12 I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
12 I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
12 Proud humanity will disappear from the earth. I'll make mortals rarer than hens' teeth.
12 I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.
12 I will make people scarcer than gold- more rare than the fine gold of Ophir.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 13:12
Commentary on Isaiah 13:6-18
(Read Isaiah 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, Revelation 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.