Nahum 3:18
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: your nobles shall dwell in the dust: your people is scattered on the mountains, and no man gathers them.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: your nobles shall dwell in the dust: your people is scattered on the mountains, and no man gathers them.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria; thy nobles are at rest; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Sorrow! how are the keepers of your flock sleeping, O king of Assyria! your strong men are at rest; your people are wandering on the mountains, and there is no one to get them together.
Webster's Revision
Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.
World English Bible
Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy worthies are at rest: thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them.
Clarke's Nahum 3:18 Bible Commentary
Thy shepherds slumber - That is, the rulers and tributary princes, who, as Herodotus informs us, deserted Nineveh in the day of her distress, and came not forward to her succor.
Diodorus Siculus says, lib. ii., when the enemy shut up the king in the city, many nations revolted, each going over to the besiegers, for the sake of their liberty; that the king despatched messengers to all his subjects, requiring power from them to succor him; and that he thought himself able to endure the siege, and remained in expectation of armies which were to be raised throughout his empire, relying on the oracle that the city would not be taken till the river became its enemy. See the note on Nahum 2:6.
Barnes's Nahum 3:18 Bible Commentary
Thy shepherds - that is, they who should counsel for the people's good and feed it, and "keep watch over their flocks by night," but are now like their master, the "King of Assyria," are his shepherds not the shepherds of the people whom they care not for; these slumber, at once through listlessness and excess, and now have fallen asleep in death, as the Psalmist says, "They have slept their sleep" Psalm 76:6. The prophet speaks of the future, as already past in effect, as it was in the will of God. All "the shepherds of the people" , all who could shepherd them, or hold them to together, themselves sleep "the sleep of death;" their mighty men dwelt in that abiding-place, where they shall not move or rise, the grave; and so as Micaiah, in the vision predictive of Ahab's death, "saw all Israel scattered on the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd" 1 Kings 22:17, so the people of the Assyrian monarch shall be "scattered on the mountains," shepherdless, and that irretrievably; no man gathers them.
Wesley's Nahum 3:18 Bible Commentary
3:18 Thy shepherds - Thy rulers and counsellors. Slumber - Are remiss, heartless, or dead. No man gathereth - No one will concern himself to preserve thy dispersed ones.