Discovery BoxIsaiah 13:15-18 
Context13:15 Everyone who is caught will be stabbed;
everyone who is seized 1 will die 2 by the sword.
13:16 Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;
their houses will be looted
and their wives raped.
13:17 Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them; 3
they are not concerned about silver,
nor are they interested in gold. 4
13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; 5
they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, 6
they will not 7 look with pity on children.
1 tn Heb “carried off,” i.e., grabbed from the fleeing crowd. See HALOT 764 s.v. ספה.
2 tn Heb “will fall” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NLT “will be run through with a sword.”
3 tn Heb “against them”; NLT “against Babylon.”
4 sn They cannot be bought off, for they have a lust for bloodshed.
5 tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.
6 tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”
7 tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.
