13:9
(Verse 9.) Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel and full of indignation, wrath and fury, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners. He calls it a cruel day, not because of its own merit, but because of the people. For he is not cruel who kills the cruel, but because he appears cruel to those who suffer. For even the thief hanging on the gallows considers the judge cruel. At the same time, the solitude and desolation of the land of Babylon are announced, and the cause of the desolation is explained, because all these things happen because of its inhabitants.
13:10
(Verse 10) For the stars of the heavens and their splendor will not extend their light; the sun will be darkened at its rising, and the moon will not shine with its light. The Hebrew word Chisile () was translated as ὠρίωνα in the Septuagint. The Hebrews, with whom I studied, translated it as Arcturus. However, following Symmachus, we generally referred to it as a constellation. The meaning is that when the day of the Lord's cruelty comes and his fury devastates everything, due to the magnitude of fear, all things will become dark for mortals, and even the sun, moon, and shining stars will seem to deny their brightness. And so the sky is clad in darkness, which covers everything, and under the weight of evil, humans feel nothing but what their mind forces them to see.
13:11
(Verse 11.) And I will visit the evils upon the world, and against the wickedness of the ungodly I will execute justice: and I will cause the pride of the infidels to cease, and the arrogance of the mighty I will bring down. From this place and from the one above, where it is written, that the sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will be covered with darkness, and the stars will lose their brightness, and the iniquity of the whole world will be visited, some think that it is not about the fall of Babylon, but about the end of the world that is being prophesied; when surely according to the earlier and universal (which is called in Hebrew, Thebel, and in Greek, οἰκουμένη), Babylon must be understood. Indeed, the word 'oikoumenē' in our language signifies the inhabited world; and 'Babylon' is called so because of the huge multitude of people: for where previously there was an innumerable throng of peoples, there is now desolation and the dwelling place of beasts.
13:12
(Verse 12) The man will be more precious than gold, and the human being will shine like the world. The obvious reason why God visits the earth, that is, the evils of Babylon: so that the inhabited land will be turned into a desert. However, everything that is rare is called precious; just as above, according to the story, we read about seven women taking hold of one man due to the scarcity of men, saying: We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name and take away our reproach (Isaiah 4:1). And in the book of Samuel it is written: The word of the Lord was precious in those days (1 Samuel 3:1), that is, rare. Note that in Hebrew, instead of general gold, it is written Phaz (), and instead of fine gold, it is written Ophir ().
13:13
(Verse 13.) On account of this, I will disturb the heavens, and the earth will be moved from its place: because of the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and because of the day of His furious wrath. Take it in the sense that we explained above concerning the stars, the sun, the moon, and the world: or in an exaggerated sense, that both the sad heaven and the earth are moved by the indignation of God, and all the elements also recognize the anger of the Creator.
13:14
(Verse 14) And it will be like a frightened doe, and like a sheep, and there will be no one to gather. It signifies the people of Babylon and the Chaldeans, who flee in fear from the invasion of the Medes and Persians, like a doe and a sheep fleeing from the roar of a lion and the howl of a wolf: they have no defender or ruler whose authority they can follow.
Each person will turn to their own people, and each will flee to their own land. After Babylon has been captured and the enemy army has entered through its gates, all the reinforcements and groups of different nations, by which the city was previously defended, will return to their own provinces.
13:15
(Verse 15.) Everyone who is found will be killed, and everyone who comes will fall by the sword. Those who do not flee will be struck with a sword, and anyone who tries to resist or return will not be of any help to the captured city, to the extent that they will shed their own blood as well.
13:16
(Verse 16.) Their infants will be shattered before their eyes: their houses will be plundered, and their wives violated. This is what David prophesied in the Spirit: O daughter of Babylon, miserable one, blessed is he who will repay you according to what you have done to us. Blessed is he who will seize and shatter your little ones against the rock (Psalm 139:8). There will be such devastation of the city and savagery of the conquerors that not even innocent age will be spared, that the wealth of all homes will be plundered, and marital chastity violated in the presence of their husbands.
13:17
(Verse 17) Behold, I will raise up the Medes against them, who do not seek silver and do not desire gold. What was hidden is now revealed: that the mighty and giant ones are not angels or demons, but rather the people of the Medes, whose leader Darius, the first king of the Babylonians, destroyed the empire after killing Balthasar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, who was the son of Evilmerodach. (Daniel 5) However, it is written about the cruelty of the Medes and Persians that they despise gold and silver in their burning desire to shed blood, considering wealth offered to them as worthless dirt.
13:18
(Verse 18.) But they will kill the small ones with their arrows, and they will have no pity on the infants of the womb, and their eyes will not spare the children. The small ones will be killed, and their wounds will be no smaller than their bodies, and the bellies of the pregnant women will be cut open, and the infants will be cast aside, and the cruel victor will kill the children pressed to their mothers' breasts.
13:19
(Verse 19.) And Babylon will be glorious in kingdoms, renowned in the pride of the Chaldeans: just as the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: it will not be inhabited until the end, and it will not be established until generation after generation. We have heard of the Medes, we have heard of Babylon, we have heard of the renowned in the pride of the Chaldeans: we do not want to understand what was, and we seek to hear what was not. And we say these things, not because we condemn a figurative interpretation, but because the spiritual interpretation should follow the order of history: that most ignorant people wander in the error of a deluded interpretation in the Scriptures. So, until the present day, the prophecy of Babylon is fulfilled: and just as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, so too will this be overthrown and not inhabited forever. For it was these cities, Seleucia and Ctesiphon, that made the famous cities of the Persians.
13:20-22
(Verses 20-22.) Neither the Arabs will pitch their tents there, nor will shepherds rest there; instead, there will be beasts, their houses will be filled with dragons, and ostriches will dwell there, and hairy creatures will leap about. And owls will answer in her buildings, and sirens in the temples of pleasure. Babylon will be so devastated and deserted that it won't even be useful for pastures of cattle and flocks. For the Arabs and Saracens will not pitch their tents there, nor will shepherds rest after the footsteps of their weary flocks; but among the walls and narrow spaces of the old ruins, the Siim will dwell, which only the seventy translators have rendered as such; others, by the same word, which is written in Hebrew, want to be understood as types of demons or phantoms. And the houses will be filled, as we have said, with dragons: as the Eagle has transferred, with typhons, as Symmachus Ohim (), expressing the Hebrew word itself: but the LXX and Theodotion have interpreted them as shouts or sounds. And that which follows: The shaggy ones will dance there, or incubi, or satyrs, or certain wild men, whom some call Foolish Fruiterers, or understand them as types of demons. And for owls, all the LXX have transferred the Hebrew word itself Iim (), only Theodotion have rendered it as centaurs. The Thennim are called Sirens, which we interpret as either demons, or certain monsters, or certainly great dragons, which have crests and can fly. Through all these things, signs of desolation and wilderness are shown: that the destruction of a once powerful city is so great, that due to the multitude of demons and beasts, no shepherd, that is, a seeker of the deserted, dares to enter it. We learned from a certain Elamite brother, who, leaving those territories, now lives the life of a monk in Jerusalem, that the royal hunts in Babylon are, and all types of beasts are restrained only by the circumference of its walls.