Isaiah 13:8

8 and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold [of them]; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail: they shall look in amazement one at another; their faces [shall be] faces of flame.

Isaiah 13:8 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 13:8

And they shall be afraid
Troubled, dismayed, frightened, at the sudden taking of the city, and at the sight of Cyrus's troops marching up into the very heart of it, and to the king's palace: pangs and sorrow shall take hold of them;
as convulsions, pains in the bowels more fully explained in the next clause: they shall be in pain, as a woman that travaileth;
that is in labour, and ready to bring forth her child, whose pains are very sharp, and agonies great; the same is said of the king of Babylon, ( Jeremiah 50:43 ) : they shall be amazed one at another;
that so great a city should be so surprised, and so suddenly taken; and that they shall not be able to help one another; and that such as were so famous for courage and valour should be at once so dispirited: their faces [shall be as] flames;
not red with blushing, through shame, as Kimchi; but pale with fear, as the colour of flame, or, as the faces of smiths, that work at a forge: the words may be rendered, "their faces are as the faces of Lehabim" F4; the name of a people mentioned in ( Genesis 10:13 ) the same with the Libians, which were of a blackish or tawny colour; so Jarchi interprets it, and says they were a people of a yellow complexion: and Aben Ezra observes, that some interpret it of a nation like the Ethiopians; and so it denotes, that the Babylonians, their faces should be black with distress and anguish; see ( Joel 2:6 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F4 (Mhynp Mybhl ynp) "ut facies Lehabim, [sive] Lybiorum facies eorum", Gataker.

Isaiah 13:8 In-Context

6 Wail; for the day of the LORD is at hand; as destruction from Shaddai shall it come.
7 Therefore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt:
8 and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold [of them]; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail: they shall look in amazement one at another; their faces [shall be] faces of flame.
9 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners of it out of it.
10 For the stars of the sky and the constellations of it shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not cause its light to shine.
The Hebrew Names Version is in the public domain.