Babel shall be as God's overthrowing Sodom and Gomorrah, it shall not be inhabited to eternity, so that the Arab shall not tarry there. The ziim shall lie down there, and their houses shall be filled with ochim, and the daughters of the owl shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there; the ijim also shall answer in her palaces, and dragons also in the palaces of her delights Isa. xiii 19-22.

In the same:-

I will cut off from Babel the name and remnant; I will make her an inheritance of the bittern Isa. xiv 22, 23.

And in Jeremiah:-

In Babel shall dwell the ziim and the ijim and the daughters of the owl, according to God's overthrowing Sodom and Gomorrah and the suburbs thereof; no son of man shall dwell there Jer. 1 39, 40.

It is plain from these that by 'a hold of every unclean spirit, and of every unclean and hateful bird' is signified that the evils of will and thence of deed, and the untruths of thought and thence of deliberation, of those who are in the hells are diabolical because they are turned away from the Lord to their own selves. [2] That' birds 'signify such things as are of the understanding and thought and thence of deliberation in both a good and a bad sense is plain from the Word. In the bad sense there in these passages:-

In the midst of the week He shall make* the sacrifice to cease, at length upon the bird of abominations [shall be] desolation, until the consummation the devastation shall drip down Dan. ix 27.

The cormorant and the bittern shall possess the land, the screech-owl and the raven shall dwell therein Isa. xxxiv 11.

Nothing else but infernal untruths are signified by 'ochim', 'ziim', 'daughters of the owl' and 'dragons' in the passages cited above; also by:-

The birds that came down upon the carcass, which Abram drove away Gen. xv 11.

The birds to which their carcasses would be given for food Jer. vii 33; xv 3; xvi 4; xix 7; xxxiv 20; Ezek. xxix 5; Ps. lxxix 1, 2.

The birds that devour what has been sown Matt. xiii 3, 4.

[3] In a good sense in these passages:-

Creeping thing and bird, let them praise the Name of Jehovah Ps. cxlviii 10.

I will make a covenant with them in that day, with the bird of the heavens and the creeping thing of the land Hosea ii 18.

Ask the beasts and they shall teach thee, and the birds of heaven and they shall tell thee. Who does not know from all these that the hand of Jehovah does it? Job xii 7-9.

I saw when, behold, there is no man, every bird of the heavens has flown away Jer. iv 24-26.

From the bird of the heavens even to the beast they have fled, because I will make Jerusalem heaps, a habitation of dragons Jer. ix 10, 11 [H.B. 9, 10]; xii 9.

There is no truth (veritas), no mercy, no recognition of God; on account of this the land shall mourn as to the beast of the field and as to the bird of the heavens Hosea iv 1, 3.

I am God, calling the bird from the east, the man of deliberation from afar off Isa. xlvi 9 [, 11].

Asshur is a cedar in Lebanon, in his branches all the birds of the heavens have built their nests, and in his shadow all the great nations have dwelt Ezek. xxxi 3, 6.

[4] Things similar to this said of Asshur as a cedar are said elsewhere, as Ezek. xvii 23; Dan. iv 10-14, 20, 21 [H.B. 7-11, 17, 18]; Matt. xiii 31, 32; Mark iv 32; Luke xiii 19.

Say to the bird of every wing, and to every beast of the field, Come to a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel; thus will I give My glory among the nations Ezek. xxxix 17 21; Rev. xix 17;

besides elsewhere, as Isa. xviii 1, 6; Ezek. xxxviii 20; Hosea ix 11; xi 10, 11; Zeph. i 3; Ps. viii 6-8 [H.B. 7-9]; l 11; civ 10, 12. That 'birds' signify things that are of the understanding and thence of thought and deliberation is quite plain from the birds in the spiritual world. Birds of every genus and species also appear there, the most beautiful ones in heaven, birds of paradise, turtle-doves and doves. In hell dragons, screech-owls, horned owls and others like them. All of these are life-like representations of thoughts derived from good affections in heaven, and of thoughts derived from evil affections in hell. * Reading faciet (he shall make) instead of faciam (I will make).