When Compassion Is Forgotten
Nahum, Nineveh, and the Warnings We Still Need
Today’s reflection turns to Nahum, a fierce little book that asks what happens when compassion is forgotten.
There are books of the Bible you turn to for comfort; today’s choice is not one of those. For today, we are tackling head-on the writings of the prophet Nahum.
Yesterday I wrote about Jonah, who eventually travelled to the great city of Nineveh and asked them to repent. If that sounded like a suicide mission, today Nahum will ask: What happens when a society forgets compassion altogether?
Because by the time of Nahum, Nineveh is, once again, back to its old ways.
Let me first introduce you properly. Nahum is one of Scripture’s more mysterious prophets, a man from a small Judean village called Elkosh, whose name ironically means comfort. It’s ironic because his message isn’t comforting, but the people he spoke to needed desperately to hear that injustice would not have the final word.
Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the superpower of its day. Between the 10th and 7th centuries BC, Assyria dominated the ancient Near East. Nineveh was its fortress, its pride, its symbol of unstoppable power. Every superpower has a supercity, and Nineveh wore that status loudly.
And then something extraordinary happened.
In the 7th century BC, the Assyrian Empire collapsed with jaw-dropping speed.
Nineveh vanished.
The empire fell.
Historians remain puzzled by how such a mighty nation could disintegrate almost overnight.
Nahum, however, is not puzzled in the slightest.