In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
Ver. 13. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst] When God depriveth a People of his ordinances, and so withdraweth his gracious presence from them, what wonder though temporal judgments come rushing in as by a sluice? "Persecute and take him" (said David's enemies), "for God hath forsaken him, and there is none to deliver him," Psalms 71:11. "The Philistines are upon me," saith Saul, "for God hath forsaken me." "Behold, I am cast out from thy presence," said Cain (that is, from my father's house where thine ordinances are administered), "and therefore every one that findeth me shall slay me," Genesis 4:14. In that day of the want of the word, in the day of spiritual famine and thirst, behold, aliud ex alio malum, another thirst shall seize upon the choicest and fairest; as flies settle upon the sweetest perfumes, when they are cold, and corrupt them.
Shall the fair virgins] Whom all men favour for their comeliness, οτι καλον φιλον εστι. Beauty is of itself lovely and attractive, it needeth no letters of commendations: but God is no respecter of persons, and beauty abused is like a fair house with an ill inhabitant, said Diogenes; like a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, said Solomon, Proverbs 11:22. Some are Helenas without, but Hecubas within, painted sepulchres, Egyptian temples; like Aurelia Orestilla, of whom Sallust saith, that she had nothing in her praise worthy but her beauty: fair she was and foolish, not καλη και σοφη, beautiful and wise, as it is reported of Aspasia, Cyrus's concubine (Athenaeus). Now these fair maids, together with the choice young men, best able to endure thirst a long season,
Shall faint for thirst] Heb. shall be overcovered with grief, shall be troubled and perplexed, shall faint and swoon, shall find by experience that all flesh is grass, and the glory thereof as the flower of the field, that "even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint," Isaiah 40:30,31 .