Who, when, where
Nahum is from Elkosh, a town no one has located with certainty (Galilee, Judah, and northern Mesopotamia have all been proposed). His name means "comfort," which is the inside joke of the book: comfort for Judah, named after a hammer-blow for Nineveh. The oracle assumes the fall of Thebes (No-Amon) in 663 BC as a past event (Nahum 3:8) and announces the coming fall of Nineveh, which actually happens in 612 BC. That puts him somewhere in between, most likely around 650 BC, during the back end of Manasseh's long reign in Judah. The Assyrian empire that crushed the North and besieged Hezekiah is still standing as he writes; within a generation it will be rubble.
Where in history
Late Assyrian empire → Judah under Manasseh
Counter-pole to Jonah, ~150 years later
- 663 BC
Thebes (No-Amon) falls to Ashurbanipal
Nahum 3:8 references this as a known event: "Art thou better than populous No?" The Assyrian sack of Egypt's southern capital is the parallel Nahum uses to explain what is coming for Nineveh.
- 650 BC
Nahum's oracle (approximate)
Most readers place Nahum here, during Manasseh's long reign in Judah, with Assyria still at its peak. The oracle is undated; the bracketing events (Thebes in 663, Nineveh in 612) set the window.
- 612 BC
Nineveh falls to Babylon and the Medes
Within ~40 years of Nahum's oracle, the city is rubble. The Babylonian Chronicle (a clay tablet held in the British Museum) records the fall, including the role of the Khoser and Tigris waters. Travelers a few centuries later could no longer find the site.
The big idea
The empire that broke God's people will itself be broken. Three short chapters: a poem about God's character (jealous, slow to anger, but not at all letting the guilty go free), an extended vivid imagining of Nineveh's fall (chariots raging, gates of the rivers opened, the lion's den emptied), and a final verdict (the news of Nineveh's wound is a wound the world is glad to hear about). Nahum is the second word on Nineveh in the canon. Jonah preached to the city and they repented; Nahum announces that 150 years later the patience has run out. The book is also a comfort to Judah under Assyrian domination: the boot that has been on your neck is coming off.
Why this book still matters
Two reasons Nahum matters more than its three chapters suggest. First, Nahum 1:15 ("Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!") is picked up by Paul in Romans 10:15 as the line about gospel preachers ("how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace"). A line aimed at announcers running with news that Nineveh has fallen becomes a line about apostles running with news of resurrection. Second, Nahum is the canonical counter-weight to Jonah. Together they give the two-word answer to the question of what God does about the world's worst empires: he gives them a chance, then he doesn't. The pair makes the canon's portrait of God's patience and judgment honest in both directions.
Nahum 1:15
“Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.”
Romans 10:15
Paul, arguing that preachers are needed for people to believe: "And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" The line about a messenger running with news of Nineveh's fall becomes the line about apostles running with the gospel.
Honest about what's debated
Three honest questions readers still ask. First, when exactly is Nahum writing? The fall of Thebes in 663 BC is past (3:8) and the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC is future, so somewhere in between. Most readers place him around 650 BC; some closer to 615, with the Median advance already starting. Second, is the opening hymn (1:2-8) original to Nahum or an older acrostic poem he is using? The poem follows the Hebrew alphabet (partially) and feels stitched in. Either way it sets the tone. Third, is Nahum's celebration of Nineveh's fall too gleeful? Readers have wrestled with the relish in chapters 2-3. The book answers itself: this is what oppressed Judah hearing the news sounded like.
Nahum is three short chapters; chapter 1 is the poem and the verdict, chapters 2-3 are the vivid imagining of the fall.