(18) Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces.--These, as in Isaiah 22:6, Jeremiah 1:9-14, were the characteristic weapons of the Medo-Persian armies.
Verse 18. - Their bows (comp. Jeremiah 1:9, 14). Both the Medes and the Persians were skilled archers. Herodotus tells us that every Persian youth was taught three things - "to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth" (1. 136). At Persepolis, Modes and Persians are alike represented as carrying bows and quivers. AEschyius regards the contest between the Persians and the Greeks as one between the arrow and the spear ('Persae,' 11. 135, 136).
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, Re 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.
Their bows also shall dash their young men to pieces,.... That is, the bows of the Medes should dash in pieces the young men of the Babylonians. The meaning is, either that they should put them into their bows, instead of arrows, and shoot them upon the ground, or against a wall, and so dash them to pieces; or that they should first shoot them through with their arrows, and then dash them with their bows; according to Xenophon (l), Cyrus came to Babylon with great numbers of archers and slingers:
and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; even of those that were in the womb, but should rip up women with child, and cut them in pieces:
their eyes shall not spare children; in the arms of their parents, or running to them, shrieking and crying, and in the utmost fright; and yet their tender and innocent age would meet with no mercy. The Medes were notorious for their cruelty (m), and which issued at last in the ruin of their empire.
(l) Cyropaedia, l. 2. sect. 1.((m) Ammian. Marcellin. l. 23. c. 6. Diodor. Sicul. l. 13. p. 342.
and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; even of those that were in the womb, but should rip up women with child, and cut them in pieces:
their eyes shall not spare children; in the arms of their parents, or running to them, shrieking and crying, and in the utmost fright; and yet their tender and innocent age would meet with no mercy. The Medes were notorious for their cruelty (m), and which issued at last in the ruin of their empire.
(l) Cyropaedia, l. 2. sect. 1.((m) Ammian. Marcellin. l. 23. c. 6. Diodor. Sicul. l. 13. p. 342.