Jeremiah 23:29 [Is] not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer [that] breaketh the rock in pieces?
Ver. 29. Is not my word like a fire?] As it is like solid wheat, wholesome food; 1Ti 6:3 so it is no less like fire, that most active element, called πυρ, because it is pure, saith one; and fire, because it was fair. It enlighteneth, enliveneth, warmeth, purgeth, assimilateth, aspireth, consumeth combustible matter, congregat homogenea, segregat heterogenea; so doth the Word, when accompanied by the Spirit, who is of a fiery nature and of a fiery operation. Isa 4:4 Mal 3:2 Mat 3:11 "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Joh 6:63 "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and opened unto us the Scriptures?" Luk 24:32 When the word comes home to the heart in the power of it, the preacher was sent of God. See Galatians 2:8 .
And like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?] i.e., The rockiest hearts and sturdiest stomachs are tamed and terrified by the Word, when God once takes them to do. It is as his plough to break up their fallow ground, and as his sword to run them through, Jer 4:3 Heb 4:2 and to lay them for dead. Rom 7:9 And like as the hardest ice is broken with hot waters, as well as with hammers, so is the hardest heart with the gospel, as well as with the law.