The double title of the book of of Nahum points to its main characteristics. It is a written prophetic book associated with Nahum. It is also, in the main, a pronouncement against Nineveh. From the readers' viewpoint Nineveh was both a historical city, the capital of the Assyrian empire, and a symbol of a sinful, overbearing, exceedingly oppres­sive political structure which was totally destroyed and never rebuilt.