Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 25:16

"And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them." — Jeremiah 25:16 (ASV)

They shall drink ... — The words describe what history has often witnessed, the panic-terror of lesser nations before the onward march of a great conqueror. They are as if stricken with a drunken madness, and their despair or their resistance is equally infatuated.

This imagery is one familiar in earlier prophets (Isaiah 51:17; Isaiah 51:22; Habakkuk 2:16; Psalms 60:5; Psalms 75:8; Ezekiel 23:31).