Nahum
Introduction
Person of the Prophet. - All that we know of Nahum (Nachūm, i.e., consolation or comforter, consolator, Gr. Ναούμ) is, that he sprang from the place called Elkosh; since the epithet hâ'elqōshı̄, in the heading to his book, is not a patronymic, but the place of his birth. Elkosh is not to be sought for in Assyria, however, viz., in the Christian village of Alkush, which is situated on the eastern side of the Tigris, to the north-west of Khorsabad, two days' journey from Mosul, where the tomb of the prophet Nahum is shown in the form of a simple plaster box of modern style, and which is held in great reverence, as a holy place, by the Christians and Mohammedans of that neighbourhood (see Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, i. 233), as Michaelis, Eichhorn, Ewald, and others suppose. For this village, with its pretended tomb of the prophet, has not the smallest trace of antiquity about it, and is mentioned for the first time by a monk of the sixteenth century, in a letter to Assemani (Biblioth. or. i. 525, iii. 1, p. 352). Now, as a tomb of the prophet Jonah is also shown in the neighbourhood of Nineveh, the assumption is a very natural one, that the name Elkush did not come from the village into the book, but passed from the book to the village (Hitzig). The statement of Jerome is older, and much more credible, - namely, that “Elkosh was situated in Galilee, since there is to the present day a village in Galilee called Helcesaei (others Helcesei, Elcesi), a very small one indeed, and containing in its ruins hardly any traces of ancient buildings, but one which is well known to the Jews, and was also pointed out to me by my guide,” - inasmuch as he does not simply base his statement upon the word of his guide, but describes the place as well known to the Jews. This Jewish tradition of the
