When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.
Ver. 4. When the Lord shall have washed away the filth.] The ordure or excrement: a sin is the excrement of the soul, the superfluity or garbage of naughtiness, the devil's vomit. From this abominable filth Christ hath "loved and washed his with his own blood, that he may make them kings and priests unto God and his Father." Rev 1:5 He not only washeth his people from their sins, but taketh away their swinish natures, whereby they would else return to their former wallowing in the mire as so many Borboritae.
Of the daughters of Zion.] Whose pride in apparel, wantonness, luxury, &c., those peccadilloes, as they are commonly counted, are here rightly called filth and blood by these penitentiaries, whose property is to aggravate and lay load upon their former evil practices, which now swell like toads in their eyes; neither can they find words bad enough to call them by.
By the spirit of judgment.] By pouring upon them the clean water of the Holy Spirit, whereby also they are enabled to make a right judgment of things that are excellent or that differ, and to judge themselves worthy to be destroyed for their many and mighty sins.
And by the spirit of burning.] So called because it burneth up our corruptions, carnis vitia et carcinomata; and, secondly, Because it inflameth our hearts with a zeal for God's glory, making us all on a light fire, as Chrysostom saith that Peter was like a man made all of fire walking among stubble. And of one that desired to know what kind of man Basil was, it is said there was presented in a dream a pillar of fire with this motto, Talis est Basilius, Such a one is Basil.
a Sordes quae exeunt et excernuntur e corpore hominis per varios meatus.