Nahum

Nahum is the distant sequel to Jonah's story. About a century after Nineveh's repentance, the city was again a byword for military cruelty, and the book announces its fall. The poetry is intense, almost cinematic: chariots racing, red shields, a city plundered. To a modern reader the tone can sound harsh, but it helps to remember who the first hearers were: victims of an empire that practiced mass deportation and systematic violence. To them, the announcement of Nineveh's end was news of liberation. The book opens with a balancing note: "the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble".