Charles Ellicott Commentary Habakkuk 1:10

"Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a derision unto him; he derideth every stronghold; for he heapeth up dust, and taketh it." — Habakkuk 1:10 (ASV)

Kings and princes are deposed or enthroned at the invader’s pleasure. Thus Nebuchadnezzar set Jehoiakim as a tributary sovereign on the throne of Jerusalem and three years later deposed his son and successor Jehoiachin and made Zedekiah king.

For they shall heap dust, and take it. —This means that they shall besiege and capture all strongholds using the mounds of earth commonly employed in sieges. These mounds were employed either to place the besieger on a level with the besieged, and so facilitate the operations of siege engines, or to form an inclined plane, up which the besieger might march his men, and so take the place by scaling its walls.

We find they were used by the Egyptians (Ezekiel 17:17) and the Assyrians (2 Kings 19:32), as well as by the Babylonians (Jeremiah 6:6, and in other passages). They are mentioned as employed by the Spartan king Archidamus in the celebrated siege of Plataea in 429 BC (Thucydides, Book 2). In this passage the term “dust” is used to indicate these mounds of earth, as expressing the contemptuous ease with which the invader effects his capture of strongholds.