What Does Jeremiah 51:37 Mean in the King James?
And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “astonishment” shares its root with “desolation”: Babylon’s emptiness is both what remains and what shocks the witness.
THE MEANING
Babylon’s human order becomes rubble, and its former spaces become a dwelling for wild creatures with no human settler left. The verse holds desolation and astonishment together: the emptiness is not merely seen; it arrests the witness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a city’s power can make it permanent falls away: Babylon becomes heaps, and no human remains to settle there.
THE ROOT
שַׁמָּה
shammah
GROWS FROM
שמם
To be desolate or appalled; to lie waste.
The word translated “astonishment” shares its seed with desolation: a ruined place is not only empty; it is appalling. Hebrew holds the outer condition and the witness’s shock in one root, so the city’s emptiness lands as a felt rupture.
ALSO GROWS
shamem: Desolate, appalled
שָׁמֵם
This form shows the root can describe both a ruined state and the shock it produces.
shemamah: Desolation, waste
שְׁמָמָה
The same root names the devastated condition that Babylon becomes.
בָּבֶל
Bavel
GROWS FROM
בלל
To mix, mingle, or confuse; Genesis links Babel to this root through wordplay.
“Babylon” in this verse is Bavel. Genesis links Babel’s name with balal, “to confuse” or “mix,” through a sound-based wordplay. Here the named city becomes heaps and an emptied dwelling, so its human order ends in ruin.
ALSO GROWS
balal: To mix or confuse
בָּלַל
Genesis 11:9 uses this verb to explain Babel’s name.
Babel: Babel, or Babylon
בָּבֶל
Genesis connects the name with balal by wordplay, letting the name carry the idea of confusion.
יֹשֵׁב
yoshev
GROWS FROM
ישב
To sit, remain, or dwell.
The word for an inhabitant comes from a root that also means to sit or settle. The city is emptied of settled human presence, even as wild creatures take up dwelling there.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell, or settle
יָשַׁב
The root makes inhabiting a place a matter of settling into it.
moshav: A dwelling, seat, or settlement
מוֹשָׁב
This branch shows the same root shaping the place where someone settles.
THE PATTERN
Human centers of power can become places emptied of human presence and occupied by the wild.
Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.THE THREAD
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.Genesis links Babel’s name with balal, “to confuse” or “mix,” through wordplay. Jeremiah shows that named center emptied of human settlement, as its apparent power gives way to ruin.
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