Isaiah 13:17,18 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Behold, I will stir up the Medes— Here follows the second part of this prophesy; in which, what the prophet had foretold principally in figure, is here plainly related; and is easily divided, as it contains the antecedent and consequent, the cause and effect. The antecedent, or efficient causes of the evil to come, are the Medes and Persians, raised up by God himself against the Babylonians, and described from their ruling principle, extremely full of cruelty and avidity of revenge, Isaiah 13:17-18. The consequence is, the desolation of Babylon, and the calamity to be brought upon it, Isaiah 13:19-22. The expression in the 18th verse, Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces, might be rendered, And they shall with their bows dash to pieces the children: according to the Vulgate, They shall kill their little ones with their arrows: cruel and relentless, and thirsting only for blood, no money will be able to bribe them; no gold or silver be able to satiate their thirst of destruction. Ancient historians assure us, that the Medes and Persians were thus notorious for their cruelty, and also that they carried remarkably large bows, and were eminent for their skilfulness in the use of them. Bishop Newton observes, that at the time when Isaiah wrote this prophesy, the Medes were a people of no account, forming only a province under the king of Assyria, and not erected into a separate kingdom till the time of Dioces, about the 17th year of king Hezekiah. They afterwards became a very considerable people, and made up the principal part of the army which was brought against Babylon by Cyrus, whose mother was a Mede. When Babylon was taken by Darius, he ordered 3000 of the principal men to be crucified, and thereby fulfilled the prophesies of the cruelty which the Medes and Persians should use towards the Babylonians, contained in this passage, and in Jeremiah 50:42. See Prophec. vol. 1: p. 295.