Emmanuel
meaning “comfort.” His name is perhaps an abbreviated version of
nahumiah, “God comforts.” Think of Isaiah 40:1, nahamu, nahamu ami
omar eloheikem — “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”
The very name Nahum is ironic because there is nothing comforting
about this book. It centers upon a fierce description of the Babylonian
siege of Nineveh, and is taken up for the most part with an angry,
impassioned hatred against the empire of Assyria, whose capital
city is Nineveh. Nineveh was a city across the river Tigris from what
would be modern-day Mosul. Nineveh was destroyed entirely by the
Babylonians in 612 BCE, and “entirely” is the operative word because
its location was not discovered by archaeologists until the midnineteenth century.
Why such total and complete destruction of Nineveh? The answer is
simple: Assyria symbolized by its capital Nineveh was code for the
worst possible oppression and brutality in the ancient Near East.
Assyria/Nineveh “had been the scourge of the ancient Near East for
almost three centuries. . . . In the wake of their conquests, mounds
of heads, impaled bodies, enslaved citizens, and avaricious looters
testified to the ruthlessness of the Assyrians.”8 The description of the
fall of Nineveh is so clear that Nahum may have spoken very near the
date of the event, perhaps circa 615-610.
The theological irony behind the prophet’s name emerges in his
description, with God speaking, of the destruction of Nineveh: “I am
against you, says the Lord of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your
face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on
your shame. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and
make you a spectacle. Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?
Where shall I seek comforters for you?” (Na 3:5-7).
The punishment of Nineveh is the punishment of a woman found
guilty of sexual immorality, perhaps as a result of sexual exploitation.
She is stripped naked, pelted with filth, displayed naked for all to see.
And there are no comforters for Nineveh. Nahum’s “God” is totally
against Nineveh, in fact so against Nineveh that there will be no
comforters for the city. The word “comforters,” in Hebrew minahamim,
same root meaning as the name Nahum.
Nineveh stands for what is utterly reprehensible, unacceptable, what
is in constant opposition to God, and what is beyond the pale of
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