a bow · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural absolute
dash
תְּרַטַּ֑שְׁנָהte.ra.Tash.nah
H7376
to dash down · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person feminine plural
men
נְעָרִ֣יםne.'a.Rim
H5288
(concretely) a boy (as active) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
pieces
רָטָשׁrâṭâsh
H7376
to dash down
pity
יְרַחֵ֔מוּye.ra.Che.mu
H7355
to fondle · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
fruit
וּפְרִיu.fe.ri-
H6529
fruit (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
womb
בֶ֙טֶן֙ve.ten
H990
the belly · noun, common feminine singular absolute
eye
עֵינָֽם'ei.Nam
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
spare
תָח֥וּסta.Chus
H2347
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
children
בָּנִ֖יםba.Nim
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
2 Kings 8:12 And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong h…
2 Chronicles 36:17 Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no…
Isaiah 13:16 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
Ezekiel 9:5-6 And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:
Ezekiel 9:10 And as for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.
Hosea 13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces,…
Nahum 2:1 He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face: keep the munition, watch the way, make thy loins strong, fortify thy power mightily.
Nahum 3:10 Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cas…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 13:6-18
We have here a very elegant and lively description of the terrible confusion and desolation which should be made in Babylon by the descent which the Medes and Persians should make upon it. Those that were now secure and easy were bidden to howl and make sad lamentation; for,
I. God was about to appear in wrath against them, and it is a fearful thing to fall into his hands: The day of the Lord is at hand (Isa 13:6), a little day of judgment, when God will act as a just avenger of his own and his people's injured cause. And there are those who will have reason to tremble when that day is at hand. The day of the Lord cometh, Isa 13:9. Men have their day now, and they think to carry the day; but…
bows--in the use of which the Persians were particularly skilled.
John Gill on Isaiah 13:18
Their bows also shall dash their young men to pieces,.... That is, the bows of the Medes should dash in pieces the young men of the Babylonians. The meaning is, either that they should put them into their bows, instead of arrows, and shoot them upon the ground, or against a wall, and so dash them to pieces; or that they should first shoot them through with their arrows, and then dash them with their bows; according to Xenophon (l), Cyrus came to Babylon with great numbers of archers and slingers:
and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; even of those that were in the womb, but should rip up women with child, and cut them in pieces:
their eyes shall not spare children; in the a…
And with bows they shall dash in pieces the children. [207] Some render it, they shall cut. They think that the language is exaggerated, as if they made use of the children of the Babylonians in place of arrows, and afterwards dashed them to the ground, that they might be broken with greater violence. But I choose rather to take a more simple view of the words, that the cruelty of the Medes will be so great, that they will not spare even infant children, on whom men do not commonly lay hands unless where there is the utmost barbarity; and, in short, that no allowance will be made for age, as we have formerly said.
But we do not read that the Medes exercised so great cruelty, and Babylon sto…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 18.) But they will kill the small ones with their arrows, and they will have no pity on the infants of the womb, and their eyes will not spare the children. The small ones will be killed, and their wounds will be no smaller than their bodies, and the bellies of the pregnant women will be cut open, and the infants will be cast aside, and the cruel victor will kill the children pressed to their mothers' breasts.
(Verse 18, 19.) All the kings of the nations slept in glory, each one in his own house. But you have been cast out of your tomb like a fetid liquid: defiled, wrapped up with the slain and those pierced by the sword, who descend to the depths of the pit. LXX: All the kings of the nations slept in honor, each one in his own house. But you will be cast down on the mountains like an untimely birth, abominable and wrapped up with the slain who descend to the foundations of the earth. The kings of the nations, to whom God had entrusted the governance of the nations according to the Song of Deuteronomy (Deut. XXXII), were shaken by Nebuchadnezzar, but not overthrown, because their sin did not reign over them; rather, because their hearts were in the hand of God, they did not fall. Indeed, just as the Savior is called the God of gods, so the Lord is the Lord of lords and the king of kings. Therefore, all these kings rested in their glory, each in his own house. For there are many mansions in my Father's house (John 14): and due to the variety of virtues, there are differences in dwellings. Moreover, Nebuchadnezzar was thrown out of his tomb and did not rest from torments in death. He was thrown out like a discharge, which in Hebrew is called Neser, which Aquila interpreted as ichor, i.e., decay and filth, which Symmachus called abortion, i.e., dead in the Septuagint, Theodotion germ: although this very word above (Chapter 11, verse 1) where we read about Christ: A shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit, in the Septuagint they translated it as flower, Theodotion germ, Aquila as sapling, i.e., twig. But Neser is properly called a sapling, which grows at the roots of trees and is cast aside by farmers as useless, hence we have transferred the useless stock. Therefore, let Nabuchodonosor, like a useless sapling, be prepared for fire, or like polluted blood, wrapped up with those who were killed by his sword and have descended to the depths of the lake, may he be dragged down into the abyss, and not even have the company of those whom he killed in burial. For the punishment of one is the act of the guilty, and of another who is compelled by the one who committed the act. This is the sword by which many were wounded and killed, of which we read in the seventh psalm: Unless you be converted, he will brandish his sword;…
Dictionary and topics
Archer — A shooter with the bow (1 Chr. 10:3). This art was of high antiquity (Gen. 21:20; 27:3). Saul was wounded by the Philistine archers (1 Sam. 31:3). The phrase “breaking the bow” (Hos. 1:5; Jer. 49:35)…
Babylon — The Greek form of BABEL; Semitic form Babilu, meaning “The Gate of God.” In the Assyrian tablets it means “The city of the dispersion of the tribes.” The monumental list of its kings reaches back to…
Captive — One taken in war. Captives were often treated with great cruelty and indignity (1 Kings 20:32; Josh. 10:24; Judg. 1:7; 2 Sam. 4:12; Judg. 8:7; 2 Sam. 12:31; 1 Chr. 20:3). When a city was taken by…
Archery · Practiced by the Persians — Practiced by the Persians
Babylon · Predictions respecting: Destruction of — Predictions respecting: Destruction of
Bow · .Used in war — .Used in war
Cruelty · .In war — .In war
Cyrus · Prophecies concerning — Prophecies concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
"And bows dash down young men; and they have no compassion on the fruit of the womb: their eye has no pity on children." The bows do not stand for the bowmen (see Isa 21:17), but the bows of the latter dash the young men to the ground by means of the arrows shot from them. They did not spare the fruit of the womb, since they ripped up the bodies of those that were with child (Kg2 8:12; Kg2 15:16, etc.). Even towards children they felt no emotion of compassionate regard, such as would express itself in the eye: chuus, to feel, more especially to feel with another, i.e., to sympathize; here and in Eze 5:11 it is ascribed to the eye as the mirror of the soul (compare the Arabic chasyet el-‛ain…
The Lord is sovereign and controls history. He can stir up kingdoms to execute his will. • The Medes from northwestern Iran joined Persian King Cyrus in fighting against Babylon in 539 BC.
Rashi on Isaiah 13:18
And the bows of the peoples of Media.
youths of Babylon.
shall dash shall split with their arrows that they shoot with their bows.
newborn [lit. fruit of the womb] Frail infants.
(Verse 18 and following) And Babylon will be glorious among the kingdoms, renowned in the pride of the Chaldeans, just as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will not be inhabited forever, nor will it be founded to generation and generation: nor will the Arabs pitch their tents there, nor will shepherds rest there: but beasts will rest there, and their houses will be filled with dragons: and ostriches will dwell there, and shaggy creatures will dance there; and owls will respond there in its houses: and sirens in the temples of pleasure. (Chapter XIV, Verse 1) The time is near for it to come, and its days will not be prolonged. LXX: And Babylon, which is called the glorious and famous city of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall not be inhabited forever, nor shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pass by it, nor the shepherds rest there, but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of howling creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there, and the wild asses shall dwell there, and hedgehogs shall make their lodgings in their houses. He will come quickly and will not delay. The following should be noted with asterisks, because they are additions from Theodotion. Stirring up the city of confusion against the Medes, who do not consider gold as valuable, nor silver; who kill young children with arrows, and show no mercy to infants, and do not spare the eyes of their children. Once a renowned city that was proud of the Chaldeans, who are interpreted as demons, it will be overturned just as Sodom and Gomorrah were overturned; so that no trace of its former glory remains: but after the new heaven and the new earth, and the passing away of the figure of this world (I Cor. VII), the city of confusion will not be inhabited forever; and it will never regain the same state. For he will not set up there, once he has ceased to be in his former glory, his tents, which are called 'Arabs', meaning 'western' and 'evening'; so that he desires to dwell in the place he sees as deserted. However, 'Arabs' is taken in a positive sense in this context: that he always strives towards the end, and forgetting the past, extends himself towards the earlier times. Nor will shepherds rest there, who usually feed the gentle flock of the Lord in Jerusalem; but…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
