2 "The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
This was substantially the vengeance which was now nigh the Israelites, though they rested securely, and even scorned all the threatening of God. The virgin of Israel, he says, has fallen Expounders have too refinedly explained the word virgin; for they think that the people of Israel are here called a virgin, because God had espoused them to himself, and that though they ought to have observed spiritual chastity towards God, they yet abandoned themselves to all kinds of pollutions: but a virgin, we know, is a title given for the most part by the Prophets to this or that people on account of their delicacies; for Babylon, no less than Samaria or the people of Israel, is called a virgin. Certainly this refined interpretation cannot be applied to Babylon, to Egypt, to Tyre, and to other places. I have therefore no doubt but the Prophet here arraigns the Israelites, because they, relying on their strength, indulged themselves. They were quiet in their own retreats, and when all kinds of blessings abounded, they lived daintily and sumptuously. As then they were indulging themselves in such pleasures he calls them a virgin. The virgin of Israel then has fallen, and shall no more rise again. A condition may be here included, as an exhortation to repentance immediately follows: we may then fitly regard this as being understood, "except they timely repent:" otherwise the Israelites must have fallen without hope of restoration. But we may also refer this to the body of the people: fallen then had the virgin of Israel, not so however that they were all destroyed, as we shall hereafter see; for the Prophet says that the tenth part would remain: but this is rightly said of the people generally; for we know that the kingdom had so fallen, that it never afterwards did rise. A remnant of the tribe of Judah did indeed return to Jerusalem; but the Israelites are at this day dispersed though various parts of the world; yea, they are hid either in the mountains of Armenia, or in other regions of the East. Since then what the Prophet here denounces has been really fulfilled as to the whole kingdom, we may take the place without supposing any thing understood, "Fallen has the virgin of Israel." For as God showed mercy when the people as a body were destroyed, that some remained, is what does not militate with the prophecy, that the whole body had fallen. Fallen then has the virgin of Israel, nor will she any more rise again; that is, the kingdom shall not by way of recovery be restored; and this, we know, has never taken place. Forsaken is she, he says, on her own land, and there is none to raise her up; which means, that she will continue fallen: though she may remain in her own place, she will not yet recover what she had lost. We now understand the Prophet's meaning; and, at the same time, we see that that people had so fallen, as never to rise again, as it has been stated, into a kingdom. Let us now proceed --
She hath fallen, she shall rise no more, the virgin of Israel; she hath been dashed down upon her land, there is none to raise her up - Such is the dirge, a dirge like that of David over Saul and Jonathan, over what once was lovely and mighty, but which had perished. He speaks of all as past, and that, irremediably. Israel is one of the things which had been, and which would never again be. He calls her tenderly, "the virgin of Israel," not as having retained her purity or her fealty to God; still less, with human boastfulness, as though she had as yet been unsubdued by man. For she had been faithless to God, and had been many times conquered by man. Nor does it even seem that God so calls her, because He once espoused her to Himself For isaiah so calls Babylon. But Scripture seems to speak of cities, as women, because in women tenderness is most seen; they are most tenderly guarded; they, when pure, are most lovely; they, when corrupted, are most debased.
Hence , "God says on the one hand, "I remember thee, the love of thine espousals" Jeremiah 2:2; on the other, "Hear, thou harlot, the word of the Lord" Ezekiel 16:35. When He claims her faithfulness He calls her, betrothed." Again , "when He willeth to signify that a city or nation has been as tenderly loved and anxiously guarded, whether by Himsclf or by others, He calleth it "virgin," or when lie would indicate its beauty and lovely array. Isaiah saith, 'come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon' Isaiah 47:1, that is, thou who livedest before in all delicacies, like a virgin under the shelter of her home. For it follows, 'for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.'" More pitiable, for their tenderness and delicacy, is the distress of women. And so he pictures her as already fallen, "dashed" (the word imitates the sound) to the earth "upon her own ground." An army may be lost, and the nation recover. She was "dashed down upon her own ground." In the abode of her strength, in the midst of her resources, in her innermost retreat, she should fall. In herself, she fell powerless. And he adds, she has "no one to raise her up;" none to have ruth upon her; image of the judgment on a lost soul, when the terrible sentence is spoken and none can intercede! "She shall not rise again." As she fell, she did not again rise. The prophet beholds beyond the eighty-five years which separated the prosperity under Jeroboam II from her captivity. As a people, he says, she should be restored no more; nor was she.
The virgin of Israel - The kingdom of Israel, or the ten tribes, which were carried into captivity; and are now totally lost in the nations of the earth.
The (a) virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; [there is] none to raise her up.
(a) He so calls them, because they so boasted of themselves, or because they were given to lustfulness and daintiness.
The virgin of Israel is fallen,.... The kingdom of Israel, so called, because it had never been subdued, or become subject to a foreign power, since it was a kingdom; or because, considered in its ecclesiastic state, it had been espoused to the Lord as a chaste virgin; and perhaps this may be ironically spoken, and refers to its present adulterate and degenerated state worshipping the calves at Daniel and Bethel; or else because of its wealth and riches and the splendour and gaiety in which it appeared; but now, as it had fallen into sin and iniquity, it should quickly fall by it, and on account of it, into ruin and misery; and because of the certainty of it it is represented as if it was already fallen:
she shall no more rise; and become a kingdom again, as it never has as yet, since the ten tribes were carried away captive by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, to which calamity this prophecy refers, The Targum is,
"shall not rise again this year;''
very impertinently; better Kimchi and Ben Melech, for a long time; since as they think, and many others, that the ten tribes shall return again, as may seem when all Israel shall be converted and saved, and repossess their own land; see Hosea 1:10. Abendana produces a passage out of Zohar, in which these words are interpreted, that the virgin of Israel should not rise again of herself, she not having power to prevail over her enemies; but God will raise her up out of the dust, when he shall raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, who shall reign in future time over all the tribes together, as it is said in Amos 9:11;
she is forsaken upon her land; by her people, her princes, and her God; or prostrate on the ground, as the Targum; she was cast upon the ground, and dashed to pieces by the enemy as an earthen vessel, and there left, her ruin being irrecoverable; so whatever is cast and scattered, or dashed to pieces on the ground, and left, is expressed by the word here used, as Jarchi observes:
there is none to raise her up: her princes and people are either slain by the sword, famine, and pestilence, or carried captive, and so can yield her no assistance; her idols whom she worshipped cannot, and her God she forsook will not.
virgin of Israel--the Israelite state heretofore unsubdued by foreigners. Compare Isaiah 23:12; Jeremiah 18:13; Jeremiah 31:4, Jeremiah 31:21; Lamentations 2:13; may be interpreted, Thou who wast once the "virgin daughter of Zion." Rather, "virgin" as applied to a state implies its beauty, and the delights on which it prides itself, its luxuries, power, and wealth [CALVIN].
no more rise--in the existing order of things: in the Messianic dispensation it is to rise again, according to many prophecies. Compare 2-Kings 6:23; 2-Kings 24:7, for the restricted sense of "no more."
forsaken upon her land--or, "prostrated upon," &c. (compare Ezekiel 29:5; Ezekiel 32:4) [MAURER].
The virgin - So she was, when first espoused to God. Upon her land - Broken to pieces upon her own land, and so left as a broken vessel.
*More commentary available at chapter level.