Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word; Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and they shall say unto thee, Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine?
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Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall he filled with wine? - the "bottles" are those used in the East, made of skins; our word hogshead, originally oxhide, alludes to the same custom. As they were used to hold water, milk, and other liquids, what the prophet said-namely, that they should be all filled with wine-was not, as the Jews' taunting reply implied, a truism even literally. The figurative sense, which is what Jeremiah chiefly meant, they affected not to understand. As wine intoxicates, so God's wrath and judgments shall reduce them to that state of helpless distraction that they shall rush on their own ruin (Jeremiah 25:15; Jeremiah 49:12; Isaiah 51:17; Isaiah 51:21-22; Isaiah 63:6).