by
Damien F. Mackey
“The Lord has given a command concerning you, Nineveh:
‘You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy
the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods.
I will prepare your grave, for you are vile’.”
Nahum 1:14
The writings of the prophet Nahum so resemble those of Isaiah that I concluded in my postgraduate university thesis (2007) that this was one and the same mighty prophet.
Nahum as Isaiah
In my section, Books of Isaiah and Nahum (Volume Two, pp. 98-102), I painstakingly compared most of the Nahum text with Isaiah, including in the Hebrew, and found example after example of either identical, or like, passages.
My conclusion that Nahum was the Simeonite Isaiah:
God can raise up prophets at will – even from a shepherd of Simeon
may be supported by the tradition (e.g. Pseudo-Epiphanius, De Vitis Prophetarum) that the prophet Nahum was a Simeonite.
Moreover the Hebrew name, Nahum (נַחוּם), from the verb to comfort, could have been applied to the prophet at a later stage of his life, for the latter part of the Book of Isaiah (beginning with Chapter 40) is all about Israel being comforted:
Prophet Nahum as Isaiah Comforted
(8) Prophet Nahum as Isaiah Comforted | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
Assyrian Names
Isaiah, who will write abundantly on Assyria – but usually never favourably – will tend to refer to its leaders impersonally, such as “the Assyrian” (Isaiah 10:5-19):
“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
or allegorically (14:12-27):
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
In my thesis (Volume Two, p. 77), I wrote on this famous Oracle:
In regard to this poem’s historical basis, Boutflower is helpful when favourably recalling Sir Edward Strachey’s “belief that the king of Babylon, against whom the “parable” of Isa. xiv was hurled, was a king of Assyria” … a king of Assyria, that is, who ruled over Babylon. … Boutflower was convinced that this was Tiglath-pileser III …. Others have not been able to unravel so skillfully as did Strachey the intertwining of Babylon and Assyria in this Oracle. Thus Moriarty: … “Some think this oracle … of ch. 14, was originally applied to Assyria and only later referred to Babylon”.
Strachey’s view is, I believe, the correct one. ….
The first notable exception in Isaiah will be the famous verse, Isaiah 20:1: “In the year that the Turtan, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it …”.
Until the advent of modern archaeology in the C19th AD, this was the only known reference to Sargon (II), so no one knew who he actually was.
By Chapter 36, though, Isaiah – probably by now copying from historical records (cf. 2 Kings 18:13) – begins to name the Assyrian king by his personal name, “Sennacherib” (36:1): “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them”.
Chapters 36-38 are pre-occupied with this phase of crisis for the kingdom of Judah.
Nahum’s Father
With biographical and patronymical details being almost entirely absent from the Book of Nahum, we need to turn to the Book of Isaiah to find out who the father was: namely, Amos (Amoz) (1:1).
He, too, has multi-identifications, most notably as Micah (also the Simeonite prophet, Zephaniah/Sophonias).
Micah and his son, Isaiah, are a prophetical combination, going “barefoot and naked”, when Samaria is threatened (Micah 1:8), and when Sargon II sent his general against Ashdod (Isaiah 20:2).
The combination is found named again in Judith 4:14-15: “… the magistrates of their town [“Bethulia], who in those days were Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon …”. Micah (= Amos), a Simeonite, now deceased, was the father of Uzziah (Isaiah).
But what were these southern Judeans doing now in the north, in “Bethulia” (Bethel), which is Shechem?
Nahum as Hosea (Uzziah)
Simeonites had gone north as early as the days of King Asa of Judah:
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/asas-religious-reforms
“Note that Simeon’s territory originally lay in the south, surrounded by Judah’s tribal allotment (Josh. 19:1–9), but for reasons not entirely known to us, many Simeonites moved north”.
This would presumably have made it more companionable for the Simeonite, Amos, to go northwards at the Lord’s command (Amos 7:14-15): “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.”
He is actually found, as Micaiah, prophesying during the reign of King Ahab of Israel.
At some stage, Amos’s son, Isaiah (Nahum) must have followed his father to Bethel, for we find him, too, in the north, now as the prophet Hosea:
Did Isaiah and Hosea ever meet?
(9) Did Isaiah and Hosea ever meet? | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
There he married, Gomer, a typically ‘adulterous’ product of the northern kingdom (Hosea 1:2-3).
Never a dull moment in the life of our composite Nahum!
Hosea is found as Uzziah in the Book of Judith, a man of great standing.
For this Uzziah was entitled both ‘the prince of Judah’ and ‘the prince of the people of Israel’ (Douay version of Book of Judith).
The rabbis of the Talmud tell that his father, Amos, was the brother of King Amaziah of Judah.
The Book of Judith, probably written by the High Priest, Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, the great prophet, “the high priest Joakim” of the book (Judith 4:6) – rather than by Isaiah – is, of course, all about the conflict with the Assyrians.
It, in fact, provides the key to what happened to Sennacherib’s army of 185,000.
And Uzziah was there front and centre (right in the front row seat) to witness it.
But he is overshadowed by that extraordinary heroine, probably a relative, Judith.
Judith the “daughter of Merari” (Judith 8:1; 16:6) may well connect patronymically with Isaiah as Hosea “son of Beeri” (Hosea 1:1), whether this ancestor be another name for Amos, or a maternal ancestor, or a connection through marriage.
I have never been able to be sure about this.
Since M and B are frequently interchanged in W. Semitic, the name Beeri, I think, could easily merge into Merari.
The Book of Hosea, likewise, is full of references to Assyria, as to its hostile advances in both the northern and the southern kingdoms.
Assyrian Names
The prophet Hosea actually names the two successive kings of his early time, in hypocoristicon form, as “Shalman” (Shalmaneser) and “Yareb” (Sennacherib):
While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon
Due, though, to the present state of the Book of Judith:
The Book of Judith: confusion of names
(8) Book of Judith: confusion of names | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
we have a mix of Chaldeo-Persian names for the King of Assyria, “Nebuchadnezzar”, who is Sargon II/Sennacherib; his Commander-in-chief, “Holofernes”, who, thanks to input from Tobit (14:10), we can ascertain was Nadin/Nadab, hence Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi:
“Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith
(4) “Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
Finally, the Commander-in-chief’s first officer, “Bagoas”, may even have been a young Nebuchednezzar:
An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar?
(4) An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar? | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
Nahum as Jonah
Once again we gain benefit from the Book of Tobit (14:4), which variously gives “Jonah” or “Nahum” (NRSV), thus enabling for another unexpected connection: Nahum was Jonah.
Assyrian Names
The Book of Jonah will give us nothing personal in this regard, merely referring in 3:6 to “the king of Nineveh”.
I have determined him to be Esarhaddon, in his many guises, including as Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’:
De-coding Jonah
(4) De-coding Jonah | Damien Mackey – Academia.edu
The Book of Nahum is similarly impersonal in this regard, giving only phrases such as
“a wicked counseller” (1:11) – explained as “literally, a councilor of Belial; i.e. of worthlessness”; and “King of Assyria” (3:18).
Judith heroine of Israel was prophetess Huldah 