Jeremiah 25:15,16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

Thus saith the Lord, Take the wine-cup of this fury, &c. “Those circumstances which constitute the good and evil of human life are often represented in Scripture as the ingredients of a cup, which God, as master of a feast, mixes up, and distributes to the several guests as he thinks fit. Hence, when our Saviour asks James and John, whether they were able to drink of the cup which he was to drink of, he means, whether they had resolution and patience to undergo the like sufferings as his Father had allotted for him. And in the like sense he prays, If it be possible let this cup pass from me. Accordingly, by this image of the wine-cup of God's wrath, we are to understand those dreadful judgments which an incensed God was about to inflict on the objects of his displeasure. And Jeremiah the prophet, who announced them, is considered as acting the part of a cup-bearer, carrying the cup round to those who were appointed to drink of it; the effects of which were to appear in the intoxication, that is, the terror and astonishment, the confusion and desolation, that should prevail among them.” Blaney. See notes on Psalms 11:6; Psalms 75:8; Isaiah 51:21.

Jeremiah 25:15-16

15 For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.

16 And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.