The first two lines are closely parallel to each other in both structure and sense, and both contain words of uncertain meaning. Revised Standard Version renders Your princes are like grasshoppers (Hebrew ʾarbeh), your scribes are like clouds of locusts (Hebrew gobh gobhai). The words translated princes and scribes are probably both Assyrian words which Nahum has borrowed. The first one is perhaps related to a Hebrew word for “crown,” which suggests the meaning princes. Scholars have proposed a number of other possible meanings, and several English translations prefer the word “guards” (Jerusalem Bible, New International Version, New Jerusalem Bible). Bible en français courant and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch have words meaning “inspectors” or “overseers.” At any rate, a word should be used which denotes a class of people who are numerous, since that is the point of the comparison with locusts. On that basis “guards” or “overseers” are more likely than princes.
The second of the two words thought to be Assyrian is almost certainly the word for scribe. The equivalent word in Hebrew came to have a military meaning as well, and some scholars think that this was also the case with the Assyrian word. This gives rise to the term “marshals” in the Revised Standard Version footnote (compare Revised Version, New Jerusalem Bible). However, scribes understood in the sense of “civil servants, officials” seems on the whole more probable here. In some languages scribes may be rendered as “servants of the king (or, chief).” Another translation model for the first two lines is: “Your guards are as numerous as grasshoppers, and the servants of your king (or, chief) as a cloud (or, swarm) of locusts.”
Since the exact meanings of these two keywords are uncertain and the lines are closely parallel, Good News Translation runs them together into one and includes the meanings of the two Assyrian words under one general term, “officials.” For a discussion of the Hebrew words used here for clouds of locusts, see the comments of Thompson quoted under verse 15. Clouds of locusts or “a swarm of locusts” can also be rendered as “a huge crowd of locusts” or “great numbers of locusts which resemble a cloud.” The emphasis here is on the tremendous number of the insects.
Settling on the fences in a day of cold: the second half of verse 17 speaks of the way locusts are affected by changes of temperature. As Good News Translation puts it, they “stay in the walls on a cold day” and move about only a little if at all. “Walls” refers not to the walls of houses but to the stone walls around a field, which would have plenty of spaces for the locusts to shelter in. Probably the word fences is a better one (Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, NJV). However, in many languages it will be better to say “fences made of stone,” or perhaps “walls made of stone which surround your fields.”
When the sun rises, they fly away: when the locusts are warm again, they are able to fly away once more. In the same way the officials of Nineveh, instead of fighting, will run away when the city is attacked. Good News Translation marks the contrast with the previous line by using the introductory “But.”
No one knows where they are: just as people cannot keep up with a swarm of locusts when they fly away, so no one will be able to find the officials of Nineveh and bring them back to defend the city.
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 .