Charles Ellicott Commentary Nahum 3:17

"Thy princes are as the locusts, and thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers, which encamp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are." — Nahum 3:17 (ASV)

Your crowned. —The subordinate kings who represent the Assyrian empire in its tributary provinces.

Captains. — Taphs ’ rîm, an Assyrian term denoting some high military office. The sudden disappearance of the Assyrian locust-pest is elaborated on here. A sudden outburst of sunshine will sometimes induce a swarm of locusts to take flight; cold, on the other hand, makes these insects settle, and soon deprives them of the power of flying. Dr. Pusey well observes, “The heathen conqueror rehearsed his victory, ‘I came, I saw, conquered.’ The prophet goes further, as the issue of all human conquest, ‘I disappeared.’” The insect designations, rendered in the Authorized Version, “cankerworm,” “locust,” “great grasshopper,” all represent varieties of the locust species.