chor.bah denotes devastated land or cities, including ruined places left uninhabited or later rebuilt.

The term most often names a condition of devastation imposed on a land, city, or people’s territory; it also identifies the ruined places themselves, whether occupied, abandoned, or restored. The supplied verses repeatedly place it in announcements of destruction and in promises or acts of rebuilding.

1. Devastation of a land or city · dominant

   In Jeremiah 25:11 the singular absolute form occurs in the announcement that the whole land will become a devastated condition, while Jeremiah 44:22 connects that condition with a land left without inhabitant. Ezekiel 29:9 likewise places the singular form in a clause about Egypt becoming waste and devastation, and Leviticus 26:33 joins the land's devastation to the cities' desolated state.

   Jeremiah 25:11Jeremiah 44:22Ezekiel 29:9Leviticus 26:33Ezekiel 5:14Jeremiah 7:34
2. Ruined places as locations to inhabit or rebuild · common

   Plural forms identify places that can have inhabitants or receive rebuilding: in Ezekiel 36:33 the APB renders the clause that cities will be inhabited and the desolations rebuilt. Isaiah 58:12 speaks of rebuilding ancient ruins, while Ezekiel 33:27 distinguishes those who are in the ruins from people in open land, strongholds, and caves.

   Ezekiel 36:33Isaiah 58:12Ezekiel 33:27Ezra 9:9Isaiah 44:26Malachi 1:4

In the Anselm Project Bible: Across these verses, the APB presents the term with expressions such as “desolation,” “ruins,” “desolate places,” “waste,” and “devastation.” These are renderings of whole clauses in a translation rather than a fixed word-by-word equivalent.