile

Nahum is identified only as “the Elkoshite,” meaning he came from a place called Elkosh whose location remains unknown. Proposals have placed Elkosh in Galilee, in the region of Calah in Assyria (with the village of Alqush as a candidate), or in Judah near Simeon’s territory. Nothing in the text identifies his family, tribe, or the circumstances of his call. His name in Hebrew means “comfort” or “consolation,” a striking irony given that his entire book is an oracle of devastating judgment against Nineveh rather than comfort for its inhabitants—though for Israel the fall of its feared oppressor would indeed be consolation.

Nahum’s ministry stands in deliberate theological relationship to Jonah. About 150 years before Nahum, Jonah had preached repentance to Nineveh and the city had responded with fasting and mourning, leading God to relent from judgment. By Nahum’s day, Nineveh had returned to its ways and reached the apex of Assyrian power. Nahum’s oracle arrives with no call to repentance; the time for that has passed. He writes as a poet of striking power—Nahum 1:2-8 is a partial acrostic on the Hebrew alphabet, and chapters 2-3 contain some of the most vivid battle poetry in the Old Testament. The prophecy was precisely fulfilled: Nineveh fell to the Medes and Babylonians in 612 BC and was so completely destroyed that its location was debated by historians until the 19th century.

Nahum’s contribution to the prophetic canon is the declaration that God’s patience with wickedness has a limit, that national power provides no permanent immunity from divine judgment, and that God’s character—jealous, slow to anger, but finally just—governs all of history, not merely Israel’s history.

Key Events / Passages

• Fall of Nineveh (Nahum) — the central oracle of the entire book

Key Verses

“The 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.” — Nahum 1:3

“Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not.” — Nahum 3:1

Cross-References

• Jonah — the earlier prophet whose mission to Nineveh preceded Nahum by roughly 150 years
• Elkosh — Nahum’s hometown; location uncertain
• Nineveh — the sole subject of his prophecy