(13) Faint.--That fair virgins and strong brave youths should faint by reason of their raging thirst suggests that the less vigorous would suffer even more keenly. It is sad when old men stumble into the darkness of unbelief amid the shining of the noon-day sun, seeing that they can remember the brightness of their morning, but there is always hope that their child-like spirit may return to them, and that at the evening time it may be light; but if fair virgins and strong youths are covered with the inward veil, what will become of them in their westering days? and where will the elders be if they have had no youth?

Verse 13. - This verse is parallel to the preceding. The thirst, spiritual and physical, shall affect the fair virgins and young men - those in all the freshness, beauty, and vigour of youth. Shall faint; literally, shall be veiled, covered, expressive of the feeling of faintness, when the sight grows dim and a mantle of darkness drops over one (Jonah 4:8). If the strongest thus fail, much more will the rest succumb to the threatened calamity.

8:11-14 Here was a token of God's highest displeasure. At any time, and most in a time of trouble, a famine of the word of God is the heaviest judgment. To many this is no affliction, yet some will feel it very much, and will travel far to hear a good sermon; they feel the loss of the mercies others foolishly sin away. But when God visits a backsliding church, their own plans and endeavours to find out a way of salvation, will stand them in no stead. And the most amiable and zealous would perish, for want of the water of life, which Christ only can bestow. Let us value our advantages, seek to profit by them, and fear sinning them away.In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. After the word, for want of that grain and wine, which make young men and maids cheerful, Zechariah 9:17; but, being destitute of them, should be covered with sorrow, overwhelmed with grief, and ready to sink and die away. These, according to some, design the congregation of Israel; who are like to beautiful virgins, as the Targum paraphrases it; and the principal men of it, the masters of the assemblies: or, as others, such who were trusting to their own righteousness, and seeking after that which they could never attain justification by, and did not hunger and thirst after the righteousness of Christ, and so perished.