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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Jeremiah 31:4 - 31:4
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As upon their being carried into captivity both their civil state and church, which either of them were as a building framed together, were broken and pulled down, and they were scattered here and there, like the stones of a building pulled down; so God’s bringing them again together, and cementing them by a political and ecclesiastical government, is fitly compared to a building. The calling them the
virgin Israel doth not signify that the body of that people had not been defloured by idolatry, but either signifies that this promise only concerned such as had kept their virginity; or else (which it may be is more probable) Israel is here called a virgin with relation to the following words, they being virgins which were wont to go out with tabrets, 1Sa_18:6, and to dance in the time of their mirth and jollity, Exo_15:20 Jud_11:34. The virgins are said to be adorned with their tabrets, or timbrels, either (as some think) because they were wont to tie scarfs or ribands about them, or because they looked comely with these instruments of music in their hands, or should use them in a more handsome and comely manner than they had done before, when they used them at unseasonable times. That which is here prophesied is, a merry, joyful, pleasant time to this people, when their mirth should become them; or the restoration of their religions festivals, at which they used instruments of music to express their inward spiritual joy and gladness. The prophets, 1Sa_10:5, came from the high place with a tabret, &c.