This page gives you a complete set of study questions for Nahum 3, the closing chapter of the book of Nahum. It is written for a small group leader, a Sunday school class, or someone studying the chapter alone. The questions move from what the text says, to what it means, to how it shapes the way you live, and each one comes with a discussion note you can use directly.
Nahum 3 at a Glance
Nahum 3 is a prophetic judgment oracle against Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. The chapter opens with a woe pronounced on the city for its violence and deceit, then describes the sights and sounds of an attack. God himself declares his opposition and exposes the city’s shame in public view, comparing it unfavorably with Thebes, a city that also seemed secure but fell.
The second half turns to the city’s defenses and leadership. Its fortresses are compared to figs that fall at a shake, its soldiers to women, and its merchants and officials to locusts that vanish in the sun. The chapter ends with the king of Assyria’s shepherds asleep and his people scattered, and with a note that the nations rejoice at the city’s fall because of its endless cruelty.
Observation Questions
Use these questions first, before anyone offers an interpretation. Ask the group to point to the exact words in the text, and resist the urge to explain until the observations are on the table. Two or three minutes of silence before answering often helps.
Nahum 3:1
Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart.
(WEB)
Read this first to set the tone of the chapter. The opening woe names the sins of the city plainly and frames everything that follows, so the group hears the accusation before the judgment.
Nahum 3:5-7
5 “Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. 6 I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle. 7 It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”
(WEB)
Reading the LORD’s own words aloud helps the group hear God speaking in the first person. The public exposure described here is vivid and unsettling, and it rewards a slow, careful reading.
Nahum 3:8-10
8 Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? 9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers. 10 Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.
(WEB)
The comparison with Thebes is a memorable historical argument that security does not guarantee survival. Reading it aloud lets the group feel the weight of the list of allies and then the blunt statement that the city was carried away.
Nahum 3:12
All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs: if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.
(WEB)
The short fig image is easy to remember and easy to picture. Reading it aloud gives the group a single concrete image to carry into the discussion about false security.
Nahum 3:16-17
16 You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips, and flees away. 17 Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
(WEB)
The locust imagery closes the list of Nineveh’s defenses with a vivid picture of disappearance. Reading both verses together lets the group hear the rhythm of abundance followed by vanishing.
Memory Verse for Nahum 3
A Closing Prayer for the Group
Father, we come before you having read a hard chapter about a city that trusted its walls and its allies and found them unable to save it. Show us where we place our confidence in things that will not hold, and turn our hearts back to you. Make us honest about the lies and wrongs we tolerate, and give us courage to practice truthfulness in our homes and workplaces. Teach us to hold justice and mercy together, and to pray for those who have harmed others. Guide the conversations we have had here into quiet obedience this week. Amen.
