Revision 62d6bdd1-fb1f-4557-9844-a9b3d4872c85 - Stack Overflow

Although one of the issues described here is a duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/750486/javascript-closure-inside-loops-simple-practical-example, there are other issues like infinite recursive call of `changeBack`.

I think a better approach will be

<!-- begin snippet: js hide: false -->

<!-- language: lang-js -->

 /* jshint loopfunc:true */
 var url = ["http://protiumdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Material-Design-Background-1024.jpg", "http://i.imgur.com/wt4NRqA.jpg", "http://i0.wp.com/thezinx.com/wp-content/uploads/md-6.png"];

 $(document).ready(function() {
 var i = 0;

 function changeBack() {
 $('#elem').fadeTo('slow', 0.3, function() {
 $(this).css('background-image', 'url(' + url[i++] + ')');
 i = i < url.length ? i : 0
 }).fadeTo('slow', 1).delay(1000).promise().done(changeBack);
 }
 changeBack();
 });

<!-- language: lang-css -->

 #elem {
 width: 500px;
 height: 300px;
 background-size: 100%;
 background-color: red;
 }

<!-- language: lang-html -->

 <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
 <div id='elem'></div>

<!-- end snippet -->