*Read the following article from Gregory Cook at Answers In Genesis through the prism of the Great Controversy Theme.
Think of the tie back to babel in genesis with the future Babylon (and Egypt) in Revelation. Picture the feminine reference to the whore of Babylon.
"Time after time, Nahum inserted a word that defies the assumed context. One such word points to Babel.
As the book turns to the battle for Nineveh, the text announces God’s principle weapon. The prophet envisioned one man coming against the Assyrian juggernaut and its fortified capital. Nahum called him מֵפִיץ.
Throughout the centuries, translators have struggled to identify this man. The word is a hiphil masculine singular participle of the verb פוץ (“to spread, disperse”). The solitary figure is named as a doer of the verb—he disperses. The King James Version translates מֵפִיץ as “He that dashes in pieces.” The New American Standard Bible calls him, “The one who scatters.” Others deem him “scatterer” (ESV), “shatterer” (NRSV), or “attacker” (NIV).
History records that Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar led the assault of a combined force of Babylonians and Medes—both armies loathed the Assyrians—and took the city in a four-month siege (Cook 2016b, 4–6).
*The devastation was so total that before Austen Henry Layard uncovered the ruins in 1849, the biblical accounts of the city and empire were considered legendary—or at least exaggerated—by many. Therefore, the choice of a word that means “scatterer” strikes scholars as odd.
The confusion stems from misunderstanding Nahum’s purpose. The book is often read as “a violent, nationalistic book, one morally repugnant to modern persons” (O’Brien 2009, 105). Even those who defend the book believe that “God himself decreed the destruction of Assyria. He would make their grave. The whole people would be killed and buried together because they were ‘vile’” (Barker and Bailey 1998, 189).
This presupposition, however, is at odds with the text. Hebrew contains many words more suitable to describing the obliteration of a city than “scatterer.” Assuming Nahum chose מֵפִיץ because it most suited his purpose, the annihilation presumption has problems.
At this point a clarification is in order.
It is not the creature’s place to question the actions of the Creator. God does not need permission to exercise His judgment.
The purpose of this article is not to re-read a prophecy in order to excise portions that disagree with modern sensibilities. Many other prophetic passages declare God’s violent judgment.
The question at hand is merely whether Nahum does as well.
The best proof of this comes from Nahum 3:17–18: Your courtiers are as locusts and your marshals are as swarms of locusts, camping in the walls in a cold day. The sun rises and they are chased away and no one knows where they are. Your shepherds sleep, O king of Assyria. Your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered upon the mountains and no one gathers them.
They either are scattered or sleeping.
In the Hebrew, the courtiers, marshals, and people are acted upon. The scatterer has done his job.
Not even the king of Assyria is killed. A careful reading of Nahum shows the enemies of God under judgment and crippled, with the exception of 2:14 (2:13 Eng.), where “a sword will devour your young lions.”
The most macabre passage, 3:1–3, depicts countless dead bodies, yet 3:4 demonstrates that the corpses were a result of Nineveh’s lust rather than God’s sword (Achtemeier 1986, 22–23).
Throughout the book, the military invasion and the resulting
destruction of Nineveh results in a scattering, not an obliteration (Cook 2016d, 195–206).
Why would God send מֵפִיץ against Nineveh?
Because God planned to redeem an Assyrian remnant.
As with Babel, redemption required scattering.
Variations on the Hebrew verb פוץ appear in Genesis 11:4 (נַיָּפֶץ), 11:8 (נָפוּץ), and 11:9 (הֱפִיצָם) where the people build the tower as a protection against scattering, yet God proceeds to scatter them. Nahum used one of the most conspicuous and repeated verbs from the Babel narrative to commence the downfall of Nineveh. As in the Babel account, a Mesopotamian people were united in rebellion against God and under the control of a despot.
Nahum declared that control shattered. God would liberate the Assyrians from their overlords and disperse them.
In Nahum, a single man would come to set Isaiah’s remnant free.
The principle of interpreting Scripture with Scripture brings Micah 5:5 (5:6 Eng.) into the discussion. Here, a parallel construction seems to equate “Assyria” and “the land of Nimrod”:
*If Nimrod did found Nineveh, then the city began in rebellion, being fathered by an archetype of evil.
*However, Asshur—as patriarch of the Assyrians—also qualifies as an ancient adversary.
This leads to a connection between Nahum and Genesis 10:11. In Nahum 1:11, the prophet accuses, מִמֵּ֣ךְ יָצָ֔א חֹשֵ֥ב עַל־יְהָו֖ה רָעָ֑ה יֹעֵ֖ץ בְלִָיֽעַל׃ (“From you (feminine singular) went forth one (masculine) plotting evil against YHWH, a worthless counsellor”). The first two Hebrew words contain a form of the same construction of מִן. . . יצָָא. (“From . . . went forth”) that begins Genesis 10:11.
In Nahum 1:11, the identity of neither the feminine nor masculine malefactor is clear. Nahum makes extraordinary use of ambiguous pronouns.
When addressing an adversary, Nahum almost always fails to provide an antecedent.
In the Hebrew text of Nahum 2:9 (2:8 Eng.), however, a feminine singular pronoun is explicitly linked to Nineveh (Cook 2016c). Reading this back into 1:11, it is the city that spit forth an agent of evil. Notably, the text utilizes a word that could simply be the adjective “worthless” or it could invoke the proper name “Belial” (Eaton 1961, 60). This provides a grammatical tie to the founding of Nineveh and a possible link to Nimrod in the context of cosmic rebellion against God.
The correspondences between Genesis 10:6 and Nahum are fewer, but easier to demonstrate. Throughout Nahum, the prophet taunts the usually unidentified female adversary. A passage in Nahum 3 compares her unfavorably to the city of Thebes (Cook 2016d, 181–186).
In 663 BC, Ashurbanipal marched his army to Egypt and then roughly 500 miles upriver before sacking Thebes. It seemed impossible, yet Assyria accomplished it. Nahum referred back to the event and mocked Nineveh. If Thebes had fallen so easily, Nineveh should fear.
Thebes had natural advantages that dwarfed Nineveh’s. Among these were friends. Assyria had none. All nations hated the empire. To demonstrate Nineveh’s inferiority, Nahum listed the Theban allies: “Cush (כּוּשׁ) was her strength, and Egypt (וּמִצִרַיִם) without end. Put (פּוּט) and Lybia were among her helpers” (3:9). The list corresponds to Ham’s offspring: “And the sons of Ham: Cush
(כּוּשׁ) and Mizraim (וּמִצִרַיִם) and Put (וּפוּט) and Canaan” (Genesis 10:6).
The repetition of these names, in identical order, recalls Genesis 10. ... the only possible allusion could be to the Table of Nations account.
The motive for the rebellious building project includes the desire to “make to us a name (שֵׁם)” (Genesis 11:4). The Hebrew word for name is one of the most common in the Old Testament. Therefore, its occurrence in Nahum is not remarkable. The context in which it is placed, however, does suggest Babel. As Gordon Johnston (2002, 22) has observed, “Nahum’s allusions created an ironic reversal.” At Babel, God’s judgment thwarted self-exaltation; likewise, in Nahum. In the fourteenth verse of the book, the prophet informed an unidentified male enemy that “YHWH has commanded concerning you: no more shall your name (מִשִּׁמִךָ) be sown.”
At the end of the book, this figure is finally identified as the “king of Assyria”. The taunt that the name of אַשּׁוּר would fade may include wordplay on Genesis 10–11.
Shem (שֵׁם), whose name means “name,” is the father of Asshur
(אַשּׁוּר). These themes triangulate in Nahum. The curse against the Asshur figure in 1:14 recalls both his ancestry and the Babel rebellion.
The final parallel between Babel and Nahum also pertains to the scatterer.
In the Babel account, God “came down” (Genesis 11:5) and later declared, “let us go down” (11:7). The judgment against Babel entailed a visitation and a scattering.
Nahum copied this structure. The book begins with a theophany. Nahum 1:2–8 describes God’s dramatic descent to avenge Himself upon His enemies. This causes creation to come undone.
In Nahum 1:9–14, God incapacitates these enemies before announcing the scatterer.
Furthermore, links between Nahum and Babel include
With this established, the next question is “What was the purpose
of the allusions?”
Nahum does prophesy the destruction of Assyrian power—but not its people. The military machine that spread misery and death throughout the ancient Near East met its end. Assyria’s political and religious influence vanished. Still, a prophecy remained:
remained: to gather “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” to stand “before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands” and cry “with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9–10 KJV).
A careful reading of Nahum demonstrates that God unleashed a similar judgment upon Nineveh so that Assyrians would be counted in that number."
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Think of the tie back to babel in genesis with the future Babylon (and Egypt) in Revelation. Picture the feminine reference to the whore of Babylon.
"Time after time, Nahum inserted a word that defies the assumed context. One such word points to Babel.
As the book turns to the battle for Nineveh, the text announces God’s principle weapon. The prophet envisioned one man coming against the Assyrian juggernaut and its fortified capital. Nahum called him מֵפִיץ.
Throughout the centuries, translators have struggled to identify this man. The word is a hiphil masculine singular participle of the verb פוץ (“to spread, disperse”). The solitary figure is named as a doer of the verb—he disperses. The King James Version translates מֵפִיץ as “He that dashes in pieces.” The New American Standard Bible calls him, “The one who scatters.” Others deem him “scatterer” (ESV), “shatterer” (NRSV), or “attacker” (NIV).
History records that Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BC.
Nebuchadnezzar led the assault of a combined force of Babylonians and Medes—both armies loathed the Assyrians—and took the city in a four-month siege (Cook 2016b, 4–6).
*The devastation was so total that before Austen Henry Layard uncovered the ruins in 1849, the biblical accounts of the city and empire were considered legendary—or at least exaggerated—by many. Therefore, the choice of a word that means “scatterer” strikes scholars as odd.
The confusion stems from misunderstanding Nahum’s purpose. The book is often read as “a violent, nationalistic book, one morally repugnant to modern persons” (O’Brien 2009, 105). Even those who defend the book believe that “God himself decreed the destruction of Assyria. He would make their grave. The whole people would be killed and buried together because they were ‘vile’” (Barker and Bailey 1998, 189).
This presupposition, however, is at odds with the text. Hebrew contains many words more suitable to describing the obliteration of a city than “scatterer.” Assuming Nahum chose מֵפִיץ because it most suited his purpose, the annihilation presumption has problems.
At this point a clarification is in order.
It is not the creature’s place to question the actions of the Creator. God does not need permission to exercise His judgment.
The purpose of this article is not to re-read a prophecy in order to excise portions that disagree with modern sensibilities. Many other prophetic passages declare God’s violent judgment.
The question at hand is merely whether Nahum does as well.
The best proof of this comes from Nahum 3:17–18: Your courtiers are as locusts and your marshals are as swarms of locusts, camping in the walls in a cold day. The sun rises and they are chased away and no one knows where they are. Your shepherds sleep, O king of Assyria. Your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered upon the mountains and no one gathers them.
As the book culminates, Nahum describes the fate of five groups: courtiers,
marshals,
shepherds,
nobles,
and people.
Note their state. They either are scattered or sleeping.
In the Hebrew, the courtiers, marshals, and people are acted upon. The scatterer has done his job.
Not even the king of Assyria is killed. A careful reading of Nahum shows the enemies of God under judgment and crippled, with the exception of 2:14 (2:13 Eng.), where “a sword will devour your young lions.”
The most macabre passage, 3:1–3, depicts countless dead bodies, yet 3:4 demonstrates that the corpses were a result of Nineveh’s lust rather than God’s sword (Achtemeier 1986, 22–23).
As the city falls,
the population flees (2:9; 2:8 Eng.),
the gates are broken (3:13),
and the Assyrian sovereign no longer exercises any control over his wayward people (3:17–19).
Why would God send מֵפִיץ against Nineveh?
Because God planned to redeem an Assyrian remnant.
As with Babel, redemption required scattering.
Variations on the Hebrew verb פוץ appear in Genesis 11:4 (נַיָּפֶץ), 11:8 (נָפוּץ), and 11:9 (הֱפִיצָם) where the people build the tower as a protection against scattering, yet God proceeds to scatter them. Nahum used one of the most conspicuous and repeated verbs from the Babel narrative to commence the downfall of Nineveh. As in the Babel account, a Mesopotamian people were united in rebellion against God and under the control of a despot.
Nahum declared that control shattered. God would liberate the Assyrians from their overlords and disperse them.
In Nahum, a single man would come to set Isaiah’s remnant free.
Genesis 10–11
Nahum invoked allusions from Genesis 10–11 throughout his text. He did this by mimicking syntax from Genesis 10:6, 11, 22, and 11:3–8.Genesis 10:11
This task begins with Genesis 10:11 and the founding of Nineveh. Because of ambiguity in the Hebrew word אַשּׁוּר, this verse has two possible interpretations. In Hebrew, Genesis 10:11 reads,
מִן־הָאָ֥רֶץ הַהִ֖וא יָצָ֣א אַשּׁ֑וּר וַיִּ֙בֶן֙ אֶת־נִ֣ינְוֵ֔ה וְאֶת־רְחֹבֹ֥ת עִ֖יר וְאֶת־כָּֽלַח׃
In this context, the word אַשּׁוּר could mean either “Asshur,” the patriarch of the Assyrian people (Genesis 10:22), or “Assyria.” Therefore, the verse could be rendered either “Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah” (KJV) or “From that land he [Nimrod] went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah” (NASB). Both are perfectly valid grammatically. It is not clear whether Asshur the patriarch founded Nineveh or Nimrod did. The principle of interpreting Scripture with Scripture brings Micah 5:5 (5:6 Eng.) into the discussion. Here, a parallel construction seems to equate “Assyria” and “the land of Nimrod”:
And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof. (KJV)By this logic, Micah declares Nimrod the founder of Nineveh (McKeating 1971, 179).
*If Nimrod did found Nineveh, then the city began in rebellion, being fathered by an archetype of evil.
*However, Asshur—as patriarch of the Assyrians—also qualifies as an ancient adversary.
This leads to a connection between Nahum and Genesis 10:11. In Nahum 1:11, the prophet accuses, מִמֵּ֣ךְ יָצָ֔א חֹשֵ֥ב עַל־יְהָו֖ה רָעָ֑ה יֹעֵ֖ץ בְלִָיֽעַל׃ (“From you (feminine singular) went forth one (masculine) plotting evil against YHWH, a worthless counsellor”). The first two Hebrew words contain a form of the same construction of מִן. . . יצָָא. (“From . . . went forth”) that begins Genesis 10:11.
In Nahum 1:11, the identity of neither the feminine nor masculine malefactor is clear. Nahum makes extraordinary use of ambiguous pronouns.
When addressing an adversary, Nahum almost always fails to provide an antecedent.
In the Hebrew text of Nahum 2:9 (2:8 Eng.), however, a feminine singular pronoun is explicitly linked to Nineveh (Cook 2016c). Reading this back into 1:11, it is the city that spit forth an agent of evil. Notably, the text utilizes a word that could simply be the adjective “worthless” or it could invoke the proper name “Belial” (Eaton 1961, 60). This provides a grammatical tie to the founding of Nineveh and a possible link to Nimrod in the context of cosmic rebellion against God.
Genesis 10:6
The correspondences between Genesis 10:6 and Nahum are fewer, but easier to demonstrate. Throughout Nahum, the prophet taunts the usually unidentified female adversary. A passage in Nahum 3 compares her unfavorably to the city of Thebes (Cook 2016d, 181–186). 
Thebes had natural advantages that dwarfed Nineveh’s. Among these were friends. Assyria had none. All nations hated the empire. To demonstrate Nineveh’s inferiority, Nahum listed the Theban allies: “Cush (כּוּשׁ) was her strength, and Egypt (וּמִצִרַיִם) without end. Put (פּוּט) and Lybia were among her helpers” (3:9). The list corresponds to Ham’s offspring: “And the sons of Ham: Cush
(כּוּשׁ) and Mizraim (וּמִצִרַיִם) and Put (וּפוּט) and Canaan” (Genesis 10:6).
The repetition of these names, in identical order, recalls Genesis 10. ... the only possible allusion could be to the Table of Nations account.
Genesis 11:3–8
Genesis 11:3 details the methods by which the builders erected the tower. In Hebrew, this includes two variations on the root חמר (“tar” and “mortar”). Late in the book, Nahum used the same root to taunt Nineveh to fortify its walls (בַחֹמֶר; 3:14). In both passages, Mesopotamians used local building materials in a futile attempt to withstand the will of God.The motive for the rebellious building project includes the desire to “make to us a name (שֵׁם)” (Genesis 11:4). The Hebrew word for name is one of the most common in the Old Testament. Therefore, its occurrence in Nahum is not remarkable. The context in which it is placed, however, does suggest Babel. As Gordon Johnston (2002, 22) has observed, “Nahum’s allusions created an ironic reversal.” At Babel, God’s judgment thwarted self-exaltation; likewise, in Nahum. In the fourteenth verse of the book, the prophet informed an unidentified male enemy that “YHWH has commanded concerning you: no more shall your name (מִשִּׁמִךָ) be sown.”
At the end of the book, this figure is finally identified as the “king of Assyria”. The taunt that the name of אַשּׁוּר would fade may include wordplay on Genesis 10–11.
Shem (שֵׁם), whose name means “name,” is the father of Asshur
(אַשּׁוּר). These themes triangulate in Nahum. The curse against the Asshur figure in 1:14 recalls both his ancestry and the Babel rebellion.
The final parallel between Babel and Nahum also pertains to the scatterer.
In the Babel account, God “came down” (Genesis 11:5) and later declared, “let us go down” (11:7). The judgment against Babel entailed a visitation and a scattering.
Nahum copied this structure. The book begins with a theophany. Nahum 1:2–8 describes God’s dramatic descent to avenge Himself upon His enemies. This causes creation to come undone.
In Nahum 1:9–14, God incapacitates these enemies before announcing the scatterer.
Conclusion
The above evidence supports the article’s hypothesis that Nahum intentionally alluded to Genesis 10–11.Furthermore, links between Nahum and Babel include
building with mortar,
making a name,
God’s descent,
and God’s scattering.
Together, these similarities present strong evidence of purposeful literary allusions to Babel in Nahum.With this established, the next question is “What was the purpose
Nahum does prophesy the destruction of Assyrian power—but not its people. The military machine that spread misery and death throughout the ancient Near East met its end. Assyria’s political and religious influence vanished. Still, a prophecy remained:
In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance. (Isaiah 19:23–25 KJV)At the rebellion of Babel, God ...confused the language and dispersed the rebels. They went throughout world, spreading their counterfeit religions and building more towers. God’s purpose
A careful reading of Nahum demonstrates that God unleashed a similar judgment upon Nineveh so that Assyrians would be counted in that number."
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