The Lord is “good.” This is the basic nature of God.

For those who will flee to him and trust him he is a refuge and he will take care of them. The word
in the Hebrew for “care,” yada (commonly translated “know”), has an expansive range of meanings that include “knowing facts,” “knowing a person in a relationship,” “the performance of a skill,” and also “choose” or “care for.” In Nahum 1:7 yada is used as “care.” A similar Akkadian word was used by Nineveh in their religious texts to express the same “care” extended to the Assyrian king in
Nineveh by the Assyrian gods. A prophecy given to the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (681-669) by
his prophetesses who spoke oracles to him for Ishtar and other Assyrian gods refer to Ishtar
as “the god who ‘cares’ for you," and say, “I will keep you safe,” “Do not trust humans, but lift your eyes and look to me.” In his prophecy written to Nineveh (663-654), Nahum uses yada, “care,” to
refer to the “care” God could give to Nineveh.

Nineveh received this “goodness” from God in 759 BC when Jonah brought a message of
repentance to them, but since Jonah’s day the Assyrians have strayed far from the Lord, and
so, will now come to an end. They did not receive the protection promised to them by Ishtar,
Ashur or any of the other Assyrian gods. Nineveh will be overcome by a "flood" of military
activity beginning with the Scythians from the north in 626 BC, which is followed by an invasion
from the Babylonians from the east in 612 where Nineveh fell in fulfillment of Nahum's prophecy.
The fall of Nineveh in 612 BC ended the Assyrian empire.