This verse gives an implicit contrast with the previous one. Even if the people of Nineveh make careful preparations to defend themselves, they will still be defeated. Good News Translation brings out this contrast with the words “No matter what you do.”
The defeat of the Ninevites is described in two figurative statements, There will the fire devour you, the sword will cut you off. There has no real antecedent in Hebrew, and it is not clear what place is referred to, though the place where the bricks were being made is most likely. Some versions take it in a temporal sense (New English Bible “even then”; compare Bible de Jérusalem). Probably this is what Good News Translation has done in translating “still.” A captured city was often set on fire after it had been plundered (compare Josh 6.24; 8.19; 2 Kgs 25.9). The sword stands for any weapon of war with which people are killed. Good News Translation drops the figures of speech and expresses the meaning in plain language as “you will still be burned to death or killed in battle.” If the figures of speech can be meaningfully retained, they should be.
The next line says literally It will devour you like the locust. There are three problems to be solved in connection with this line. The first is to decide what It refers to. The nearest noun is sword, but it is also possible that the It refers back to the previous noun fire. The second problem is to decide whether like the locust is related to the subject of the verb devour or to the object. These two problems give four possible meanings to the phrase as a whole. When the comparisons are filled out and made explicit, these four possibilities are:
(a) The sword will devour you as it devours the locust;
(b) The sword will devour you as the locust devours crops;
(c) The fire will devour you as it devours the locust;
(d) The fire will devour you as the locust devours crops.
Of these, (a) hardly makes sense, since swords were not used to kill locusts; (c) is possible in the context, since fire was one means of getting rid of locusts, but (c) and (d) are both rather doubtful because they do not take the nearest noun as the antecedent to the pronoun It; on the whole (b) seems to be the most likely meaning and is followed by Good News Translation, “You will be wiped out like crops eaten by locusts.” (For the use of the English metaphor “wipe out” in place of a Hebrew metaphor, compare Good News Translation Zeph 3.6.) “Wiped out” can also be rendered “destroyed.”
Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible, and Bible en français courant adopt the same interpretation as Good News Translation, but Bible de Jérusalem, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, and New English Bible omit this line altogether, because they believe it to be a mistaken duplication of material which follows in the rest of verse 15 and verse 16. This solution is not to be recommended, since the line gives a reasonable meaning in its context.
The third problem in the line concerns the exact meaning of the Hebrew term yeleq translated locust in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, “grasshoppers” in New International Version, and “grub” in New Jerusalem Bible. In verses 15-17 no less than four different Hebrew words for locust occur. Their exact meanings have been fully and clearly discussed by John A. Thompson:
In Nah 3.15, 16, 17 five [sic] words for locust are found, in verse 15 yeleq twice and ʾarbeh, in verse 16 yeleq, and in verse 17 ʾarbeh, gobh, and gobhai. The translation of yeleq here depends to some extent on the interpretation of the verb in the second part of verse 16. The Hebrew-English lexicon edited by Brown, Driver, and Briggs gives the meaning of the verb in this verse as “stripping off (sheaths of wings),” and that edited by Koehler and Baumgartner has “strip off the skin.” So the meaning of yeleq in verse 16 must be “young locust,” which sheds its skin and becomes the mature locust with usable wings. The two occurrences of yeleq in the immediately preceding verse 15 would presumably have the same meaning. Verse 15 compares the fire kindled by the attackers of Nineveh and their killing swords to young locusts who eat and destroy plants. The young locust is a more destructive eater than the mature locust. “Young locust” is suggested here as the meaning of yeleq, rather than “newly-hatched” as in Joel, because a newly-hatched locust must go through several stages before it is able to fly. It is not surprising that there should be a shift of meaning between the specific “newly-hatched” and the general “young” according to the context. Several modern translations (Revised Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible) have not followed the lexicons and give the verb of verse 16 the meaning “spread wings” or “spread out.” This meaning of “spread” is not found elsewhere in the Bible for this verb, and “wings” must be supplied. Moreover if this translation of the verb were correct, then yeleq would refer to an adult locust with usable wings, which is not the meaning of yeleq elsewhere. For ʾarbeh in verse 15 I have suggested the meaning “mature locust” to distinguish it from yeleq in the same verse. Gobh and gobhai in verse 17 seem to mean “swarm of locusts,” and the use of both nouns may emphasize the great number of Assyrian officials.
Thompson’s comments will be very helpful to translators in areas where locusts are well known, but in other areas translators may do better to use a single general term like the English word locust. If locusts are completely unknown, it will probably be necessary in this passage to borrow a word from English or some other major language, and to explain its meaning in a footnote or in a word list. In some of the other passages where locusts are mentioned, it may be possible to substitute the name of some other creature, but here the habits of locusts are stated in some detail, and it is unlikely that any other creature can be spoken of instead.
The last part of verse 15 consists of two lines which are closely parallel in structure and meaning: Multiply yourselves like the locust, multiply like the grasshopper! The Hebrew verb form is imperative (so Revised Standard Version Multiply). In this context the imperative is not really a command but rather an ironic statement, and this is why Good News Translation has translated as a statement (“You multiplied”). This produces a smoother connection with the statements in the following verse.
The Hebrew words for locust (yeleq) and grasshopper (ʾarbeh) refer, according to Thompson, to different stages in the development of the insect, rather than to two different species. Since English does not have much vocabulary for speaking about locusts, Good News Translation here drops the parallelism and expresses the meaning just once: “You multiplied like locusts!” In other languages with similar vocabulary problems, translators will need to do the same. “You multiplied” in certain languages may be expressed as “You increased in number.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A . A Handbook on the Book of Nahum. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .