HIS book entitled "The Burden of Nineveh. The Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elkoshite," should be compared with that of Jonah which illustrates the remission of God's judgments, while Nahum describes their execution, in a style full of animation, fancy, and originality, and at the same time clear and rounded. His language throughout is classical and in the purest Hebrew, belonging to the second half of Hezekiah's reign, or to the time immediately following the defeat of Sennacherib before Jerusalem. Nineveh was at that time the capital of the great flourishing Assyrian Empire. It was a city of a vast extent and population; the centre of the principal commerce of the world. . . . The book is surpassed by none in sublimity of description. It consists of a single poem which opens with a superb vision of God's coming to judge the nations. Then follows an address to the Assyrians describing their confusion and overthrow; parenthetically consoling the Israelites with promises of future . . . relief from oppression. . . . With a wide view of the working of Providence, an avoidance of all moral or homiletic utterances, this powerful prophecy advances with majestic unity from its noble proemium to its close.
—From "The Encyclopedia Americana."
