This small prophetic book packs a punch. The seventh book of the twelve minor prophets, Nahum shows us how God feels about the enemies of his people, and again, it’s Nineveh. Twenty years after Jonah prophesied over them, they are in trouble again. With powerful imagery and words that you can get lost in, bring your imagination as you venture through creation and military imagery to hear the heart of God against a nation that has his people surrounded.
Are you okay with me saying that God is an Avenger? In some people’s minds, that conjures up a horrible image of a nasty God that destroys people just for fun. But that is not the God we serve. Just as the Avengers movie portrays the team as the ones who step in to save the world, so is our God! We have to remember our God is both ‘slow to anger and abounding in love’ and ‘full of righteousness and justice’.
The Book of Nahum is often nestled alongside some other minor prophets in the Protestant Old Testament; Habakkuk and Zephaniah. The reason for this bundling is because of a similarity in theme and chronological relevance. According to O. Palmer Robertson, the authors of the respective books ‘all ministered essentially to the same constituency and laboured within thirty years of one another’ and as such form a cohesive theological theme by which they are united by their shared testimony.