Previous article in this series: October 1, 2025, p. 10

Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will see thee as a gazingstock. 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? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?— Nahum 3:5-7

Nahum 3:5-7 are a judge’s summing up after the evidence has been presented, the verdict pronounced, the punishment set. God, as Judge, says that Nineveh’s fall will reveal His implacable anger against all wickedness. Nineveh’s fall was just retribution, but also a revelation of the righteousness of God. He is never a disinterested Judge.

His dealing with Nineveh will also uncover her great wickedness. Just as it is today, the cultural accomplishments, monuments, palaces, military might, and conquests were a facade covering Nineveh’s wickedness in the same way the finery of a whore covers her wickedness. God tells Nineveh, addressing her directly as Judge, that He had not only seen and condemned her wickedness but would uncover it and leave her naked (v. 5). He would have her put in the stocks, as it were, and leave her there, pelted with filth, her wickedness exposed to all (v. 6). Under God’s judgment Nineveh would find that all were against her, with none to help her or even take pity on her.

God did this to Nineveh when He gave her over to the Babylonians; but what He did then to Nineveh, He did to all the nations of the world when He sent His Son into the world and the world rejected and murdered Him. “If I had not come and spoken unto them,” Jesus said, “they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin” (John 15:22). The false piety of unbelieving Judaism, the pretended justice of Rome, the hypocrisy of Jew and Gentile alike were all stripped away by Christ’s coming, words, and work, and they were all left without excuse. As Jesus said the day before He was crucified, “Now is the judgment of this world” (John 12:31).

That is the reason why so many were involved in the capture, trial, and crucifixion of our Lord: Jew and Gentile, Pilate, Herod, the leaders of the Jews, both secular and religious, even the people among whom He walked, whose bodies He healed and whose bellies He filled. The cloak of piety, justice, religion, and love for others had to be stripped away that all the world might become guilty before God (Rom. 3:19) and that by the grace of God some few might see that salvation is of God alone.

God does on a smaller scale and through earthly events in Nineveh what He did at Calvary and what He will do again when the world ends. Then, too, every mouth will be stopped, every secret uncovered, all wickedness will be judged, and that which was done in darkness will be revealed in the light. “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known” (Luke 12:2). Only those who have found refuge in Christ will escape the just retribution of that coming day.

Nahum 3 is not just about one ancient city, but about what Augustine called the “Earthly City” or “City of Man”; not just about the destruction of an ancient people and culture, but about God’s work of bringing eternal ruin upon all the peoples of this world and their vaunted cultures. Nahum 3 is a prophet saying in his small voice what an angel says with a strong and equally prophetic voice in Revelation 18:2, 3: “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”

Living still in the kingdoms of this world, God’s people must live antithetically, obeying the voice of the same angel, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities” (Rev. 18:4, 5).

Notable in Nahum 3, as well as in chapter 2:13 is God’s addressing Nineveh directly, as He did her king in the last verses of chapter 1. Whether this word of God ever reached Nineveh we do not know, but it is evident that it would have done no good if it had. But the purpose of God’s addressing Nineveh was not any hope that the Ninevites would listen or repent. Rather, His word against Nineveh and the harsh language He uses are for the sake of His people, assuring them that Nineveh would fall and they, long oppressed, would be delivered.

That word of God to Nineveh is for us also. When it seems as though wickedness is dominant in our society, that it will never come to an end, but will continue to grow; when it seems as though violence and lies will never cease, then we too must hear the word of God against Nineveh and all who are Ninevites at heart: “I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts.”

NAHUM (13)  NINEVEH LIKE THEBES

Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers. Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains—Nahum 3:8-10

Nahum 3:8-10 make reference to populous No, describes its situation and what happened to it, assuring Nineveh that her end would be the same as No’s. No was an Egyptian city, better known as Thebes, located about 500 miles south of the Mediterranean Sea on the banks of the Nile River. Its ruins are within the limits of the modern city of Luxor. The temples of Karnak and Luxor, now ruined but some of the most visited sites in modern Egypt, were part of its former glory.

No is mentioned in Jeremiah 46:25 and three times in Ezekiel 30:14-16. It was at different times the capitol of Egypt and one of the great cities of ancient times. The King James Version translates the reference to the city in Nahum as “populous No,” which it was,1 but the word “populous” may also be a reference to one of the gods of Egypt2 and part of the name of the city. Then verse 8 would read, “Art thou better than No- Amon, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?” Some of the modern Bible versions translate the verse this way.

No’s or Thebes’ location is referred to in verse 8 because the location made the city nearly impregnable. It was located at a place where the Nile, referred to as the sea in Nahum, divided into many rivers and streams, which had to be crossed in order to assault the city. Thebes was “situate among the rivers, that had waters round about it.” The city itself was on the banks of the Nile, at that point two to three miles wide, which functioned as a rampart and wall for the city, exactly as God’s word through Nahum said. Thebes’ “rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea.”

Not only was Thebes’ situation ideal for defense, but any invaders would have to travel down the Nile and face the threat of attack by Thebes’ allies, Egypt to the north (the reference is to the delta or northern area of Egypt, known as Lower Egypt, with its center in Memphis), Ethiopa (Cush) to the south, Lubim or Libya to the west, and Put (hard to identify precisely, but almost certainly the desert tribes to the east of the Nile and of Thebes). Verse 9 says that her strength was infinite, and by human standards it appeared to be so.

Robertson describes the impossibilities faced by an invader:

Four hundred miles down from the Nile Delta an invading army from the north had to march. To the right and to the left they had to expose their flank to retaliatory assault from kindred nations friendly to Thebes. Having finally arrived before the massive city, twenty-seven miles in circumference, the heated glare of a horizontal wall of water blinded them everywhere they looked. Surrounded by rivers, streams, canals, and lakes formed by the Nile as it distributed over the broadened delta, any invader would have to be overwhelmed by the sight that greeted their eyes. A field of massive statues, memorials, temples, and great halls with no equal in the world stood before them. On both sides of the Nile they observed structures made of stones almost 300 tons in weight, and colossi weighing up to 900 tons apiece. If they had been fully informed, they would have known of the tunneled “valley of the kings and queens” beyond the many carvings in the western cliffs.3

Yet Thebes, Nineveh’s chief rival, became for all of its protection one of the great conquests of the Assyrians. Ashurbanipal of Assyria in 663 BC with his armies, traveled 1,200 miles from Assyria to assault the city of Thebes and conquered it in spite of its impregnable defenses and many allies. He boasts of his conquest in an inscription found in the city of Nineveh:

This city, the whole of it, I conquered it with the help of Ashur and Ishtar. Silver, gold, precious stones, all the wealth of the palace, rich cloth, precious linen, great horses, supervising men and women, two obelisks of splendid electrum, weighing 2,500 talents, the doors of temples I tore from their bases and carried them off to Assyria. With this weighty booty I left Thebes. Against Egypt and Kush I have lifted my spear and shown my power. With full hands I have returned to Nineveh, in good health.4

Nahum 3:10 describes what the sack of Thebes by the Assyrians meant for Thebes’ citizens. Thebes’ citizens were carried away captives, her children were slaughtered (dashed in pieces in the top of the streets), and her nobles were sold into slavery. Her people enslaved and dragged far away to Assyria and her children destroyed, Thebes was the object of what today would be called genocide. Fallen, Thebes never regained her former glory.

God is saying to Nineveh, therefore, “Your defenses are not as sure as those of Thebes, which you conquered. The Tigris is by no means the kind of rampart that the Nile was to Thebes. You’ve seen the might and glory of Thebes, greater than your own. You boast of your power and glory, when a city greater than yours fell into your hands? You Assyrians conquered Thebes, and now you think that though Thebes could not stand against you, you will stand against Me?”

Egypt would later boast anew of its defenses: “My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself” (Ezek. 29:3). Assyria had its own boast, having conquered Egypt and its principal city, “I have digged, and drunk water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places” (Is. 37:25). Through Isaiah God had answered Assyria’s boasts as He would answer Egypt’s: “Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps. Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up” (Is. 37:26, 27). God who had given Assyria its conquests would make Assyria a conquest of the Babylonians.

During the days of Isaiah, God had answered Assyria’s (Rabshakeh’s) boasting by leaving Sennacherib’s army a field of corpses and by sending Sennacherib’s sons to assassinate him. Now He promises to do the same to the city of Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria, still at the height of its power. As Thebes had fallen to Assyria, so would Assyria fall to her enemies by the sentence of the Almighty; and the fact that Nahum prophesied not long after the fall of Thebes only adds weight to God’s words through him.

The prophesied fall of Assyria was not only a demonstration of God’s sovereignty over the nations and not only His judgment on Assyria’s wickedness, but also deliverance for His people. He had spoken of that deliverance in answer to Rabshakeh and his master: “And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward: For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this” (Is. 37:31, 32). Now He speaks of it again through Nahum, though not expressly in this chapter, for there was no need to say it again: “God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies” (Nah. 1:2), while to His people He is, then and always, “good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him” (1:7).

The similarities between Nahum’s prophecy and the word of God in Revelation 18 are unmistakable. Revelation 18 is preceded by a description of the three great enemies of God, of His Christ and of His people: the dragon (chapter 12), the beast (chapter 13) and the great whore (chapter 17). This is followed by a description of their downfall in reverse order: of the great whore whose name is Babylon in chapter 18; of the beast and the false prophet in chapter 19; and of the dragon, the Devil, in chapter 20. Nahum does much the same, showing us Belial, the Devil, and his principal servant, the king of Assyria, an Old Testament picture of the beast, followed by Nineveh herself, the great whore of Nahum’s day. Though not in the same order as Revelation 18, God also shows through Nahum the judgment and downfall of these enemies.

Both are prophetic, but though Nahum’s prophecy reaches to the end, the prophecies of Revelation are given in days when the reality of his prophecies are seen to be far-reaching and ageless. What Nahum saw we see in clearer detail and with greater horror, for the atrocities and wickedness of Nineveh will pale in comparison to those of the last days. We see the beginning of this already, and some of us will see the final reality of which Nahum saw only the shadow.

Yet the wickedness of the nations always brings down on their own heads the righteous wrath of God, no matter how secure they may seem in their wickedness. The certainty of Nineveh’s destruction matches the certainty of the fall and desolation of the kingdom of the beast and dragon in the last days, for, “He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints” (Rev. 13:10).

When that day comes and Nineveh’s fall is fulfilled in the fall of all earthly kingdoms to the Lord and His Christ, then the song of the saints will be in answer to the call of Revelation 18:20, “Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.” For them Nineveh’s fall is good tidings, for it portends the fall of the kingdoms of this world that will be the beginning of a blessedness which eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man to understand, the fulfillment of all that God has promised His people and obtained for them through the shed blood of His Son.

Nineveh will be destroyed always. God’s people will be delivered from their enemies always. How true the words of Psalm 11 (Psalter #11a, 2024 ed.):

In God will I trust, though my counselors say,
O flee as a bird to your mountain away;
The wicked are strong and the righteous are weak,
Foundations are shaken, yet God will I seek.
The Lord in His temple shall ever abide;
His throne is eternal, whatever betide,
The children of men He beholds from on high,
The wicked to punish, the righteous to try.
The Lord is most righteous, the Lord loves the right,
The evil He hates and will surely requite.
The wicked His anger will drive from their place,
The upright in rapture shall gaze on His face.

This all centers on Calvary, where the Son of God, delivered into the hands of the Ninevites of His day, was oppressed, brutalized, and killed, His death becoming the judgment of Nineveh and her citizens and the salvation of the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. Nahum does not mention the coming of the Messiah and His power over the nations in chapters 2 and 3, but the believing Jews of His day would have understood that full deliverance from their enemies would come only with Messiah’s appearance on the scene of history. Nahum’s contemporaries did speak of this coming Savior of God’s people: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer. 23:5, 6).

One thinks of the book of Judges where there are also few explicit references to the coming of the Messiah, but where the whole book shows the need for Him. There were men in Israel in the days of the judges who could deliver Israel from heathen oppressors and foreign nations—Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Gideon, and all the others—but there was no one in Israel who could deliver Israel from her own sins, which were the reason for her troubles with Cushan-rishathaim, Eglon, Sisera, and her many other oppressors. Though unspoken, therefore, the focus of the book of Judges is on the need for One greater and better than these earthly deliverers, and so it is in the prophecy of Nahum.

Nineveh’s oppression of Israel and Judah was the result of their own sins, God’s chastisement for sin, and only God Himself who had used the brutal and godless Assyrians to chastise His people could provide a deliverance for them that would make such chastisement forever unnecessary.

1 Thebes may have been before its conquest the largest city in the world of that day with 75,000 inhabitants, a hundred gates and a city circumference of twenty-seven miles.
2 Amon or Amun, also known as Amun-Ra, was the Sun god of Egypt and the king of their gods and Thebes was the center of Amun-Ra’s worship.
3 O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1990), 113.
4 James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement (Princeton: University Printers, 1950), 294-95.