The Hebrew word translated its mistress in Revised Standard Version and “The queen” in Good News Translation is a word which does not occur anywhere else in the Old Testament. It may be taken as a verb form (compare New International Version “It is decreed”), but this is unlikely. Most commentators take the word as a proper name (“Huzzab” in King James Version, Revised Version, New Jerusalem Bible) and understand it as referring either to the queen of Assyria (Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, Good News Translation, Moffatt, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) or to the statue of the goddess Ishtar (Bible de Jérusalem, Jerusalem Bible, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant), who was worshiped at Nineveh.
The Hebrew text states that this Huzzab is stripped, she is carried off. If the queen is meant, stripping her or forcing her to remove her clothes would have been a way of humiliating and dishonoring her (compare 3.5). If the statue is meant, the stripping refers to the removal of its valuable decorations. This action would both supply booty for the conquerors and dishonor the goddess (compare 1.14). Many translators will need to supply an agent or person doing the action in this passive construction. Clearly, the attacking soldiers are implied. If the translators understand the word to mean “removing clothes,” they can say “They strip the queen of her clothes,” or “They remove the clothes from the queen by force,” or “They compel the queen to remove all her clothes.”
Many translations use different Hebrew vowels when reading the word translated in Revised Standard Version as is stripped, and this produces a word that means “is exiled” (New Jerusalem Bible; compare Bible de Jérusalem, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, New English Bible). Good News Translation follows this interpretation and combines this word with the next one (she is carried off in Revised Standard Version) in the single statement that “The queen is taken captive.” In some languages this sentence will need to be expressed in the active voice: “They capture the queen” or “They make the queen a prisoner.”
The second half of the verse describes the reactions of her maidens. If the queen was the subject of the first part of the verse, the maidens are “her servants” (Good News Translation) or attendants. Good News Translation leaves it implicit that these servants were females, but some translators may wish to say explicitly “female servants.” If the goddess was the subject of the first part of the verse, then the maidens are the sacred prostitutes who served in her temple. Compare the comments on 3.4.
These women are doing three things: lamenting, moaning like doves, and beating their breasts. The second and third of these actions are ways of demonstrating the first action. With the words “her servants moan like doves and beat their breasts in sorrow,” Good News Translation translates the actions of moaning and beating as verbs, but renders the lamenting with the words “in sorrow,” to explain the meaning of the actions.
The sound made by doves or pigeons was often taken as a picture of the moaning of people expressing their sorrow (compare Isa 38.14; 59.11; Ezek 7.16). This sentence may be translated “Her female servants weep, making a sound like the moaning of doves.” Beating the breast or chest was a common way of showing sorrow (Isa 32.12; compare Luke 18.13; 23.48). “In sorrow” can also be rendered “to show their sorrow” or “to show that their hearts are filled with sorrow.” In some languages it will be necessary to say “they use their hands to beat their breasts to show their sorrow.”
Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. & Hatton, Howard A . A Handbook on the Book of Nahum. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1989. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .