Yeremia 51:37

51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ¹ 

It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn,

a place where no one lives. ² 

Yeremia 51:43

51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.

She has become a dry and barren desert.

No one lives in those towns any more.

No one even passes through them. ³ 

Yeremia 50:12-13

50:12 But Babylonia will be put to great shame.

The land where you were born ⁴  will be disgraced.

Indeed, ⁵  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations.

It will become a dry and barren desert.

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ⁶ 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ⁷ 

[51:37]  ¹ tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.

[51:37]  ² tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”

[51:43]  ³ tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.

[50:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “Your mother will be utterly shamed, the one who gave you birth…” The word “mother” and the parallel term “the one who gave you birth” are used metaphorically for the land of Babylonia. For the figure compare the usage in Isa 50:1 (Judah) and Hos 2:2, 5 (2:4, 7 HT) and see BDB 52 s.v. אֵם 2 and 408 s.v. יָלַד Qal.2.c.

[50:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “Behold.” For the use of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

[50:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

[50:13]  ⁷ sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.