“There the fire
Will devour you.
The sword
Will cut you off.
It will devour you
Like the locusts.
Multiply yourselves
Like the locusts!
Multiply yourselves
Like the grasshoppers!
You increased
Your merchants
More than the stars
Of the heavens.
The locust sheds its skin.
Then it flies away.
Your guards are
Like grasshoppers.
Your scribes are
Like swarms of locusts,
Settling on the fences,
On a day of cold,
When the sun rises,
They fly away.
No one knows
Where they have gone.”
A fire would destroy Nineveh, while the sword would chase people away. The city would be decimated, as if a swarm of locusts had come through there. They would have to multiply themselves like grasshoppers or locusts, as their merchants had done in the past. These commercial envoys of Nineveh were as numerous as the stars. Just as the locust sheds its skin, so that it can fly away, the guards at Nineveh would be like grasshoppers, hip hopping away. Their scribes were like swarms of locusts sitting on a fence on a cold day. However, when the sun came up the next day, these scribes would fly off, where no one would know where they went. As this was going to happen to Nineveh, no one would know where in the world they went.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 