They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like [a] drunken [man].
Ver. 25. They grope in the dark without light] This is the second simile, setting forth this judiciary act of God in taking away the heart of the heads of the earth; grope they do, and would fain find out a way by feeling, but they feel darkness, and not light (so the Hebrew); they try to help themselves and their people out of misery, as the last Greek emperor did notably; but it would not be (Turk. Hist. 345).
And he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man] Who, having lost the use of reason, knoweth neither where he is nor what he was, but reeleth and falleth oft, and cannot rise again, much less go forward. So fareth it with evil rulers when God smiteth them with a spirit of giddiness and of slumber. See Isaiah 19:24; Isaiah 40:20 .