Because of the wrath of the Lord, it shall not be inhabited,.... That is, Babylon; which the Targum expresses,"because thou, Babylon, hast provoked the Lord;''by their idolatry, luxury, ill usage of his people, and profanation of the vessels of the sanctuary; therefore it should be destroyed, and left without an inhabitant in it:but it shall be wholly desolate; as it now is.
Pausanias says , in his time there was nothing but a wall remaining; and Jerom says, he had it from a brother Elamite, or Persian, that Babylon was then a park or place for royal hunting, and that beasts of every kind were kept within its walls: of mystical Babylon, see Re 16:19;everyone that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues; any traveller that had seen it in its glory would now be astonished to see the desolation of it; and, by way of scorn and derision, hiss at the judgments of God upon it, and rejoice at them, and shake their head, as the Targum.
Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 509. Comment. in Isaiam, fol. 23.