NAHUM

Date of Authorship: Nahum is relatively easy to date. He mentions the Assyrian capture of Thebes in 3:8-9 which occurred in 663 AD, and he deals with the fall of Nineveh as a future event (1:13-14). Nineveh did indeed fall in 612 AD. Therefore we are able to date the prophecy of Nineveh from 663-612 AD.

Author: Nahum the prophet is likely the author of this book. He is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, and we know almost nothing about him. We’re only told that he is an “Elkoshite” but all attempts to locate that town or identify a clan by that name with any certainty have been unsuccessful

Setting: (check out the section below, in “Notes”)

Purpose: Nahum has a two-pronged purpose, well reflected by these verses in his opening chapter:

7 The Lord is good,
    a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him,
8     but with an overwhelming flood
he will make an end of Nineveh;
    he will pursue his foes into the realm of darkness.

God is sovereign in judgment and salvation, his command of the world and its inhabitants (all of them, not just his chosen people) is an expression of His essential being. Nahum pronounces the disposition of this sovereign Judge to the people of Judah. It is good news for them as their oppressive occupier will fall, and they are comforted by the promise of God’s faithfulness to them. Nahum teaches us that God has enmity towards the wicked, and mercy towards the faithful.

Zephaniah

Date of Authorship: Zephaniah is likely written between 640 and 632 BC.

Author: We know little about Zephaniah, other than the fact that he was from Judah. it is unsure whether or not the Hezekiah listed fourth in Zephaniah's genealogy (1:1) is king Hezekiah of Judah, commentators are divided on that issue.

Setting: Zephaniah is written during an extremely evil period during the history of Judah. Hezekiah had led a great reform and promoted true worship of Yahweh during his reign (in the time of Isaiah). However, Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, was the worst of the kings of Judah. His long (55-year!) reign saw Judah adopt and enjoy Idol worship to a greater degree than an time prior or hence. Although Zephaniah is writing during the reign of King Josiah, he is writing at the very beginning of Josiah's reign before his reforms that occur in 621 which are recorded in 2nd Kings 22 and 2nd Chronicles 34-35. Judah's wickedness is so great that Zephaniah's prophecy will come true despite Josiah's last minute reforms.

Purpose: C. Hassell Bullock writes that "Zephaniah's reading of the popular religious attitude includes an awareness of those people whose hearts were stagnant and who thought that Yahweh was stagnant too, uninvolved in Judah. They concluded "The Lord will not do good or evil" (1:12). Zephaniah announces the coming day of the Lord that should bring terror to the evil people of Judah. Just like all the other nations, Judah will be punished for their evil and exempted no longer. This punishment will purify a people truly devoted to, and sustained by God.

Notes

What is a prophet?

lets talk about what a prophet is. It would be a mistake to understand a prophet as simply a "future teller" that perception is largely a modern construal and likely the result of watching too many sensational pseudo-documentaries about Nostradamus on the History Channel. Biblical prophets are primarily concerned with the present much more than they are with the future. They were there to serve as a mouthpiece through which God could express his approval or disapproval (as you'll see He's a little heavy on the latter) and to be a minister of change to his immediate audience. Walter Bruggeman says this about the prophetic task in his fantastic book The Prophetic Imagination

"The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us."

Prophets accomplish this task by criticizing the dominant consciousness of the time and energizing communities to a different (higher) consciousness and life often propelled by a renewed teleological awareness ('knowing where this all is headed'). In Biblical prophecy this task is often introduced by a (sometimes thorough) statement of grief and frequently concluded with a doxology of praise

NAHUM: SETTING AND INFO

The Assyrian empire rose to prominence in the ancient Near East in the middle of the 8th century BC. Nahum is prophesying against “Nineveh” which is one of the capitol cities of the Assyrian empire, situated on the Tigris River, but by this name he speaks against the entire Assyrian kingdom. At its height, the Assyrian empire extended from the Persian gulf to the middle of Egypt.

While Jerusalem avoided military destruction at the hand of the Assyrians, they (Judah) served as a vassal state of the empire (with varying degrees of fealty) for more than a century, from 734 in the reign of Ahaz, until the fall of Nineveh in 612 BC. King Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath Pileser III. He stayed out of the plots to gain independence which led to the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and the devastation of many of the other neighboring states. Hezekiah did attempt to assert some measure of independence, but that led to an invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, the destruction of many towns like Lachish, the deportation of some of the population, and a siege of Jerusalem that impoverished the nation. The long reign of Manasseh (Hezekiah’s son) was marked by complete submission to Assyrian control. Manasseh’s cooperation allowed for a period of peace and rebuilding but represented a political and theological compromise that marked him, in the eyes of the biblical writers, as the worst of kings.

This status continued through the reign of the last great king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC). His death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in power for the Assyrian Empire. This decline saw Judah finally assert its independence from the Assyrians under King Josiah. The prophecy of Nahum comes true just 15 years after the death of Ashurbanipal when the combined Medean and Babylonian armies conducted a 3-month siege against the city of Nineveh that ended with the city’s destruction. Nahum was not the only prophet to foretell the demise of Assyria, Isaiah did so in 14:24-27 and a number of other places throughout that book, and it is also foreseen in Zechariah 10:11.

When you read Nahum you need to feel the century-long oppression of the Israelite people at the hand of the Assyrians, recall the destruction that Sennacherib caused in Judah when he nearly overwhelmed Jerusalem, and feel the elation that the people of Israel would have experienced upon hearing a prophet of the Lord promise their demise.

Nahum 1:15: Blessed are the feet

There is a reoccurring passage in Scripture:

How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news, (Isaiah 52:7a)
Look, there on the mountains,
The feet on one who brings good news (Nahum 2:4)
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15)

It is fun to note how differently these identical phrases are being used. In Isaiah, the good news is the hope of a restored Jerusalem and God’s return to Jerusalem before it had ever even been destroyed. In Nahum the good news is the proclamation of Assyria’s demise, the news that Judah would soon be liberated from its political oppressor. Paul then quotes this passage in Romans (he likely has the Isaiah passage in mind) to praise those who would witness about Jesus to the Jewish people.

John 16:8-11: The Three-fold role of the Holy Spirit

As was common in ancient arrangement of material, 16:8 introduces three points then developed in 16:9-11. Here the believers’ Advocate may become a “prosecutor” of the world, as sometimes in the Old Testament (Jer 50:34; 51:36; Lam 3:58-66; cf. Ps 43:1; 50:8). Many Jewish people believed that God would make Israel prevail over the nations before his tribunal in the day of judgment; for John, the judgment has already begun (3:18-19). Roman courts had no public prosecutors and depended on an interested party to bring charges, although trained *rhetoricians then debated on behalf of those who could afford them. The Spirit here brings charges against the world before God’s heavenly court (see Mt 5:22), as a witness against them (see Jn 15:26). Verses 9-11 probably mean that the world’s unbelief constituted their sin; *Christ being the heavenly Advocate (1 Jn 2:1) constituted the believers’ righteousness; and the judging of the world’s ruler spelled the judgment of the world. Thus for John it is not Jesus and his people (chaps. 18–19) but the world that is now on trial. One may also compare a common motif in the Old Testament prophets: the covenant lawsuit where God summons his people to account for breach of the covenant.

Keener, Craig S.. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (pp. 295-296). InterVarsity Press.

Week 17 - Nahum & Zephaniah, John 16 (April 23-29)