Speaking as the prophet of Jahveh, it was to Jahveh that he attributed the impending downfall of the oppressor:  “Jahveh is a jealous God and avengeth; Jahveh avengeth and is full of wrath; Jahveh taketh vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies.  Jahveh is slow to anger and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty; Jahveh hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.  He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers:  Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth."* And, “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.”  Then he goes on to unfold before the eyes of his hearers a picture of Nineveh, humiliated and in the last extremity.

* Elkosh is identified by Eusebius with Elkese, which St. Jerome declares to have been in Galileo, the modern el- Kauzeh, two and a half hours’ walk south of Tibnin.  The prophecy of Nahum has been taken by some as referring to the campaign of Phraortes against Assyria, but more frequently to the destruction of Nineveh by the Medes and Chaldaeans.  It undoubtedly refers to the siege interrupted by the Scythian invasion.

There she lies, behind her bastions of brick, anxiously listening for the approach of the victorious Medes.  “The noise of the whip, and the noise of the rattling of wheels; and prancing horses and jumping chariots; the horsemen mounting, and the flashing sword, and the glittering spear; and a multitude of slain and a great heap of carcases:  and there is no end of the corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:  because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.  Behold, I am against thee, saith Jahveh of hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon they face; and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.  And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock.  And it shall come to pass that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste:  who will bemoan her?  Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?” Thebes, the city of Amon, did not escape captivity; why then should Nineveh prove more fortunate?  “All thy fortresses shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs:  if they be shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.  Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies:  the fire hath devoured thy bars.  Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses:  go into the clay and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.  There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off,... make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.  Thou hast multiplied thy merchants as the stars of heaven:  the cankerworm