Why did God judge Nineveh so harshly in the book of Nahum?

Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, that was threatened in the cry of Jonah, was ultimately destroyed because of its sins. Nahum, the prophet, is specially charged with "The burden of Nineveh." The weight of divine judgment that rested upon this guilty city is accurately foretold before it falls; all its accumulated evil, even from the days of Nimrod, had its just recompense from the hand of God.

The Book of Nahum is “The burden of Nineveh.” The opening verses bring out the anger of a jealous and revenging God, one slow to anger, but great in power who, when His time of patience is over, will deal with all His enemies. For those who trust Him, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble,” when His judgments fall upon those who are His adversaries. Nineveh, the expression of the world in its vanity and pride, the centre of evil and opposition to the people of God, imagined evil against the Lord Himself, and so invited His displeasure and its own doom. In God’s sight it was “the bloody city!” and “full of lies and robbery,” and notorious for its corruption and witchcraft. God would expose its nakedness, make it filthy and a gazing-stock.

What Nahum predicted was fulfilled, but the prophecy also served to bring out what would happen at the end. Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria, has long since ceased to exist, but the judgment on Nineveh describes what will befall the nation bearing the character of the Assyrian, and perhaps also his territory, in the last days.

In Nahum 3 says the prophet, "Woe to the bloody city." Such had Nineveh been to Israel above all. "It is all full of lies and robbery" — rather violence, the usual twofold form of iniquity. "The prey departs not." The allusion is no doubt to the people carried off and not restored.

Then is given (verses 2, 3) a most animated sketch of the enemies' advance to assail and slay. "The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horsemen lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses." And this carnage and ruin are attributed to the idolatry of Nineveh, and their efforts, too successful, to entice others. "Because of the multitudes of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts."

Next follows the stern condemnation of Jehovah, who once spared but now would have Nineveh know that it was no mere jealousy of others, but His own resolve to disgrace her who had so enjoyed herself and misled others. "Behold, I am against thee, says the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and will make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. And it shall come to pass, that all they that shall look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?"

Verses 1-7. Nineveh was a bloody city, for her kings never knew peace, but were constantly at war. The Hebrew Ir-Damim means "city of blood drops." They boasted of making the blood of their enemies run like rivers. It was a city full of lies and rapine. Her word could not be trusted; she broke truces and covenants and deceived nations with lying promises of help and protection. As stated in the second chapter, she was ferocious as a lion and the prey never departed.

And why? "Because of the multitudes of the whoredoms of the well-favored harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts." She made herself attractive as a harlot does, to ensnare and beguile weaker nations. Like all these ancient cities she was filled with witchcrafts, that is, sorceries. The power of darkness manifested itself in the dominion of evil spirits, which Nineveh courted. Spiritism, as advocated today by men of research and culture, of the type of Oliver Lodge and Conan Doyle, and a multitude of others, is not a new thing. Egypt, Babylon, and Nineveh and other centers of paganism were filled with occultism, the practice of which hastened their doom; as the doom of our age will be consummated through the influence of the same evil powers.

In Nahum 2 and Nahum 3 we have very distinctly and fully the prime object of the prophecy of Nahum, to which the first chapter is a preface, though in the latter part of it quite without reference to the direct subject matter, namely, the Assyrian. But now the great city comes most prominently before us. "He that dashes in pieces is come up before thy face: keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily." The challenge is forthwith given to Nineveh to defend herself as best she may; for there is the utmost danger staring her in the face. "For Jehovah has turned away the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the emptiers have emptied them out, and marred their vine branches." Thus we see the collateral subject, namely, the judgment of Israel by their enemies; but inasmuch as the Assyrians executed that judgment in such a way as to insult God Himself, and not only to chasten His guilty people, they must be prepared for their own doom. Thus we see the combined truth brought before us — the destruction of Nineveh, but not apart from the discipline of Israel. Jehovah does judge Israel, and if He judges His own people who had at any rate the knowledge and after a larger measure the responsibility of righteousness, how must the ungodly and the sinner appear? Nineveh had been a godless city which had no thought nor care, still less formal profession, of doing the will of God. But the people of Israel had, and they suffered the consequence.

Assyria's ascendancy meant Israel's ruin; Assyria's destruction would mean Israel's salvation. Can we wonder that those old-time saints and seers longed for the overthrow of the oppressor's power, and made it the burden of their prayers and songs? Can we wonder at Nahum's triumph and joy in contemplating the disaster that was to overtake Nineveh, and the blessing that would come to Judah as the result?

A hundred and fifty years before, God had sent warning to the guilty city by His servant Jonah. The message had been received, and Nineveh had turned in repentance to God. But the generation to whom Jonah preached had passed away, and Nineveh had returned to her vileness and wickedness as a sow goes back to her wallowing in the mire. The fact that God had waited for a century and a half before intervening in judgment proved that He was longsuffering in grace. But the time for judgment was at hand, and those whom Nineveh had oppressed and afflicted might lift up their heads and rejoice.

Nineveh was granted forty days respite, with blessed results, but the people soon returned to their wicked ways. Hence Nahum 3:1: "Woe to the bloody city: it is full of lies and robbery." This, as we have already remarked, was about 100 years after Jonah's visit, and even then the execution of judgement was delayed another century. We have said that Nineveh will never rise again, but in contrast with this, Sodom and her daughter cities are to be divinely restored for Millennial blessing (Ezek. 16:55). Does this strike any reader as strange? The explanation is that Nineveh was favoured with a special message from God and submitted to it; but the generations that followed profited nothing by the fact, and returned to the old vomit. But Sodom was never favoured as Nineveh was. In Matt. 11:25 we hear our Lord saying that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgement than for Capernaum, which city was honoured by His presence, ministry and miracles. Favour divinely granted but despised brings heavy judgement from God. In Luke 12:47-48 the Lord distinguishes between those who know His will and do it not, and those who sin without knowing His will. He says: "Unto whosoever much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." What could be more equitable? In the light of our Lord's words where do the people of Great Britain stand? Where in all the earth has the Gospel been so fully preached and the Scriptures more abundantly circulated? The responsibility of people so privileged is great, and judgement will be meted out accordingly.

It is said that the overflowing of the river facilitated the capture of Nineveh by the Medes. Nahum 2:6 seems to teach this. Assyria — the nation — is to be blessed; but to the once favoured city of Nineveh God has said: "Jehovah has given commandment that no more of thy seed be sown." Deeply solemn words! Truly "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31).

What did Jehoshaphat-days, or Hezekiah-days, or Josiah-days, for Jerusalem? Did judgment after such days enter by the hand of the Chaldean, though they were very fair and promising? We know it did. Did Nineveh want the day of the Lord, though once upon a time the king there descended from his throne and sat in ashes, and man and beast were clothed in sackcloth, and neither did eat nor drink? Yes, we know this also. And I may ask again, What has Reformation done for Christendom? Coming judgments, and not the Reformation, or progress, or education for the million, will prepare the world for the glory and kingdom of the Lord. But further. The earlier history of God's dealing with Nineveh by the hand of Jonah may, in this day of judgment announced by Nahum, witness to us that He is "slow to anger" for He sent a preacher then to warn, and turn them to that repentance which He received, and spared them. But He that is slow to anger, does not "acquit the wicked" (see Nahum 1:3). There is a separating between the precious and the vile. "He knows them that trust in Him," even the remnant in Nineveh if there be such, as we said before (Nahum 1:7); but the Judge of all the earth, like the Judge of Sodom who stood of old before Abraham, "will do right."

"I doubt not," says another, "that the invasion of Sennacherib was the occasion of this prophecy; but most evidently it goes much beyond that event, and the judgment is final. And this is another instance of that which we so frequently observe in the prophets — a partial judgment serving as a warning or an encouragement to the people of God, while it was only a forerunner of a future judgment in which all the dealings of God would be summed up and manifested." Surely the Assyrian is a mystic or representative person, as well as a real individual. Isaiah so looks at him. And this was easy and natural: for the Assyrian began the captivities of God's people, and in his day represented the enmity of the earth, the enmity of the Gentile world, to God and His people. The Spirit, therefore, in the prophets, sees the Gentile in him, and looks along the vista which then opened, to the very end of the earth's history under the Gentile or the man of the world, when the full-measured and ripened iniquity of man shall call forth the closing, clearing judgments of God.

But does judgment close the story? That never has been, nor could it be. It only makes way for the purpose of God. The judgment of this "present evil world" will introduce the millennium or "the world to come." And Israel will be received as the seal and pledge of that bright and happy age — as our prophet says, "though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more; and now will I break his yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds asunder. O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows, for the wicked shall no more pass through thee, he is utterly cut off" (see Nahum 1:12-15). Or, in the words of one of ourselves, the saints of God in this day, "the vengeance of God is the deliverance of the world from the oppression and misery of the yoke of the enemy and of lust, that it may flourish under the peaceful eye of its Deliverer."

The prophecy opens with the character of Jehovah in government. He is slow to anger, but He is jealous, and His revenge is furious. He is good, and a safe refuge in the day of trouble for those that trust in Him; but, as to His enemies, with an overflowing flood He will make an utter end of their place. Not only is the destruction of Nineveh foretold, but the Assyrian nation also should come to a full end.