Isaiah 13:9

Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

The day of the Lord cometh, cruel - not strictly, but unsparingly just; opposed to mercy. Also answering, by just retribution in kind, to the cruelty (in the strict sense) of Babylon toward others (), now about to be visited on itself.

To lay the land desolate - `the earth' (Horsley). The language from to can only primarily and partially apply to Babylon; fully and exhaustively, the judgments to come hereafter on the whole earth. Compare with ; . The sins of Babylon, arrogancy (; ; Isaiah 47:7), cruelty (), false worship (), persecution of the people of God (), are peculiarly characteristic of the apostate Church-mystical "Babylon the great," "drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus," and the Antichristian world of the latter days (; ; ; Revelation 18:6; Revelation 18:9; ).