16 Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
16 Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated.
16 Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.
16 Babies smashed on the rocks while mothers and fathers watch, Houses looted, wives raped.
16 Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
16 Their little children will be dashed to death before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked, and their wives will be raped.
11 They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
11 Women have been violated in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah.
11 Women are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.
11 Our wives were raped in the streets in Zion, and our virgins in the cities of Judah.
11 They ravished the women in Zion, The maidens in the cities of Judah.
11 Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem and the young girls in all the towns of Judah.
(Read Lamentations 5:1-16)
Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned! All our woes are owing to our own sin and folly. Though our sins and God's just displeasure cause our sufferings, we may hope in his pardoning mercy, his sanctifying grace, and his kind providence. But the sins of a man's whole life will be punished with vengeance at last, unless he obtains an interest in Him who bare our sins in his own body on the tree.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 13:16
Commentary on Isaiah 13:6-18
(Read Isaiah 13:6-18)
We have here the terrible desolation of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. Those who in the day of their peace were proud, and haughty, and terrible, are quite dispirited when trouble comes. Their faces shall be scorched with the flame. All comfort and hope shall fail. The stars of heaven shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened. Such expressions are often employed by the prophets, to describe the convulsions of governments. God will visit them for their iniquity, particularly the sin of pride, which brings men low. There shall be a general scene of horror. Those who join themselves to Babylon, must expect to share her plagues, Revelation 18:4. All that men have, they would give for their lives, but no man's riches shall be the ransom of his life. Pause here and wonder that men should be thus cruel and inhuman, and see how corrupt the nature of man is become. And that little infants thus suffer, which shows that there is an original guilt, by which life is forfeited as soon as it is begun. The day of the Lord will, indeed, be terrible with wrath and fierce anger, far beyond all here stated. Nor will there be any place for the sinner to flee to, or attempt an escape. But few act as though they believed these things.