Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.
Wild beasts of the desert - wild cats, remarkable for their howl (Bochart).
Wild beasts of the islands - jackals (note, Isaiah 13:21-22).
Owls - rather, female ostriches; they delight in solitary places. Literally, daughters of crying. (Compare as to spiritual Babylon, Revelation 18:2).
It shall be no more inhabited forever - the accumulation of phrases is to express the final and utter extinction of Babylon; fulfilled not immediately, but by degrees: Cyrus took away its supremacy. Darius Hystaspes deprived it, when it had rebelled, of its fortifications. Seleucus Nicanor removed its citizens and wealth to Seleucia, which he founded in the neighbourhood; and the Parthians removed all that was left to Ctesiphon. Nothing but its walls was left under the Roman emperor Adrian.