Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 49:17

"And Edom shall become an astonishment: every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof." — Jeremiah 49:17 (ASV)

Edom shall be a desolation. —The words did not receive an immediate or even a rapid fulfilment. Idumæa was a populous and powerful country in the time of John Hyrcanus. Petra, as we have seen, was rebuilt by the Romans as a centre of trade and government, and had its baths, and theatres, and temples. But the end came at last, and there are few lands, once the seat of a thriving nation, more utterly desolate than that of Edom. From the ninth century of the Christian era it disappears from history (Robinson’s Researches, ii. 575).