Isaiah 13:17

Therefore, the prophet is commanded to speak to the sons of Ammon, and to their reproach, that they themselves are to be captured, and he directs the same sword speech to them: Oh sword, sword, which is ready for slaughter, which is sharpened, so that you may shine and kill... nevertheless, after completing your work, which you have done against the sons of Ammon, return to your sheath, that is, to Babylon, to the place where you were made and created: so that in the land of your birth I may judge you, and I will pour out my indignation upon you, and you shall be captured by the power of the Medes and Persians. What is said more fully in the book of Isaiah, in a vision against Babylon: Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them. And a little later: And Babylon, that glorious one among kingdoms, renowned for its pride among the Chaldeans, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, it shall never be inhabited until the end.

[Daniel 5:30-31] "On that same night Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, was slain, and Darius the Mede succeeded to his kingdom at the age of sixty-two." Josephus writes in his tenth book of the Jewish Antiquities that when Babylon had been laid under siege by the Medes and Persians, that is, by Darius and Cyrus, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, fell into such forgetfulness of his own situation as to put on his celebrated banquet and drink from the vessels of the Temple, and even while he was besieged he found leisure for banqueting. From this circumstance the historical account could arise, that he was captured and slaughtered on the same night, while everyone was either terrified by fear of the vision and its interpretation, or else taken up with festivity and drunken banqueting. As for the fact that while Cyrus, King of the Persians, was the victor, and Darius was only King of the Medes, it was Darius who was recorded to have succeeded to the throne of Babylon, this was an arrangement occasioned by factors of age, family relationship, and the territory ruled over. By this I mean that Darius was sixty-two years old, and that, according to what we read, the kingdom of the Medes was more sizable than that of the Persians, and being Cyrus's uncle, he naturally had a prior claim, and ought to have been accounted as successor to the rule of Babylon. Therefore also in a vision of Isaiah which was recited against Babylon, after many other matters too lengthy to mention, an account is given of these things which are to take place: "Behold I Myself will rouse up against them the Medes, a people who do not seek after silver nor desire gold, but who slay the very children with their arrows and have no compassion upon women who suckle their young" (Isaiah 13:17-18). […]

(Verse 16, 17.) Those who see you will bow down to you, and they will look at you. Is this the man who troubled the earth? who shook kingdoms? who made the world a desert, and destroyed its cities, and did not open the prison to those who were bound? Or as the Seventy translated: did he not release those who were led? Those who see King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, not with the eyes, but with the sight of the heart, falling from heaven to hell, will bow down with humility, which is contrary to pride, and they will look at him saying these things: Is this not the man, or the human, who troubled or stirred up the earth? Testimony of the senses: Whoever said, 'I will be like the Most High, and exalted himself as God,' is proven to be a man, as is stated in the ninth psalm, which is specifically against the devil: 'Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail' (Psalm 9:19). And in the Gospel: 'An enemy has sown weeds among the wheat' (Matthew 13:25). Therefore, we read that it was said to him and his companions: 'I said, You are gods, sons of the Most High, but you shall die like men, and fall like any prince' (Psalm 81:6). And to the same person under the figure of the prince of Tyre it is said: Because your heart is exalted, and you have said: I am God, I dwell in the heart of the sea, whereas you are a man, and not God, and have set your heart as if it were the heart of God (Ezek. 28:2). This man, and this man alone, has troubled the whole earth, namely those who heard with Adam: You are dust, and to dust you shall return (Gen. 3:19), and has shaken kingdoms and kings whose hearts are in the hand of the Lord (Proverbs 21). He struck, he says, but did not overthrow. And hence one of those who had been struck, and yet had not fallen, spoke: But my feet have almost stumbled (Psalm 73:2). […]

(Verse 17) Behold, I will raise up the Medes against them, who do not seek silver and do not desire gold. What was hidden is now revealed: that the mighty and giant ones are not angels or demons, but rather the people of the Medes, whose leader Darius, the first king of the Babylonians, destroyed the empire after killing Balthasar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, who was the son of Evilmerodach. (Daniel 5) However, it is written about the cruelty of the Medes and Persians that they despise gold and silver in their burning desire to shed blood, considering wealth offered to them as worthless dirt.

Behold I will stir up the Medes against them. Here he describes the ferocity of the enemy, which is not appeased by tribute: who shall not seek silver.