Wolves will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.
Dragons are real creatures.
Zoology
38
passages in this field
Show this passage in
The cited passage
Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.
“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”
What current science says
Dragons are mythological creatures - no flying, fire-breathing reptiles have ever existed. There's no fossil evidence for them. Dinosaurs existed millions of years before humans and were very different from dragon legends. Dragons appear in myths worldwide but aren't real.
What the text says
Isaiah 13:22, Isaiah 34:13, and Jeremiah 9:11 in the KJV speak of 'dragons' inhabiting desolate places - treating dragons as real creatures (rendering the Hebrew 'tanniyn').
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.