The virgin; so he calls Zion, or Jerusalem; partly, because she was pure in good measure from that gross idolatry wherewith other people were defiled, which is called spiritual whoredom; partly, to signify that God would defend her from that rape which Sennacherib intended to commit upon her, with no less care and zeal than parents do their virgin daughters from those who seek to force and deflour them; and partly, to intimate, that as she had not yet been forced and taken by her barbarous enemies, so she should still retain her virginity, in spite of his attempts against her. The daughter of Zion, i.e. the people of Zion, i.e. as it follows, of Jerusalem; so called synecdochically from the mountain and city of Zion, which was an eminent part of it. Cities and countries are oft called mothers, as 2 Samuel 20:19; and their inhabitants daughters, as Numbers 21:25 Joshua 17:16 Judges 1:27 Psalms 45:13 Psalms 137:8. Hath shaken her head at thee; laughed at all thy proud and impotent threatenings. This is a gesture of contempt and derision; of which see Psalms 22:7, Psalms 44:14 Jeremiah 18:16 Matthew 27:39.
Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 19:21
2 Kings 19:21
21 This is the word that the LORD hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.