Nahum 3

Chap. III. Ver. 1—19. Nineveh’s utter destruction.—The Prophet goes on to denounce a woe against Nineveh, for her perfidy and violence. He musters up before our eyes the number of her chariots and cavalry; points to her burnished arms, and to the great and unrelenting slaughter which she spreads around her. He assigns her sins as the cause of her [destruction]; that the king was, saw messengers to all his subjects, requiring power from them to succour him; and that he thought himself able to endure the siege, and remained in expectation of armies which were to be raised throughout his CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE BOOK OF NAHUM. The prophecy of NAHUM forms a regular and perfect poem. The exordium [THE] pro is grand and truly majestic; the scene given for the destruction of Nineveh, and the description of its downfall, are painted in the most vivid colours, and are admirably clear.

The destruction of Nineveh took place a little more than a century afterwards; and its utter desolation is unanimously attested both by ancient and modern writers. “But,” as Bp. Newton justly observes, “what probability was there, that the capital of a great kingdom, a city which was sixty miles in compass, a city which contained so many thousand inhabitants,… Should be totally destroyed? And yet so totally was it destroyed, that the place is hardly known where it was situated. We have seen that it was taken and destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians; and what we may suppose helped to complete its ruin and devastation was Nebuchadnezzar’s soon afterwards enlarging and beautifying Babylon.

From that time no mention is made of Nineveh by any of the sacred writers; and the most ancient of the heathen authors, who have occasion to say any thing about it, speak of it as a city that was once great and flourishing, but now destroyed and desolate. Great as it was formerly, so little of it was remaining, that authors are not agreed even about its situation…. There is at this time a city called Mosul, situated upon the western side of the river Tigris, and on the opposite eastern shore are ruins of a great extent, which are said to be the ruins of Nineveh. But it is more than probable, that these ruins are the remains of the Persian Nineveh, and not of the Assyrian. Even the ruins of old Nineveh have [not been positively identified]. Of the prophet HABAKKUK we have no certain information; but it is probable, as Epiphanius and Dorotheus assert, that he was of the tribe of Simeon, and a native of Bethzacar.

It is evident that he prophesied in Judea before the captivity, and probably, as Abp. Usher supposes, in the reign of Jehoiakim, being contemporary with Jeremiah. His genuine writings are comprised in the three chapters of which this book consists; in which the prophet, indignantly complaining of the growth of iniquity among the Jews, God is introduced as denouncing his vengeance to be inflicted upon them by the Chaldeans; then, making a sudden transition, he humbly expostulates with [God], not to hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, | treads. | selves. 4 Therefore the law is slacked, and judgment | to eat.