Jeremiah 51:37
And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.
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 {a} 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 {b} says it was in his time, that men durst not enter into it; see Jeremiah 50:39;
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.
{a} De Animal. l. 6. c. 63.
{b} Itinerarium, p. 76.