Job 15:28. He dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps.
Many of the rude huts in the East are made of small stones or built of mud. The roof is made by covering the beams with brushwood, and this in turn with earth. The rain soaks into the earth, and the weight settling on brush and beams gradually breaks them down unless there is an industrious occupant (see Eccl. 10:18) to keep the roof in proper condition. When the roof is broken down the walls easily fall, and the whole house soon becomes a heap of ruins. But this is true not merely of such rude mud huts, but of large edifices, temples and palaces, built of sun-dried brick, as the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh amply testify.