Isaiah 13:16
in Isaiah 13Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Their infants also shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be rifled, and their wives ravished.
KJV
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
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This verse in Isaiah 13
Commentary
9 notes on this verse(Verse 16.) Their infants will be shattered before their eyes: their houses will be plundered, and their wives violated. This is what David prophesied in the Spirit: O daughter of Babylon, miserable one, blessed is he who will repay you according to what you have done to us. Blessed is he who will seize and shatter your little ones against the rock (Psalm 139:8).
This site's exposition
Like a hunted gazelle
on Isaiah 13:14-16
The hunted gazelle pictures the foreign residents and hired soldiers within Babylon scattering for their homelands. What follows is siege warfare at its worst: infants are dashed to pieces. Scripture records this cruelty without approving it, and the prophets use the same words of Israel's suffering under Assyria and Babylon.
This site's exposition
Their infants will be dashed to pieces
This is the fate Babylon had dealt to others, and Psalm 137:8-9 calls for the same repayment. Jerome joined the verse to that psalm. Matthew Henry held that God was righteous in permitting what cruel men did before their eyes.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
(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 14-16.) And it shall be like a frightened doe and like a flock of sheep, and there will be no one to gather them. Each one will turn to their own people, and they will each flee to their own land. Everyone who is found will be killed, and everyone who comes upon them will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives will be violated.
The Medieval Church1 voice
Second, in the pillaging of goods: their houses shall be pillaged: our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers (Lam 5:2); third, as to the violation of women: their wives shall be ravished: they humiliated the women in Zion (Lam 5:11).
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes,....
How cruel soever and unjust those were that did it, God was righteous who suffered it to be done, and to be done before their eyes, to their greater terror and vexation. It was just also that the houses which they had filled with the spoil of Israel should be spoiled and plundered. What is got by rapine is often lost in the same manner.
1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces - This is a description of the horrors of the capture of Babylon; and there can be none more frightful and appalling than that which is here presented. That this is done in barbarous nations in the time of war, there can be no doubt. Nothing was more common among American savages, than to dash out the brains of infants against a rock or a tree, and it was often done before the eyes of the afflicted and heartbroken parents.
The words behind it
7 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְעֹלְלֵיהֶ֥ם | veoleleihem | and children their | H5768 → | |
| יְרֻטְּשׁ֖וּ | yeruteshu | they will be dashed in pieces | H7376 → | |
| לְעֵֽינֵיהֶ֑ם | leeineihem | to eyes their | H5869 → | 887 times |
| יִשַּׁ֙סּוּ֙ | yishasu | they will be plundered | H8155 → | |
| בָּֽתֵּיהֶ֔ם | bateihem | houses their | H1004 → | 2046 times |
| וּנְשֵׁיהֶ֖ם | unesheihem | and wives their | H802 → | 781 times |
| תִּשָּׁכַֽבְנָה׃ | tishakhabnah | they will be lain with | H7901 → | 212 times |
וְעֹלְלֵיהֶ֥םand children their
veoleleihemH5768 →
יְרֻטְּשׁ֖וּthey will be dashed in pieces
yeruteshuH7376 →
לְעֵֽינֵיהֶ֑םto eyes their
leeineihemH5869 →887 times
יִשַּׁ֙סּוּ֙they will be plundered
yishasuH8155 →
בָּֽתֵּיהֶ֔םhouses their
bateihemH1004 →2046 times
וּנְשֵׁיהֶ֖םand wives their
unesheihemH802 →781 times
תִּשָּׁכַֽבְנָה׃they will be lain with
tishakhabnahH7901 →212 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Hosea 10:14the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be demolished as Shalman devastated Beth-arbel in the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces along with…
it leads to
- Hosea 13:16
Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
Reached by 3 separate paths from here.
- 2 Kings 18:9–10
In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.
- Hosea 13:16
Through
Isaiah 13:18Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.
it leads to
- 2 Kings 8:12
“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword,…
- 2 Chronicles 36:17
So He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who put their young men to the sword in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm. God…
- 2 Kings 8:12
Through
Nahum 3:10Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. They cast lots for her dignitaries, and all her nobles were bound in…
it leads to
- Isaiah 20:4
so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old alike, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks—to Egypt’s shame.
- Joel 3:3
They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.
- Obadiah 1:11
On the day you stood aloof while strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gate and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them.
- Isaiah 20:4
Through
Lamentations 5:11Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.
it leads to
- Zechariah 14:2
For I will gather all the nations for battle against Jerusalem, and the city will be captured, the houses looted, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go into exile, but the…
- Zechariah 14:2
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Isaiah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.