Nahum 3:18

“Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria, etc.] Who this king of Assyria was is not easy to say; some think Esarhaddon, who is the last of the kings of Assyria the Scriptures speak of; according to Diodorus Siculusf133, Sardanapalus was the last of these kings, and in him the Assyrian monarchy ended; though, according to Alexander Polyhistorf134, Saracus, perhaps the Chyniladanus of Ptolemy, was king when Nineveh was destroyed: it is very likely that Sardanapalus and Saracus design the same person, though set at a great distance by historians; since the same things are said of the one as of the other; particularly that, when they saw their danger, they burnt themselves and theirs in the…”

“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” Psalms 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…”

“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. Nahum 3:19”

“Thy shepherds: That is, the rulers and tributary princes, who, as Herodotus informs us, deserted Nineveh in the day of her distress, and came not to her succour. Diodorus also says, that 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 succour 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. Nah 2:6; Exo 15:16; Psa 76:5, Psa 76:6; Isa 56:9, Isa…”

“Such an end will come to the Assyrian kingdom on the overthrow of Nineveh. Nah 3:18. "The shepherds have fallen asleep, king Asshur: thy glorious ones are lying there: thy people have scattered themselves upon the mountains, and no one gathers them. Nah 3:19. No alleviation to thy fracture, thy stroke is grievous: all who hear tidings of thee clap the hand over thee: for over whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?" The king of Asshur addressed in Nah 3:18 is not the last historical king of that kingdom, but a rhetorical personification of the holder of the imperial power of Assyria. His shepherds and glorious ones ('addı̄rı̄m, as in Nah 2:6) are the princes and great men, upon whom…”