(17) The Lord will smite with a scab . . .--The words point partly to diseases, such as leprosy, causing baldness, engendered by misery and captivity, partly to the brutal outrage of the Assyrian invaders, stripping off the costly garments and leaving the wearers to their nakedness. (Comp. Ezekiel 16:37; Nahum 3:5.)

Verse 17. - Therefore the Lord will smite with a seal. Thus destroying their beauty by producing baldness (comp. ver. 24; and for the meaning "smite with a scab," see Leviticus 13:2; Leviticus 14:56).

3:16-26 The prophet reproves and warns the daughters of Zion of the sufferings coming upon them. Let them know that God notices the folly and vanity of proud women, even of their dress. The punishments threatened answered the sin. Loathsome diseases often are the just punishment of pride. It is not material to ask what sort of ornaments they wore; many of these things, if they had not been in fashion, would have been ridiculed then as now. Their fashions differed much from those of our times, but human nature is the same. Wasting time and money, to the neglect of piety, charity, and even of justice, displease the Lord. Many professors at the present day, seem to think there is no harm in worldly finery; but were it not a great evil, would the Holy Spirit have taught the prophet to expose it so fully? The Jews being overcome, Jerusalem would be levelled with the ground; which is represented under the idea of a desolate female seated upon the earth. And when the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem, they struck a medal, on which was represented a woman sitting on the ground in a posture of grief. If sin be harboured within the walls, lamentation and mourning are near the gates.Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion,.... This is opposed to the lifting up of their heads in that haughty manner they did, and to the binding, and plaiting, and curling of their hair, which now will fall off, through the scab or leprosy upon them, or must be obliged to be shaven off.

And the Lord will discover their secret parts; the Vulgate Latin renders it, "their hair", which is their glory, 1 Corinthians 11:6. The Targum is, "and the Lord shall take away their glory". The Syriac and Arabic versions render it "their sex", that which distinguishes their sex; of which Aben Ezra and Kimchi interpret it; than which nothing could be more distressing and intolerable, being worse than baldness of the head, and yet common with captives; and the Septuagint render it "their habit": the meaning is, they shall be stripped of their fine apparel, and be clothed in rags, so that their nakedness shall be seen. An enumeration of the several particulars follows.