Jerome, Saint, Commentariorum In Isaim Prophetam Libri Duodeviginti

(Vers. 20-22.) « Nec ponet ibi tentoria Arabs; nec pastores requiescent ibi : sed erunt ibi bestiæ, replebuntur donnus eorum draconibus, ei habitabunt ibi struthiones, et pilosi sahabunt ibi. Et respondebunt ululae in sedibus ejus, et Sirenae in delubris voluptatis. » In tantum Babylon vastata crit atque deserta, ut ne ad pascua quidein armentorum ut pecorum utilis sit. Non euim tendet ibi Arabs Saracenusquc tentoria, nec pastores post vestigia gregum fessi labore quiescent : s"d inter parietinas et augustias veterum ruinarum habitabunt SIIM () : quod soli LXX bestias transtulerunt : alii ipso nomine quod apud Hebræos fcriptum est, volentes genera daemonum intelligi vel phantasmata. Et replebuntur, inquit, domus, ut nos diximus, draconibus : ut Aquila transtulit, typhonibus, ut Symmachus ONIM () 1, ipsum verbum H ebraicum exprimens ; LXX vero et Theodotio clamores, vel sonitus interpretati sunt. Quodque sequitur : Pilosi saltabunt ibi, vel incubones, vel satyros, 175 vel silvestres quosdam homines, quos nonnulli Fatuos ficarios vocant *, aut dæmonum gencra intel igunt. Pro ululis quoque omnes ipsum verbum Hebraicum IIM () a, soli LXX onocentauros transtulerunt. Sirenæ autem THENNIM () vocantur, quas nos aut dæmones, aut monstra quælam, vel certe dracones magnos intrepretab - mur 4, qui cristati sunt et volantes. Perqua: omnia vastitatis et solitudinis signa monstrantur : quod tanta sit depopulatio urbis quondam potentissimæ, ut præ multitudine dæmonum ac bestiarum nullus cain audeat pastorum, id est, deserti appetitor iurare. Didicimus a quodam fratre Elamita, qui de illis linibus cgredicus, nunc Hierosolymis vitam cxigit monachorum, venationes regias esse in Babylone, et omnis generis bestias murorum ejus tantum ambitu cOerceri '.

(Verses 20–22.) “Nor will the Arab pitch his tents there, nor will shepherds rest there; but wild beasts will be there, their houses will be filled with serpents, and ostriches will live there, and hairy ones will dance there. And owls will answer in its dwellings, and Sirens in the shrines of pleasure.” Babylon will be so devastated and deserted that it will not be of use even as pasture for herds or flocks. For neither Arab nor Saracen will stretch out his tents there, nor will shepherds, weary with toil, rest there as they follow the tracks of their flocks; but among the broken walls and narrow passages of the old ruins siim will dwell, which the Septuagint alone translated “beasts”; the others [kept] the very name that is written in the Hebrew, wanting kinds of demons or phantoms to be understood. “And the houses,” he says, “will be filled”, as we have rendered it, “with serpents”; as Aquila translated, “with typhons”; as Symmachus, onim, giving the Hebrew word itself; but the Septuagint and Theodotion interpreted it as “cries” or “noises”. And as for what follows, “Hairy ones will dance there”, they understand either incubi, or satyrs, or certain wild men of the woods, whom some call fatui ficarii [fig-tree fauns], or kinds of demons. For “owls” too, all [kept] the Hebrew word itself, iim; the Septuagint alone translated “onocentaurs”. The Sirens are called thennim, which we interpret either as demons, or certain monsters, or at any rate great serpents, which are crested and fly. By all these, signs of desolation and solitude are shown: that the depopulation of a city once most powerful is so great that, because of the multitude of demons and beasts, none of the shepherds, that is, no one who seeks out the desert, dares to enter it. We have learned from a certain brother, an Elamite, who came out of those regions and now lives the life of the monks at Jerusalem, that there are royal hunting-grounds in Babylon, and that beasts of every kind are confined only by the circuit of its walls.