Nahum 3:18
Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.
Nahum 3:18 belongs to the prophecy of the fall of Nineveh and Assyria given in Nahum chapters 2 and 3. It pictures Assyria's leaders as helpless or dead and its people as scattered with no one left to gather or rescue them. The fall of Nineveh under the power of its former dependencies fulfilled that predicted downfall of Assyria.
The verse describes Assyria's collapse in three parts: its shepherds or leaders slumber and fail, its nobles dwell in the dust and perish, and its people are scattered with no one to gather them. Its shepherds or leaders slumber in the sense of lying helpless, its nobles dwell in the dust in the sense of lying dead, and its people are scattered upon the mountains with no one left to rescue them.
It means Assyrian dominion would end when Nineveh fell to the united and superior power of Media, Egypt, and Babylonia. Those conquerors were its former dependencies, and their victory fulfilled the predicted downfall. That overthrow ended vassalage to proud Nineveh and opened the way for Babylon under Nabopolassar to rise again to ascendancy.
Nineveh was Assyria's wicked capital, and it represents later cities as well.