ma.pe.lah denotes a city or fortified place reduced to devastation and no longer standing as a city.

The attested use describes the devastation of built places: in one verse a fortified town is made into a condition from which it will not be rebuilt, and in the other towers and citadels are stripped as a place is made desolate.

1. Devastation of a city or fortified place · dominant

   Both occurrences use the feminine singular absolute noun in scenes of a place being reduced. In Isaiah 25:2 the APB renders a fortified town as turned “into ruin,” followed by the statement that it will never be rebuilt; in Isaiah 23:13 it renders the outcome of stripped towers and citadels as “a ruin.”

   Isaiah 25:2Isaiah 23:13

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB uses “ruin” in both cited verses, though it is a whole-verse translation.