13:20 No one will live there again;
no one will ever reside there again. 1
No bedouin 2 will camp 3 there,
no shepherds will rest their flocks 4 there.
28:28 Grain is crushed,
though one certainly does not thresh it forever.
The wheel of one’s wagon rolls over it,
but his horses do not crush it.
34:10 Night and day it will burn; 5
its smoke will ascend continually.
Generation after generation it will be a wasteland
and no one will ever pass through it again.
57:16 For I will not be hostile 6 forever
or perpetually angry,
for then man’s spirit would grow faint before me, 7
the life-giving breath I created.
1 tn Heb “she will not be inhabited forever, and she will not be dwelt in to generation and generation (i.e., forever).” The Lord declares that Babylon, personified as a woman, will not be inhabited. In other words, her people will be destroyed and the Chaldean empire will come to a permanent end.
2 tn Or “Arab” (NAB, NASB, NIV); cf. CEV, NLT “nomads.”
3 tn יַהֵל (yahel) is probably a corrupted form of יֶאֱהַל (ye’ehal). See GKC 186 §68.k.
4 tn The words “their flocks” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Hebrew text does not supply the object here, but see Jer 33:12.
5 tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”
9 tn Or perhaps, “argue,” or “accuse” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
10 tn Heb “for a spirit from before me would be faint.”