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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Nahum 1:1 - 1:1
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The heading runs thus: “Burden concerning Nineveh; book of the prophecy of Nahum of Elkosh.” The first sentence gives the substance and object, the second the form and author, of the proclamation which follows. מַשָּׂא signifies a burden, from נָשָׂא, to lift up, to carry, to heave. This meaning has very properly been retained by Jonathan, Aquila, Jerome, Luther, and others, in the headings to the prophetic oracle. Jerome observes on Hab 1:1 : “Massa never occurs in the title, except when it is evidently grave and full of weight and labour.” On the other hand, the lxx have generally rendered it λῆμμα in the headings to the oracles, or even ὅρασις, ὅραμα, ῥῆμα (Isaiah 13ff., Isa 30:6); and most of the modern commentators since Cocceius and Vitringa, following this example, have attributed to the word the meaning of “utterance,” and derived it from נָשָׂא, effari. But נשׂא has no more this meaning than נָשָׂא קוֹל can mean to utter the voice, either in Exo 20:7 and Exo 23:1, to which Hupfeld appeals in support of it, or in 2Ki 9:25, to which others appeal. The same may be said of מַשָּׂא, which never means effatum, utterance, and is never placed before simple announcements of salvation, but only before oracles of a threatening nature. Zec 9:1 and Zec 12:1 form no exception to this rule. Delitzsch (on Isa 13:1) observes, with regard to the latter passage, that the promise has at least a dark foil, and in Nahum 9:1ff. the heathen nations of the Persian and Macedonian world-monarchy are threatened with a divine judgment which will break in pieces their imperial glory, and through which they are to be brought to conversion to Jehovah; “and it is just in this that the burden consists, which the word of God lays upon these nations, that they may be brought to conversion through such a judgment from God” (Kliefoth). Even in Pro 30:1 and Pro 31:1 Massâ' does not mean utterance. The words of Agur in Pro 30:1 are a heavy burden, which is rolled upon the natural and conceited reason; they are punitive in their character, reproving human forwardness in the strongest terms; and in Pro 31:1 Massâ' is the discourse with which king Lemuel reproved his mother. For the thorough vindication of this meaning of Massâ', by an exposition of all the passages which have been adduced in support of the rendering “utterance,” see Hengstenberg, Christology, on Zec 9:1, and O. Strauss on this passage. For Nineveh, see the comm. on Jon 1:2. The burden, i.e., the threatening words, concerning Nineveh are defined in the second clause as sēpher châzōn, book of the seeing (or of the seen) of Nahum, i.e., of that which Nahum saw in spirit and prophesied concerning Nineveh. The unusual combination of sēpher and châzōn, which only occurs here, is probably intended to show that Nahum simply committed his prophecy concerning Nineveh to writing, and did not first of all announce it orally before the people. On hâ'elqōshı̄ (the Elkoshite), see the Introduction.