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.
13:21 Wild animals will rest there,
the ruined 5 houses will be full of hyenas. 6
Ostriches will live there,
wild goats will skip among the ruins. 7
13:22 Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses,
jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. 8
Her time is almost up, 9
her days will not be prolonged. 10
14:22 “I will rise up against them,”
says the Lord who commands armies.
“I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people, 11
including the offspring she produces,” 12
says the Lord.
14:23 “I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals 13
and covered with pools of stagnant water.
I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” 14
says the Lord who commands armies.
51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. 15
For the Lord will carry out his plan.
He plans to make the land of Babylonia 16
a wasteland where no one lives. 17
The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. 20
18:21 Then 21 one powerful angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone, threw it into the sea, and said,
“With this kind of sudden violent force 22
Babylon the great city will be thrown down 23
and it will never be found again!
18:22 And the sound of the harpists, musicians,
flute players, and trumpeters
will never be heard in you 24 again.
No 25 craftsman 26 who practices any trade
will ever be found in you again;
the noise of a mill 27 will never be heard in you again.
18:23 Even the light from a lamp
will never shine in you again!
The voices of the bridegroom and his bride
will never be heard in you again.
For your merchants were the tycoons of the world,
because all the nations 28 were deceived by your magic spells! 29
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 The word “ruined” is supplied in the translation for clarification.
6 tn The precise referent of this word in uncertain. See HALOT 29 s.v. *אֹחַ. Various English versions translate as “owls” (e.g., NAB, NASB), “wild dogs” (NCV); “jackals” (NIV); “howling creatures” (NRSV, NLT).
7 tn Heb “will skip there.”
8 tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “wild dogs will yip among his widows, and jackals in the palaces of pleasure.” The verb “yip” is supplied in the second line; it does double duty in the parallel structure. “His widows” makes little sense in this context; many emend the form (אַלְמנוֹתָיו, ’almnotayv) to the graphically similar אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ (’armÿnoteha, “her fortresses”), a reading that is assumed in the present translation. The use of “widows” may represent an intentional wordplay on “fortresses,” indicating that the fortresses are like dejected widows (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 1:308, n. 1).
9 tn Heb “near to come is her time.”
10 sn When was the prophecy of Babylon’s fall fulfilled? Some argue that the prophecy was fulfilled in 689
11 tn Heb “I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant” (ASV, NAB, and NRSV all similar).
12 tn Heb “descendant and child.”
13 tn Heb “I will make her into a possession of wild animals.” It is uncertain what type of animal קִפֹּד (qippod) refers to. Some suggest a rodent (cf. NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”), others an owl (cf, NAB, NIV, TEV).
14 tn Heb “I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction.”
15 sn The figure here is common in the poetic tradition of the
16 tn Heb “For the plans of the
17 tn The verbs in this verse and v. 30 are all in the past tense in Hebrew, in the tense that views the action as already as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verb in v. 31a, however, is imperfect, viewing the action as future; the perfects that follow are all dependent on that future. Verse 33 looks forward to a time when Babylon will be harvested and trampled like grain on the threshing floor and the imperatives imply a time in the future. Hence the present translation has rendered all the verbs in vv. 29-30 as future.
18 tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.
19 tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”
20 sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.
21 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.
22 tn On ὅρμημα ({ormhma) BDAG 724 s.v. states, “violent rush, onset ὁρμήματι βληθήσεται Βαβυλών Babylon will be thrown down with violence Rv 18:21.” L&N 68.82 refers to the suddenness of the force or violence.
23 sn Thrown down is a play on both the words and the action. The angel’s action with the stone illustrates the kind of sudden violent force with which the city will be overthrown.
24 tn The shift to a second person pronoun here corresponds to the Greek text.
25 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
26 tn On this term BDAG 1001 s.v. τεχνίτης states, “craftsperson, artisan, designer…Of a silversmith Ac 19:24, 25 v.l., 38….Of a potter 2 Cl 8:2 (metaph., cp. Ath. 15:2). πᾶς τεχνίτης πάσης τέχνης Rv 18:22.”
27 tn This is a different Greek word (μύλος, mulos) from the one for the millstone in v. 21 (μύλινος, mulinos). See L&N 7.68.
28 tn Or “all the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).
29 tn On the term φαρμακεία (farmakeia, “magic spells”) see L&N 53.100: “the use of magic, often involving drugs and the casting of spells upon people – ‘to practice magic, to cast spells upon, to engage in sorcery, magic, sorcery.’ φαρμακεία: ἐν τῇ φαρμακείᾳ σου ἐπλανήθησαν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ‘with your magic spells you deceived all the peoples (of the world)’ Re 18:23.”