Nahum says Nineveh multiplied its merchants, but they will flee away like locusts. It also says the officials and scribes scatter when the sun rises, and no one knows where they are (Nahum 3:16–17).
In Nahum 3:16–17 Nineveh is told that its commercial and administrative strength will not hold. Even though its merchants once seemed countless, they will disappear as quickly as a grasshopper that eats and then flies off. These verses sit inside Nahum’s extended taunt and vivid portrayal of Nineveh’s collapse in chapter 3. The chapter piles up images showing how the city will be exposed, plundered, and abandoned, and it repeatedly highlights that what looked stable is actually fragile.
Nahum 3:16–17 treats Nineveh’s wealth and staffing as unstable when the crisis arrives. The text says Nineveh “multiplied” merchants until they seemed countless, but these merchants are like a grasshopper: it consumes and then flies off.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Nahum 3:16-17, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
16You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips, and flees away.
17Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.