The unrest of the wicked.
Isaiah (Isaiah 17:12, Isaiah 17:13; cf. Isaiah 57:20, Isaiah 57:21) uses the same figure of Damascus, and Jeremiah must, therefore, have either borrowed it from him or from some common source. It is possible that the figure was a common expression amongst the Jews of the time. The neighbourhood of Damascus and its associated cities was always a populous one, with a varied nationality and conflicting interests and affinities. From its character there was no religious unity, and its position exposed it to dangers on every hand, especially from Babylon and Egypt. It was a motley people, with vast commercial relations and strong tendency to pleasure, but no religious earnestness or capacity of moral influence or initiation. This is another of those phases of the world spirit which Jeremiah paints in his panorama of the nations' judgment.
I. THE UNREST OF WORLD LIFE IS LIKENED TO THAT OF THE SEA.
1. Continual.
2. Vast and tumultuous.
3. Not to be stilled.
4. Sad and ruinous in its effects.
II. BECAUSE THE WORLDLY THEMSELVES ARE LIKE THE SEA.
1. Unstable. How easily ruffled! Uncertain, irresolute (James 1:6), subject to sudden panics. This is moral and spiritual.
2. With no central controlling power. The very constitution of the sea renders storms sudden and terrible. So it is with the sinner's character. There is no central controlling influence; no moral principle or spiritual power. True calm comes from within. He of the Galilean sea can alone tranquillize the troubled nation or the alarmed sinner.—M.