Isaiah 3:16 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Moreover, the Lord saith— After God had accused the rulers of the Jews of iniquity, injustice, and rapacity, in spoiling the people, he draws an argument of the same thing from the pride and luxury of the noble matrons and virgins, whose ornaments, collected from the spoils of the people, were borne proudly and insolently by them; upon whom, therefore, he denounces judgments; for of these two parts consists, this last period of his reproving discourse: urging first, in this verse, the crimes of luxury and wanton haughtiness; denouncing, secondly, the punishment with which God would pursue these crimes, Isaiah 3:17 to chap. Isaiah 4:1. Making a tinkling with their feet, alludes to the custom, among the Eastern ladies, of wearing large hollow rings or circles, with little rings hanging round them. The cavities of these rings are filled with small flints, which make them sound like bells on the least motion. The rings or circles themselves open like a half moon, through which they put the small of the leg. There is a peculiar emphasis in referring these vices of haughtiness, luxury, wantonness, and the love of superfluous ornament, to the daughters of Sion, that is, to the matrons and virgins of the holy city, chosen by God, and in which he himself inhabits; the hater of luxury and vanity: a mountain and city, which those daughters of Abraham inhabited, whom, above all others, outward adorning became not, the plaiting of hair, the wearing of gold, and the putting on of fine apparel; but the hidden man of the heart, modesty, humility, subjection. See 1 Peter 3:3 and Vitringa.