In Hebrew the verbs in verses 41-43 are in the perfect or past tense, describing or picturing the fall of Babylon as an event that has already happened. Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, along with New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible, and others, retain this perspective. There are other instances in the prophets, however, of the use of a dirge or lament as a rhetorical device to give a message about what will happen to a city or nation in the future, and that may be the case here. New International Version, for instance, has all the verbs in this whole section in the future tense, as does Contemporary English Version. Translators will need to handle all the verbs in the section in a way that makes sense for their own readers or hearers.

Although in English the word How often means “in what manner,” in fact in both occurrences in this verse it is an exclamation calling attention to an amazing fact (see 50.23). This is a typical device in laments. Translators should use whatever construction in their language would communicate that. Possibilities for the first line in English include “Imagine, Babylon has been captured!” and “It seems impossible, but Babylon has been captured.”

Babylon is literally “Sheshach” (see 25.26). This is a reference to the city rather than the whole country.

The praise of the whole earth simply means “[the city] the whole earth praises.”

The two verbs, is taken and seized, mean essentially the same thing, though the second of the two may be somewhat stronger. Good News Translation combines the two verbs: “The city that the whole world praised has been captured!” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch restructures the first part of the verse as “How was this possible? Babylon has fallen, the city known throughout the world! How could it happen?”

How Babylon has become a horror among the nations: Horror was used in verses 29 (Revised Standard Version “desolation”) and 37 of this chapter and will be found again in verse 43. Its first occurrence is in 2.15, where Revised Standard Version has “waste.” This line appears in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch as “All peoples are astonished” and in Good News Translation as “What a horrifying sight Babylon has become to the nations!”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .