Bible Strands
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.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh pronounces judgment on Jerusalem and Judah immediately after describing the scorched mountains and abandoned pastures of the region. The prophet delivers this oracle to a covenant community whose systemic rebellion has triggered divine abandonment.
The words — נָתַתִּי (naṯattî) literally means “I will make” or “I will give,” emphasizing divine agency in the coming ruin. גַלִּים (gallîm) translates as “heaps of stones” or “rubble piles,” specifying the physical state of Jerusalem after its fall.
The thread — This imagery of fortified cities becoming rubble and jackal haunts recurs in Isaiah 25:2, Isaiah 13:22, and Isaiah 34:13. These passages consistently apply the same desolation motif to divine judgment on urban strongholds.
Why it lands — The text requires readers to recognize that covenant failure produces irreversible ecological and demographic collapse. It demands a sober acknowledgment that moral rebellion directly results in the loss of human habitation and order.
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 I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 25:2 Indeed, You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin. The fortress of strangers is a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.
- Isaiah 13:22 Hyenas will howl in her fortresses and jackals in her luxurious palaces. Babylon’s time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.
- 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.
- 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.
- Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.
- Psalms 79:1 A Psalm of Asaph. The nations, O God, have invaded Your inheritance; they have defiled Your holy temple and reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
- Jeremiah 25:11 And this whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
- Jeremiah 26:18 “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’
- Jeremiah 34:22 Behold, I am going to give the command, declares the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, capture it, and burn it down. And I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
- Lamentations 2:2 Without pity the Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob. In His wrath He has demolished the fortified cities of the Daughter of Judah. He brought to the ground and defiled her kingdom and its princes.