Handbook for Bible Students

“N” Entries

Nahum, Time of.—The prophet Nahum uttered his prophecy according to Josephus (Antiq., ix, 11) during the reign of Jotham, who died b. c. 742.—“Fulfilled Prophecy,” Rev. W. Goode, D. D., F. S. A., p. 179, 2nd edition. London: James Nisbet & Co., 1891. HBS 357.1

Nineveh, Historical Notes on.—Nineveh, and Ninus, as it was most usually called by the Greeks and Romans, was, as we said before, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire; and the capital is frequently put for the whole empire, the prosperity or ruin of the one being involved in that of the other. This was a very ancient city, being built by Asshur or as others say by Nimrod; for those words of Moses (Genesis 10:11), which our translators, together with most of the ancient versions, render thus: “Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh,” others translate as the Chaldee paraphrast translates them, and as they are rendered in the margin of our Bibles, “Out of that land he,” that is Nimrod, the person spoken of before, “went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh.” HBS 357.2

It is well known that the word “Asshur” in Hebrew is the name of the country as well as the name of the man, and the preposition is often omitted, so that the words may very well be translated, “he went forth into Assyria.” And Moses is here giving an account of the sons of Ham, and it may seem foreign to his subject to intermix the story of any of the sons of Shem, as Asshur was. Moses afterward recounts the sons of Shem, and Asshur among them; and it is presumed that he would hardly relate his actions, before he had mentioned his nativity, or even his name, contrary to the series of the genealogy and to the order of the history. But notwithstanding this I incline to understand the text literally as it is translated, “Out of that land went forth Asshur,” being expelled thence by Nimrod, “and builded Nineveh” and other cities, in opposition to the cities which Nimrod had founded in the land of Shinar. And neither is it foreign to the subject, nor contrary to the order of the history, upon the mention of Nimrod’s invading and seizing the territories of Asshur, to relate whither Asshur retreated, and where he fortified himself against him. But by whomsoever Nineveh was built, it might afterward be greatly enlarged and improved by Ninus, and called after his name, whoever Ninus was, for that is altogether uncertain. [p. 126] ... HBS 357.3

The inhabitants of Nineveh, like those of other great cities, abounding in wealth and luxury, became very corrupt in their morals. Whereupon it pleased God to commission the prophet Jonah to preach unto them the necessity of repentance, as the only means of averting their impending destruction: and such was the success of his preaching, that both the king and the people repented and turned from their evil ways, and thereby for a time delayed the execution of the divine judgments. HBS 357.4

Who this king of Assyria was we cannot be certain, we can only make conjectures, his name not being mentioned in the book of Jonah. Archbishop Usher supposeth him to have been Pul, the king of Assyria, who afterward invaded the kingdom of Israel in the days of Menahem (2 Kings 15:19); it being very agreeable to the methods of Providence to make use of a heathen king who was penitent, to punish the impenitency of God’s own people Israel. But it should seem more probable, that this prince was one of the kings of Assyria, before any of those who are mentioned in Scripture. For Jonah is reckoned the most ancient of all the prophets usually so called, whose writings are preserved in the canon of Scripture. We know that he prophesied of the restoration of the coasts of Israel taken by the king of Syria, which was accomplished by Jereboam the Second (2 Kings 14:25); and therefore Jonah must have lived before that time, and is with great reason supposed by Bishop Lloyd in his chronological tables, to have prophesied at the latter end of Jehu’s, or the beginning of the reign of Jehoahaz, when the kingdom of Israel was reduced very low, and greatly oppressed by Hazael, king of Syria (2 Kings 10:32). If he prophesied at that time, there intervened Jehoahaz’s reign of seventeen years, Joash’s reign of sixteen years, Jeroboam’s of forty and one years, Zachariah’s of six months, Shallum’s of one month, and Menahem was seated on the throne of Israel, before any mention is made of Pul, the king of Assyria; and therefore we may reasonably conclude from the distance of time, which was above seventy years, that Jonah was not sent to Pul, the king of Assyria, but to one of his predecessors, though to whom particularly we are unable to discover, for the want before complained of, the want of Assyrian histories, which no doubt would have related so memorable a transaction. [pp. 128, 129]-“Dissertations on the Prophecies,” Thomas Newton, D. D., pp. 126-129. London: B. Blake, 1840. HBS 357.5

Nineveh, Size of.—Jonah is said by Josephus (Antiq. ix, ch. 10) to have prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II, which lasted from b. c. 824 to b. c. 783. His prophecy is generally considered as of about the date b. c. 800; and was delivered apparently when either Pul, or the father of Pul, reigned at Nineveh. The account given by Diodorus Siculus is in his History, book 2, near the beginning, and refers to the city as originally built by Ninus. It may be observed that the shape and size of the city as here described,-namely, an oblong whose sides measured 150 furlongs, and the ends 90 furlongs,-correspond pretty well with the site as marked out by Mr. Layard in his “Nineveh and Its Remains.” It is stated also in Mr. Layard’s remarks on Colonel Rawlinson’s “Outlines of Assyrian History,” appended to the twenty-ninth Report of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1852, that he is “convinced that whatever may have been the original names of the various royal quarters or inclosures represented by Nimrud, Koyunjik, Khursabad, etc., they were all known at one period by the name of Nineveh, and formed the great city described by the Sacred Writings, and the Greek historians and geographers;” and that “Colonel Rawlinson himself stated as much in his paper read before the Society on his return to England two years ago;” and that “Captain Jones, in a recent letter, states that he had established, by trigonometrical survey, the fact previously conjectured by Mr. Layard, that the same great ruin of Nimrud, Karamless, Khursabad, and Koyunjik stood at the four angles of a perfect parallelogram.” And when we read that the founder of the city not only gave liberty to people of any other nation, in any number, to dwell there, but allowed the citizens a large territory next adjoining to them (Diod. Sic., ibid.), and know that it was common in the great Eastern cities to include a large portion of land for the pasture of cattle, we need not be surprised at its extent. At that early period a high wall was alone almost sufficient for defense, and did not need to be manned as was afterward required when implements for carrying on a siege had been invented. Strabo, a high authority, says that it was much larger ([Greek words] [polu meizon]) than Babylon, and he makes the compass of Babylon 385 stadia. It appears to have been, in fact, a walled district, as it is clear that Babylon was.—“Fulfilled Prophecy,” Rev. W. Goode, D. D., F. S. A., pp. 179, 180, 2nd edition, London: James Nisbet & Co., 1891, HBS 358.1