For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
For I lift up my hand to heaven - the usual form of solemn adjuration.
And say, I live for ever - i:e., as sure as I am the self-existent Yahweh, I will execute my promises as well as my threatenings. The inviolable oath announces the certainty of the historic fulfillment of all the divine acts described in this prophetic song. God is not, as some ancient philosophers maintained, a passive or indifferent spectator of events that take place in the world. Although invisible to the eye of sense, He makes Himself known by His varying dispensations, and shows by their results that He is always the same, whether He kill or make alive: the grand agent who makes His presence recognized and His glory manifested in the expanding scheme of Providence (Jeremiah 4:2; Hebrews 6:13; Revelation 10:5-6). The object of the antithesis in this series of animated interrogatories and declarations is to show the essential difference between the true God and idols (see Pye Smith,'s 'Scripture Testimony,' 2:, p. 168, note; Hengstenberg's 'Christology,' 1:, p. 215).