Bible Strands
Isaiah 34:13
Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet pronounces judgment on Edom, declaring that its human leadership has collapsed and no nobles remain to establish a king.
The words — אַרְמְנֹתֶיהָ ('ar.me.no.tei.ha) translates literally to "its fortresses," while נְוֵה (ne.Veh) means "a habitation," marking the shift from human strongholds to animal dwellings.
The thread — This imagery of ruined cities becoming jackal haunts parallels Jeremiah 9:11 and Jeremiah 10:22, where desolation follows divine judgment on Judah and Jerusalem.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that human political power is temporary and that divine judgment will permanently reverse human order into wild desolation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 9:11 “And I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals; and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Jeremiah 10:22 Listen! The sound of a report is coming—a great commotion from the land to the north. It will make the cities of Judah a desolation, a haunt for jackals.
- Psalms 44:19 But You have crushed us in the lair of jackals; You have covered us with deepest darkness.
- Malachi 1:3 but Esau I have hated, and I have made his mountains a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”
- Isaiah 13:21 But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.
- Isaiah 32:13 and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.
- Isaiah 35:7 The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.
- Jeremiah 49:33 “Hazor will become a haunt for jackals, a desolation forever. No one will dwell there; no man will abide there.”
- Jeremiah 50:39 So the desert creatures and hyenas will live there and ostriches will dwell there. It will never again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation.
- Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.