Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 13:7

"Therefore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt:" — Isaiah 13:7 (ASV)

They shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth. This image of powerless agony occurs both in earlier and later prophets (Hosea 13:3; Micah 5:9; Jeremiah 6:24, and others). Perhaps the most striking parallelism is found in Psalm 48:6, probably, like the other psalms of the sons of Korah, contemporary with Isaiah.

Their faces shall be as flames. This comparison seems at first to describe those who cause terror rather than those who feel it. What is described is, however, the moment of horror, when the dejected pallor of ordinary fear flashes into a new intensity, and the eyeballs glare, and the face glows as with a terrible brightness.