And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her?- Nah_3:7.
1. The passage hitherto considered is now usually regarded as having been prefixed to Nahum's prophecy by some later editor. We now come to Nahum's actual oracles. The scene changes from the presence and awful arsenal of the Almighty to the historical consummation of His vengeance. Nahum foresees the siege of Nineveh.
Nineveh was a great city, the centre of a splendid empire, an empire that had a long career of victory; and victory in such a case meant unbridled violence, cruel greed, insatiable lust. This empire was one of the richest, most powerful, and most flagrantly wicked that the world has ever seen.
It was only in 1842 that the site of Nineveh was discovered, but since then the palaces of Sennacherib and Esar-haddon and others have been excavated, and there have been found a number of colossal winged bulls and human-headed lions, sculptured slabs of alabaster panelling the rooms, and cylinders and bricks with cuneiform inscriptions, and many of these have been placed in the British Museum and in other collections. These serve to indicate the wealth, culture, and magnificence of Nineveh (cf. Nah_2:9). The walls were, according to Diodorus Siculus, 100 feet high, and so broad that three chariots could pass each other upon them. The city was further protected partly by the rivers Tigris and Khusar, and partly by broad moats. Hanging gardens, as at Babylon, were filled with rich plants and rare animals, and served, with temples and palaces, libraries and arsenals, to adorn and enrich the city. This was the splendid city whose destruction Nahum so vividly foresees.1 [Note: F. H. Woods and F. E. Powell, The Hebrew Prophets, ii. 14.]
2. With righteous indignation not unmingled with an almost contemptuous exultation Nahum chants her knell. He bids her strain every nerve for defence; repair her walls, make provision for the siege, set her sentinels. But all in vain. A short skirmish outside the walls, and the gates are forced; panic terror paralyses her defenders; the battle rages through her streets; the central citadel surrenders; her vast stores of wealth are plundered; she is stripped bare and naked and exposed to infamy. Nothing remains of all her magnificence but emptiness and desolation and vacuity. The judgment is thorough; there is no healing of the bruise. No more shall the ambassadors of this proud city go forth to dictate oppressive terms to weak peoples. All that hear the noise of her downfall will clap their hands with revengeful joy. Her wickedness has pressed upon all the peoples continually; and when she dies there is no creature to mourn. Men's minds are filled with the solemn conviction that God has taken a great curse from off the face of the earth.
Nahum, of course, is not giving a narrative of the progress of the siege of Nineveh; he is writing upon the eve of it. The military details, the muster, the fighting in the open, the investment, the assault, he did not need to go to Assyria or to wait for the fall of Nineveh to describe as he has done. Assyria herself (and herein lies much of the pathos of the poem) had made all Western Asia familiar with their horrors for the last two centuries.
The Prophet's indictment against Nineveh has received strange confirmation from the inscriptions and sculptures which have been brought to light in recent years, many of which may be seen in the British Museum. “The barbarities which followed the capture of a town would be almost incredible,” writes Professor Sayce, “were they not a subject of boast in the inscriptions which record them.” The details of the savage cruelties of the Assyrians are too horrible for quotation. “How deeply seated was their thirst for blood and vengeance on an enemy is exemplified in a bas-relief which represents Assur-bani-pal”-the king, be it remembered, who was Nahum's contemporary-“and his queen feasting in their garden while the head of a conquered Elamite king hangs from a tree above.” They are witnesses against themselves that they flagrantly violated every law and instinct of humanity in their lust of conquest and their passion for revenge.1 [Note: A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Doctrine of the Prophets, 248.]
3. To appreciate rightly Nahum's spirited prophecy it must be borne in mind how intense would be the relief at the overthrow of that insolently oppressive power which had so long been the savage scourge of Western Asia, had devastated Israel, and had more than once laid siege to Jerusalem. The prophet expresses not merely the feelings of his own nation, but the exultation of an outraged humanity, that the old lion is at last brought to bay. Nahum may be less spiritual than most of the prophets, but the peculiarly pathetic element in this book is the way in which the evident danger of Nineveh is viewed in its relation to eternal truths. Nahum had a great principle to proclaim-the certain destruction of this world's kingdoms built on the foundation of force and fraud; the triumph of the Kingdom of God reared on the foundation of truth and righteousness. But the limitation of view with which he proclaims this truth is very remarkable. He says nothing concerning the sins of his own people, but concentrates his attention exclusively on a foreign nation, and this at a time when Judah was preparing for the greatest catastrophe in its history. Assyria passes away, but Babylon takes the place, and becomes “the servant of Jehovah” to administer a still severer chastisement upon the people who had rejected so many privileges. For Nahum, Nineveh is the representative of worldly power in antagonism to Jehovah, and Judah is the kingdom of Jehovah, representing Him on earth. Judah is viewed in the abstract in the light of her calling and destiny, in a word, idealized; not in the concrete, as she actually was, failing hopelessly to fulfil that calling.
The environment of the Greeks abnormally developed their power of thought and their sense of beauty, so it has been their mission and function to refine and humanize mankind. Art, letters, philosophy, taste have been their contribution to the education of the world.
Similarly, by reason of its environment, Rome's function and mission was to teach mankind law, organization, government. The Teutonic nations' share in mankind's development has been the teaching of honour, truthfulness, respect for women.
In like manner, because of the special environment which was Israel's in the course of its national life, the spiritual or religious element has been pronouncedly developed in the Hebrews, and their mission has been to give the world its true religion.
But, all said and done, mere naturalism does not account for it all. The only answer which satisfactorily explains all the facts must ever be that Israel developed in a unique religious direction of its own “under the constraint of a Divine training, and under the guiding light of a Divine revelation, and that its Prophets-Moses, Isaiah, Christ-rightly claimed to be the spokesmen and representatives of the one true God.”
If it be urged that this would imply an act of favouritism on God's part, unworthy of His character, our answer is that it is precisely because God is full of love and mercy that He thus chose Israel. He set apart the Jews as His chosen people, not out of partiality, but as the instrument in His hands for the purpose He has had in view all along from the beginning of the world-the salvation of all men: “The fixed purpose that all men shall be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” God does not thus distribute His grace and gifts with a partial or niggard hand. He first selects the Jews to keep the conception of a living righteous Father alive in the midst of an evil world, so that through them He may reach and gather in the Gentiles.1 [Note: J. R. Cohu, The Old Testament in the Light of Modern Research, 33.]
4. Nahum was an enthusiastic, optimistic patriot. The oppression and humiliation endured by his people for generations had long rankled in his soul. He is a fair representative of the state of mind of the average man of his times, whose faith in Jehovah's goodness and power had been severely tried by the continuous spectacle of the sufferings of Israel. Let us remember that the proclamation of vengeance against the outside foe, pleasant as it may be to our patriotic pride, is only a small part of the prophetic activity, and that there is danger that our joy over the enemy's fall may be greater than our hatred of the sins that God has so strikingly condemned. As a matter of fact, this was precisely the temptation to which the Jews yielded in later days; they made the contrast between themselves and the world absolute; privilege and blessing for themselves and severe judgment for those outside became the fixed and central point of their creed. Thus they teach us that one aspect of truth must not be separated from the whole to which it belongs, and in which it finds its explanation.
Nahum as a prophet voices the conscience of humanity, and gives fresh expression to the Divine decree that God will not endure man's inhumanity to man. His book is a burning protest against aught else than righteousness being the foundation of a nation's true prosperity. The vast armaments of Assyria and the wide commerce that filled her coffers with gold gave but the specious appearance of strength. No nation, however supported by standing armies, commercial interests, and plenitude of revenue, can hope to endure if the eternal verities of justice, truth, and humanity are not recognized as the national ideals. Where these are outraged, judgment is certain sooner or later. Thus Nahum implicitly falls into line with Israel's great prophets. He is essentially a preacher of “Nemesis,” the doom that overtakes man or nation that is Assyrian in soul.
That the issues of war are in the hands of God is not merely an ancient doctrine of religion, but is confirmed by many facts of experience. In war there is a large element of the unexpected and the incalculable, which is recognized in such sayings as that “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” There are often combinations of events which have the aspect of a higher strategy working towards a particular result, so that it can be said that “the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.” Again, there are powerful influences making for victory or defeat which are not within the control of the human will, such as the spirit of enthusiasm which fires the heart of a multitude, or the sudden panic which overwhelms it; and these create a well-founded impression that the determining factor has often been a mysterious work of the Spirit of God in troubling or strengthening the soul of an army or a nation. But the fact which above all points to the hand of God in war is that, in spite of it, and to some extent also by means of it, He has steadily guided the human race along the path of progress. War is in itself so essentially irrational, so fierce and cruel, so destructive and demoralizing, and it has raged so widely and generally among the successive generations, that it might have been expected to check every upward movement, to leave on every people a deep mark of brutality and ferocity, and to make the Kingdom of God seem an empty dream. But when we find that the case has been otherwise, that there has been a sure though slow progress in civilization, and a growing self-assertion of the moral forces which make for law and order, for righteousness and for humanity, the inference seems irresistible that the outbreaks of human violence have fallen within the control of a higher power which said “thus far shalt thou go and no further,” which on the whole and in the long run gave the victory to the representatives of the better cause, and which had the wisdom and the strength to overrule the evil for good.1 [Note: W. P. Paterson, In the Day of the Muster (1914), 16.]
A cause like ours is holy,
And it useth holy things;
While over the storm of a righteous strife
May shine the angel's wings.
Where'er our duty leads us,
The grace of God is there,
And the lurid shrine of war may hold
The Eucharist of prayer.2 [Note: Paul Hamilton Hayne, Beauregard's Appeal.]
