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.
32:14 For the fortress is neglected;
the once-crowded 5 city is abandoned.
Hill 6 and watchtower
are permanently uninhabited. 7
Wild donkeys love to go there,
and flocks graze there. 8
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 Or “noisy” (NAB, NIV, NCV).
6 tn Hebrew עֹפֶל (’ofel), probably refers here to a specific area within the city of Jerusalem. See HALOT 861 s.v. II עֹפֶל.
7 tn The Hebrew text has בְעַד מְעָרוֹת (vÿ’ad mÿ’arot). The force of בְעַד, which usually means “behind, through, round about,” or “for the benefit of,” is uncertain here. HALOT 616 s.v. *מְעָרָה takes מְעָרוֹת (mÿ’arot) as a homonym of “cave” and define it here as “cleared field.” Despite these lexical problems, the general point of the statement seems clear – the city will be uninhabited.
8 tn Heb “the joy of wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks.”