Jeremiah 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 

Jeremiah 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 

[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.