What Does Nahum 1:1 Mean?
The burden of Nineveh. The scroll of the sight of Nahum the Elkoshite.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.THE KEY
Nineveh’s oracle is named as a burden brought into sight by Nahum, whose name means comfort.
THE MEANING
This line gives the weight a name: Nineveh, seen in a vision rather than left indistinct. Nahum’s name carries the sense of comfort, so the verse places consolation beside the burden while leaving the burden fully in view.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massa
GROWS FROM
נָשָׂא
nasa
To lift, carry, or bear.
“burden” in this verse is massa. The Hebrew word massa is associated with nasa, the root of lifting and carrying. In a prophetic title, the message is presented as weight to be borne; the same verb can also describe bearing crookedness, extending the image of carrying into the realm of guilt.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb is the carrying-root beneath the title’s word for burden.
nōśēʾ ʿāwōn: Bearing crookedness; rendered “forgiving iniquity” in Exodus 34:7.
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
The same carrying verb reaches beyond physical weight into the bearing of guilt.
נַחוּם
Naḥum
GROWS FROM
נחם
n-ḥ-m
To comfort or console.
Nahum’s name carries the sense of comfort. The line holds this name beside a burden, letting consolation stand near the weight without erasing it.
ALSO GROWS
niḥūm: Consolation.
נִחוּם
This noun makes explicit the comfort carried in Nahum’s name.
menaḥem: One who comforts; a comforter.
מְנַחֵם
The name’s root can describe a person whose nature is to console.
חָזוֹן
ḥāzôn
GROWS FROM
חזה
ḥ-z-h
To see or behold.
“sight” in this verse is ḥāzôn. The Hebrew keeps vision close to the act of seeing. The burden is brought into view as something witnessed, not left as an indistinct idea.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōzeh: A seer, one who sees.
חֹזֶה
This related word names the person who receives or perceives a vision.
maḥazeh: A vision or appearance.
מַחֲזֶה
This form also names something seen, as in the vision in Genesis 15:1.
THE PATTERN
A revealed word can be both seen and borne as a weight.
The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his nature. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it in, and I could not.For though I proclaim the good news, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity lies upon me. Yes, woe is to me if I do not proclaim the good news!THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.The Hebrew behind “hath borne” is nasa, the same carrying-root associated with massa, “burden.” The shared root lets Nahum’s title echo the bearing of grief: the weight is something carried.
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