The Discomfiting but Urgent Message of the Prophet Nahum

I am Nahum. That is my Hebrew name, after my mother’s father, Nahum (Nathan) Berman. He was a scholarly and devout Jew who saw to it that not only his son but also, less commonly, his daughters were well educated in Jewish sources. My mother would recall his saying that if you can’t have an ancestor, be one.

As it happens, Grandpa Nahum and I do share a highly distinguished ancestor: both of us bear the name of one of the ancient Hebrew prophets—if also one of the least known. Inspired by this coincidence, I’ve spent some time reading Nahum’s brief book and investigating his place in the prophetic tradition. The experience has persuaded me that our ancient namesake deserves greater and more sympathetic attention than he has received. I even have a specific suggestion for his rehabilitation.

The ancient Nahum is one of a group usually identified as the “minor” prophets, to distinguish them from the three major figures of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. The twelve books of the “minors” are all materially shorter than those of the Big Three, in some cases amounting to no more than a handful of verses. The book of Nahum itself consists of a mere 47 verses, divided into three chapters, and takes up two-and-a-half pages in my copy of the Koren Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). By comparison, Jeremiah stands at 1,364 verses in 52 chapters for a total of 69 pages.