Yeremia 18:16

18:16 So their land will become an object of horror. ¹ 

People will forever hiss out their scorn over it.

All who pass that way will be filled with horror

and will shake their heads in derision. ² 

Yeremia 51:37

51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ³ 

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

a place where no one lives. ⁴ 

Yehezkiel 27:36

27:36 The traders among the peoples hiss at you;

you have become a horror, and will be no more.’”

Habakuk 2:6

The Proud Babylonians are as Good as Dead

2:6 “But all these nations will someday taunt him ⁵ 

and ridicule him with proverbial sayings: ⁶ 

‘The one who accumulates what does not belong to him is as good as dead ⁷ 

(How long will this go on?) ⁸  –

he who gets rich by extortion!’ ⁹ 

[18:16]  ¹ tn There may be a deliberate double meaning involved here. The word translated here “an object of horror” refers both to destruction (cf. 2:15; 4:17) and the horror or dismay that accompanies it (cf. 5:30; 8:21). The fact that there is no conjunction or preposition in front of the noun “hissing” that follows this suggests that the reaction is in view here, not the cause.

[18:16]  ² tn Heb “an object of lasting hissing. All who pass that way will be appalled and shake their head.”

[18:16]  sn The actions of “shaking of the head” and “hissing” were obviously gestures of scorn and derision. See Lam 2:15-16.

[51:37]  ³ tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.

[51:37]  ⁴ tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”

[2:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “Will not these, all of them, take up a taunt against him…?” The rhetorical question assumes the response, “Yes, they will.” The present translation brings out the rhetorical force of the question by rendering it as an affirmation.

[2:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “and a mocking song, riddles, against him? And one will say.”

[2:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who increases [what is] not his.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe,” “ah”) was used in funeral laments and carries the connotation of death.

[2:6]  ⁸ tn This question is interjected parenthetically, perhaps to express rhetorically the pain and despair felt by the Babylonians’ victims.

[2:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the one who makes himself heavy [i.e., wealthy] [by] debts.” Though only appearing in the first line, the term הוֹי (hoy) is to be understood as elliptical in the second line.