Isaiah 34:14

(Verses 8 and following) For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, the year of retribution in the judgment of Zion. Its streams will be turned into pitch, and its soil into sulfur; its land will become burning pitch. Night and day it will not be extinguished; its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will pass through it forever. The pelican and the hedgehog will possess it, the owl and the raven will dwell in it.

741. And it shall be the habitation of dragons. Here he shows the horror of the desolation from the monsters which dwelt there: demons, monsters of demons, which appear most in deserts; onocentaur, which is half ass and half ox, or this is the illusion …

Leopards, and all the rav'ning brotherhoods That range the plains, or lurk in woods, Each other shall invite to come, And make this wilder place their home. Fierce beasts of every frightful shape and size Shall settle here their bloody colonies.

The weld beasts of the desert - ציים tsiyim, the mountain cats. - Bochart. Wild beasts of the island - איים aiyim, the jackals. The satyr - שעיר seir, the hairy one, probably the he-goat. The screech owl - לילית lilith, the night-bird, the night-raven, nyctycorax, from ליל layil, or לילה lailah, the night.

The wild beasts of the desert - There is in the original here a paronomasia, which cannot be conveyed in a translation. The word rendered, ‘wild beasts of the desert’ (ציים tsı̂yı̂ym), is rendered by the Septuagint, δαιμόνια daimonia, ‘demons.’ On the meaning of the word, see the note at Isa 13:21. The wild beasts of the island - Margin, ‘Ijim.’ Hebrew, איּים 'ı̂yym (see the note at Isa 13:22). Probably the term denotes the jackal. Gesenius supposes it is so called from its howl, or nocturnal cry - from an Arabia word signifying to howl. And the satyr - (see the note at Isa 13:21). Shall cry to his fellow - A most striking description of the desolation, when all that is heard among the ruins shall be the doleful cry of wild beasts. The screech-owl - Margin, ‘Night-monster.’ The word לילית lı̂ylı̂yt (from ליל layil, night) properly denotes a night-spectre - a creature of Jewish superstition. The rabbis describe it in the form of a female elegantly dressed that lay in wait for children at night - either to carry them off, or to murder them. The Greeks had a similar idea respecting the female ἔμπουτα empouta, and this idea corresponds to the Roman fables respecting the Lamice, and Striges, and to the Arabic notions of the Ghules, whom they described as female monsters that dwell in deserts, and tear men to pieces (see Gesenius, Com. in loc; and Bochart, Hieroz. ii. 831). The margin in our version expresses the correct idea. All this is descriptive of utter and perpetual desolation - of a land that should be full of old ruins, and inhabited by the animals that usually make such ruins their abode.