Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/1088

 such traces are to be found. On the other hand, if the book had been written by a prophet living in exile, there would surely be some allusions to the situation and circumstances of the exiles; whereas we look in vain for any such allusions in Nahum. Again, the acquaintance with Assyrian affairs, to which Ewald still further appeals, is not greater than that which might have been possessed by any prophet, or even by any inhabitant of Judah in the time of Hezekiah, after the repeated invasions of Israel and Judah by the Assyrians. “The liveliness of the description runs through the whole book. Ch. Nah 1:2-14 is not less lively than Nah 2:1-13; and yet no one would infer from the former that Nahum must have seen with his own eyes all that he sets before our eyes in so magnificent a picture in Nah 1:2.” (Nägelsbach; Herzog's Cycl.) It is not more a fact that “Nah 2:6 contains such special acquaintance with the locality of Nineveh, as could only be derived from actual inspection,” than that “Nah 2:7 contains the name of the Assyrian queen (Huzzab).” Moreover, of the words that are peculiar to our prophet, taphsar (Nah 3:17) is the only one that is even probably Assyrian; and this is a military term, which the Judaeans in Palestine may have heard from Assyrians living there. The rest of the supposed Aramaeisms, such as the suffixes in גּבּוריהוּ (Nah 2:4) and מלאככה (Nah 2:13), and the words גהג, to sigh = הגה (Nah 2:8), דּהר (Nah 3:2), and פּלדות (Nah 2:4), may be accounted for from the Galilaean origin of the prophet. Consequently there is no tenable ground whatever for the assumption that Nahum lived in exile, and uttered his prophecy in the neighbourhood of Nineveh. There is much greater reason for inferring, from the many points of coincidence between Nahum and Isaiah, that he was born in Galilee during the Assyrian invasions, and that he emigrated to Judaea, where he lived and prophesied. Nothing whatever is known of the circumstances of his life. The notices in Ps. Epiphan. concerning his miracles and his death (see O. Strauss, Nahumi de Nino vaticin. expl. p. xii.f.) can lay no claim to truth. Even the period of his life is so much a matter of dispute, that some suppose him to have prophesied under Jehu and Jehoahaz, whilst others believe that he did not prophesy till the time of Zedekiah; at the same time it is possible to decide this with tolerable certainty from the contents of the book.