Jeremiah 51:37

37 Babylon will be a pile of rubble, scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.'

Jeremiah 51:37 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 51:37

And Babylon shall become heaps
The houses should be demolished, and the stones lie in heaps one upon another, and become mere rubbish: a dwelling place for dragons;
and other wild and savage creatures. Dragons, as Aelianus F1 observes, love to live in desert places, and such now Babylon is; it lies in ruins; and even its palace is so full of scorpions and serpents, as Benjamin of Tudela F2 says it was in his time, that men durst not enter into it; see ( Jeremiah 50:39 ) ( Isaiah 13:21 Isaiah 13:22 ) ; an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant;
an astonishment to neighbouring nations, and to all that pass by; who shall hiss at the destruction of it, and rejoice, there being not so much as a single inhabitant in it; which is its case to this day; see ( Jeremiah 50:13 Jeremiah 50:39 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F1 De Animal. l. 6. c. 63.
F2 Itinerarium, p. 76.

Jeremiah 51:37 In-Context

35 Lady Zion says, 'The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!' And Jerusalem says, 'The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!'
36 Then I, God, step in and say, 'I'm on your side, taking up your cause. I'm your Avenger. You'll get your revenge. I'll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.
37 Babylon will be a pile of rubble, scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.'
38 "The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs, ravenous, roaring for food.
39 I'll fix them a meal, all right - a banquet, in fact. They'll drink themselves falling-down drunk. Dead drunk, they'll sleep - and sleep, and sleep . . . and they'll never wake up." God's Decree.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.