Two other points remain to be emphasised.
There is a striking absence from both chapters of any reference to Israel.[270] Jehovah of Hosts is mentioned twice in the same formula,[271] but otherwise the author does not obtrude his nationality. It is not in Judah’s name he exults, but in that of all the peoples of Western Asia. Niniveh has sold _peoples_ by her harlotries and _races_ by her witchcraft; it is _peoples_ that shall gaze upon her nakedness and _kingdoms_ upon her shame. Nahum gives voice to no national passions, but to the outraged conscience of mankind. We see here another proof, not only of the large, human heart of prophecy, but of that which in the introduction to these Twelve Prophets we ventured to assign as one of its causes. By crushing all peoples to a common level of despair, by the universal pity which her cruelties excited, Assyria contributed to the development in Israel of the idea of a common humanity.[272]
The other thing to be noticed is Nahum’s feeling of the incoherence and mercenariness of the vast population of Niniveh. Niniveh’s command of the world had turned her into a great trading power. Under Assurbanipal the lines of ancient commerce had been diverted so as to pass through her. The immediate result was an enormous increase of population, such as the world had never before seen within the limits of one city. But this had come out of all races and was held together only by the greed of gain. What had once been a firm and vigorous nation of warriors, irresistible in their united impact upon the world, was now a loose aggregate of many peoples, without patriotism, discipline or sense of honour. Nahum likens it to a reservoir of waters,[273] which as soon as it is breached must scatter, and leave the city bare. The Second Isaiah said the same of Babylon, to which the bulk of Niniveh’s mercenary populace must have fled:—
_Thus are they grown to thee, they who did weary thee, Traders of thine from thy youth up; Each as he could escape have they fled; None is thy helper._[274]
The prophets saw the truth about both cities. Their vastness and their splendour were artificial. Neither of them, and Niniveh still less than Babylon, was a natural centre for the world’s commerce. When their political power fell, the great lines of trade, which had been twisted to their feet, drew back to more natural courses, and Niniveh in especial became deserted. This is the explanation of the absolute collapse of that mighty city. Nahum’s foresight, and the very metaphor in which he expressed it, were thoroughly sound. The population vanished like water. The site bears little trace of any disturbance since the ruin by the Medes, except such as has been inflicted by the weather and the wandering tribes around. Mosul, Niniveh’s representative to-day, is not built upon it, and is but a provincial town. The district was never meant for anything else.
The swift decay of these ancient empires from the climax of their commercial glory is often employed as a warning to ourselves. But the parallel, as the previous paragraphs suggest, is very far from exact. If we can lay aside for the moment the greatest difference of all, in religion and morals, there remain others almost of cardinal importance. Assyria and Babylonia were not filled, like Great Britain, with reproductive races, able to colonise distant lands, and carry everywhere the spirit which had made them strong at home. Still more, they did not continue at home to be homogeneous. Their native forces were exhausted by long and unceasing wars. Their populations, especially in their capitals, were very largely alien and distraught, with nothing to hold them together save their commercial interests. They were bound to break up at the first disaster. It is true that we are not without some risks of their peril. No patriot among us can observe without misgiving the large and growing proportion of foreigners in that department of our life from which the strength of our defence is largely drawn—our merchant navy. But such a fact is very far from bringing our empire and its chief cities into the fatal condition of Niniveh and Babylon. Our capitals, our commerce, our life as a whole are still British to the core. If we only be true to our ideals of righteousness and religion, if our patriotism continue moral and sincere, we shall have the power to absorb the foreign elements that throng to us in commerce, and stamp them with our own spirit.