Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 51:43

"Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby." — Jeremiah 51:43 (ASV)

Her cities are a desolation ... —The word for “wilderness” is Arabah, commonly used of the sandy desert south of the Dead Sea. The prophet seems to dwell with a stern delight on the seeming paradox that the sea with which Babylon is to be oversown, the floods of invaders and destroyers, shall leave her cities and her plains drier and more sandy than before.