Today is the 17th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.

I'm Brian. It is great to be here with you today as we continue this journey, this rapid journey as we raised toward the end of the year

and we're moving through a book a day practically in the Old Testament. We'll read an entire book today in the minor prophets.

Today's book is known as Neyum and we know almost nothing about Neyam's life other than his name means comfort.

And he was from a place called Elkhosh, but we don't really know where that is.

Or even if it was a town or if it was a village or what it was.

Dating Naim though gets a little bit easier because there are references in the prophecy

to actual historical events. in the That happened in 663 BC, so we know that Niam was written after that.

He also foretold the fall of Nineveh, which happened in 612 BC.

So Niam was likely fulfilling his calling within the years between those two events.

And what we'll see as we read this is that the prophecy is to foretell the destruction of Nineveh, which was the capital city of the

Assyrian Empire. And we just read Jonah, right? Just a couple of days ago we read

through Jonah and so we remember his journey to Nineveh and he delivered a prophecy of judgment and the Ninevites repented for a period of time.

Nayam comes along prophesying a for a period of time.

Nayam comes along prophesying against Nineveh

almost a century and a half after Jonah.

And the Assyrians had obviously returned to their wicked ways.

In fact, their conquests of people

were known to be legendarily brutal.

And by the time Neyam gives this prophecy, Assyria had destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel and carried away her people into exile, where those ten tribes disappeared from history as cohesive tribes.

But even though Naeum was prophesying against Neneva,

he wasn't sent to Neneva to give the prophecy. So many scholars believe that Naeum prophesied from Jerusalem

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