Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

Her cities are become an astonishment, a land uninhabited and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man pass through it.

Its cities have been for a desolation, A dry land, and a wilderness, A land, none doth dwell in them, Nor pass over into them doth a son of man.

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwells, neither does any son of man pass thereby.

Her towns have become a waste, a dry and unwatered land, where no man has his living-place and no son of man goes by.

Her cities have become an astonishment, an uninhabited and desolate land, a land in which no one may live, nor may a son of man pass through it.

Erunt urbes ejus in vastitatem, terra deserti et siccitatis (aut, vastitatis) terra; non transibit per eam quisquam (onmis homo,) et non habitabit in illa quisquam (et non transibit in illa, hoc est, per illam) filius hominis.

He repeats what he had previously said, but we have before reminded you why he speaks so largely on a subject in itself not obscure. For he might have comprehended in a few words all that he had said in the last chapter and also in this; but it was difficult to convince men of what he taught -- it was therefore necessary to dwell at large on the subject. He says now that the cities of Babylon, that is, of that monarchy, would become a desolation. He seems to have hitherto directed his threatenings against the city itself; but now he declares that God's vengeance would extend to all the cities under the power of the Chaldean nation; and he speaks at large of their desolation, for he says that it would be a land of desert, a land of drought, or of filthiness, so that no one would dwell in it. And though he uses the singular number and repeats it, yet he refers to cities, Pass through it shall no man, dwell in it shall no man [1] He indeed speaks of the whole land, but so that he properly refers to the cities, as though he had said, that so great would be the destruction, that however far and wide the monarchy of Babylon extended, all its cities would be cut off. It afterwards follows, --

Footnotes

1 - The Sept. and the Syr. remove the incongruity that is in this verse; they supply k before the "land" that occurs first, and omit the second "land." Then the verse would read thus, -- 43. Become have her cities a desolation, Like a land of drought and a wilderness; Dwell in them shall no man, And pass through them shall no son of man. The second "land" is omitted in two MSS.; and one has "in her," instead of "in them." -- Ed.

A wilderness - Or, a desert of sand.
A land wherein - Rather, "a land - no man shall dwell in them (i. e., its cities), and no human being shall pass through them."

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness,.... Which some understand of Babylon itself, divided into two parts by the river Euphrates running in the midst of it, called by Berosus (f) the inward and outward cities; though rather these design the rest of the cities in Chaldea, of which Babylon was the metropolis, the mother city, and the other her daughters, which should share the same fate with herself; be demolished, and the ground on which they stood become a dry, barren, uncultivated, and desert land:
a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby; having neither inhabitant nor traveller; see Jeremiah 50:12.
(f) Apud Joseph. contr. Apion, l. 1. c. 19.

Her cities--the cities, her dependencies. So, "Jerusalem and the cities thereof" (Jeremiah 34:1). Or, the "cities" are the inner and outer cities, the two parts into which Babylon was divided by the Euphrates [GROTIUS].