Jeremiah 25:16 - Exposition

And be moved, and be mad ; rather, and reel to and fro , and behave themselves madly . The inspired writers do not scruple to ascribe all phenomena, the "bad" as well as the "good," to a Divine operation. "Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?" ( Amos 3:6 ). "An evil spirit from Elohim came upon Saul, and he became frenzied" ( 1 Samuel 18:10 ; see also Isaiah 19:14 ; Isaiah 29:10 ; 1 Kings 22:19-23 , and especially the very remarkable prologue of the Book of Job). To understand this form of expression, we must remember the strength of the reaction experienced by the prophets against the polytheism of the surrounding nations. It was not open to them to account for the existence of evil by ascribing it to the activity of various divinities; they knew Jehovah to be the sole cause in the universe. To us, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," such a doctrine occasions "great searchings of heart," and is sometimes a sore trial of our faith. But the prophets were not logicians, and their faith, compared to ours, was as an oak tree to a sapling; hence they can generally (see, however, Isaiah 63:17 ) express the truth of the universal causation of Jehovah with perfect tranquility. Because of the sword . Here Jeremiah deserts the figure of the Cup, and, as most commentators think, uses the language of fact. It is not, however, certain that "the sword" means that of God's human instruments; Jehovah himself has a sword ( Jeremiah 46:10 ; Jeremiah 47:6 ; Jeremiah 50:35-38 ; Isaiah 27:1 ; Isaiah 34:5 ; and elsewhere), just as he has a hand ( Isaiah 8:11 ; Isaiah 59:1 ) and an arm ( Isaiah 40:10 ; Isaiah 53:1 ). All these belong to a group of childlike symbolic expressions for the manifestation of the Deity. Jehovah's "sword" is described more fully in Genesis 3:24 ; it "turns hither and thither," like the lightning—a striking figure of the completeness with which God performs his work of vengeance (see also on verse 27).