Psalms 137:8

O daughter of Babylon The city of Babylon personified.

who art to be destroyed The most obvious translation is that of R.V. marg., that art laid waste. So Aq. and Jerome, vastata. But the following clauses apparently imply that Babylon has not been destroyed, and the participle may be -prophetic," that art doomed to be laid waste[84]. Delitzsch quotes examples of a similar idiom in Arabic. -The stricken one,"=-one who is doomed to be stricken." So Theodotion, ἡ διαρπασθησομένη. Some of the Ancient Versions, however (Symm., Syr., Targ.), render thou waster, a rendering which only requires a slight change of the text, and is adopted by many critics.

[84] Coverdale and the Great Bible of 1539 have, thou shalt come to misery thy self, from Zürich Bible, und du Babel, wirst auch ellend werden. The P.B.V. wasted with misery, from the Great Bible of 1540, may have been suggested by Münster's devastataand the Vulg. misera.