Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 5:11
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, [that] they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, [till] wine inflame them!
11. rise up early ] Drinking in the morning was considered disreputable by the Jews (Ecc 10:16 f.; Act 2:15) and Romans; but not, apparently, by the Arabs (Gesenius). The word for strong drink seems to be a general name for various kinds of alcoholic liquors obtained from dates, honey, raisins, barley, &c.
that continue inflame them ] rather, that sit late into the night, wine inflaming them.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
11 17. The second woe, against dissipation and the spiritual blindness which accompanies it. Cf. Isa 28:1; Isa 28:7 ff.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wo unto them – The prophet, having denounced avarice, proceeds now to another vice – that of intemperance, or dissipation.
That rise up early … – That rise for this purpose, when nothing else would rouse them. It may illustrate this somewhat, to remark, that it was not common among the ancients to become intoxicated at an early hour of the day; see the note at Act 2:15; compare 1Th 5:7. It indicated then, as it does now, a confirmed and habitual state of intemperance when a man would do this early in the morning. The Persians, when they commit a debauch, arise betimes, and esteem the morning as the best time for beginning to drink wine, by which means they carry on their excess until night. – Morier.
That they may follow strong drink – – shekar, or sichar. This word is derived from a verb signifying to drink, to become intoxicated. All nations have found out some intoxicating drink. That which was used by the Hebrews was made from grain, fruit, honey, dates, etc., prepared by fermentation. The word sometimes means the same as wine Num 28:7, but more commonly it refers to a stronger drink, and is distinguished from it, as in the common phrase, wine and strong drink; Lev 10:9; Num 6:3; Jdg 13:4, Jdg 13:7. Sometimes it may be used for spiced wine – a mixture of wine with spices, that would also speedily produce intoxication. The Chaldee renders the words chamar atyq, old fermented liquor; denoting the mode in which strong drink was usually prepared. It may be remarked here, that whatever may be the form in which intoxicating drink is prepared, it is substantially the same in all nations. Intoxication is caused by alcohol, and that is produced by fermentation. It is never created or increased by distillation. The only effect of distillation is, to collect and preserve the alcohol which existed in the beer, the wine, or the cider. Consequently, the same substance produces intoxication when wine is drank, which does when brandy is drank; the same in cider or other fermented liquor, as in ardent spirits.
That continue until night – That drink all day. This shows that the strong drink intended here, did not produce sudden, intoxication. This is an exact description of what occurs constantly in oriental nations. The custom of sitting long at the wine, when they have the means of indulgence, prevails everywhere. DAr-vieux says, that while he was staying among the Arabs on mount Carmel, a wreck took place on the coast, from which one of the emirs obtained two large casks of wine. He immediately sent to the neighboring emirs, inviting them to come and drink it. They gladly came, and continued drinking for two days and two nights, until not a drop of the wine was left. In like manner, Tavernier relates that the king of Persia sent for him early one morning to the palace, when, with other persons, he was obliged to sit all the day, and late at night, drinking wine with the shah; but at last, the king growing sleepy, gave us leave to depart, which we did very willingly, having had hard labor for seventeen hours together.
Inflame them – Excite them; or stimulate them. We have the same phrase – denoting the burning tendency of strong drink. The American Indians appropriately call fire-water.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 5:11-12
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink
The fruits of drunkenness
I.
In reference to THE INDIVIDUAL HIMSELF, who is its victim. It may, perhaps, be made a question by some, When may a man be regarded as intoxicated, and what may be the number of offences which would entitle him to the character and name of drunkard? Intoxication essentially consists in the obscuration of the light of reason, so that it is no longer able fully to exercise its functions; and, therefore, the moment this light has become even partially eclipsed, and the moment, perhaps, that that exhilaration begins, which always urges onwards and craves for more–at that moment we may say, that as the individual is in a state of alarming danger, so the process of intoxication has commenced; and, therefore, many a man may be strictly and truly said to be intoxicated, though he does not reel and stagger like a drunken man. No man ever became a drunkard all at once, i.e., in ordinary cases; for some have become so instantaneously through the pressure of affliction, and from the impulse of despair. It is not the intoxicating beverage that allures at first (for, in general, the natural taste rejects it), but the harp and the viol, and the tabret and the pipe, that are in the drunkards feasts–that hilarity which, innocent perhaps in itself, brings at that time a snare, and that good companionship which, while it dispenses its joys, spits its venom. By and by, however, they come to like the beverage, not on account of the company it brings together, but for itself; and remembering its exciting and exhilarating qualities, have recourse to it at other seasons, first along with others, and then in private by themselves–finding on each occasion some excuse to silence conscience, and to keep themselves up in their self-esteem; till, at last, going on in their downward career, their drink becomes as necessary as their daily food, and they live with an appetite always craving, and an intellect seldom clear. And what are the invariable accompaniments and consequences?
1. The intemperate man is brought into contact with the most worthless companions, who have no fear of God before their eyes, and who lead him on, step by step, till they plunge him into irremediable ruin.
2. Indulgence in strong drink tends to the eclipse of intellect. This effect may not be exhibited at first. On the contrary, in the first stages of the sin, the opposite result may appear. Have you never seen these same faculties, which the exhilarating draught awakened for more powerful efforts, by the very same influence, deprived of all their wakeful energy, and steeped in an oblivion the most complete and the most melancholy; so that far from being capable of bursting forth with more than common brilliancy, they become incapacitated for the performance even of their common functions?
3. Look at the effects resulting, when the orb of reason has undergone this dread eclipse. Then is an inlet afforded for all wickedness, and every crime may free a perpetrator. The strong man of the house being bound, the passions arise like robbers, and rifle his goods. The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, are all permitted to riot in unchecked fury. The monarch of the soul being, for the time, dethroned, the subjects spend themselves in the work of anarchy.
4. No one can sin with impunity; and even in this life, we often see transgression closely tracked by its attendant punishment. But of all sins, that of drunkenness seems to be peculiarly visited with retribution here; for the loss of reputation invariably follows indulgence in the habits of intemperance.
II. Glance at its results as far as THE DRUNKARDS FAMILY is concerned. No ruin can be conceived more tremendous than when the roof tree of a mans domestic happiness falls in, and leaves him a home, but without its joys. He is an enemy indeed who casts a brand into that temple, and envelops that altar in destructive flames. But this intemperance does. No one can express the hopes or the joys of a mother, when she sees her son walking in the ways of virtue. But, in proportion is her sorrow, when she sees the son that she has borne and nursed, becoming a worthless profligate, an outcast, and a drunkard. Intemperance is silently but too surely sapping the very foundations of society. Who, then, that has any regard either for the glory of God, or for the welfare of his country, would not gird on his armour to meet the enemy in the gate? (P. MMorland.)
The degradation and ruin of intemperance
I. THE SIN, WITH ITS CONCOMITANTS AND CONNECTIONS, DESCRIBED IN THE TEXT.
1. The prophet refers to intemperance and its associate habits of festivity and dissipation. The corrupt condition of social life, springing from the depravity of the heart, has in every age encouraged those stimulants to evil adverted to in this passage, and which are alike felt by the high and the low. The wine mentioned is the date or palm wine, which possessed an inebriating quality; but, whatever be the particular drink–the wine of the wealthy or the beer of the poor–the accompaniments of the festival, metropolitan or rural, are frequently similar both in kind and effect, and tend to evil. Our Lord, it is true, was at a feast of Cana in Galilee; and music, the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, may minister to an innocent recreation or gratify judicious taste; but we need scarcely adduce the trite distinction between the use and abuse of a thing, to show wherein lies, in the present case, the moral danger. The sin of excess, both in eating and drinking, in the forms of gluttony and intoxication, is peculiarly odious.
(1) Intemperance is both bad in principle and degrading in character. Chrysostom and Augustine call it a spontaneous fury; and Basil, with greater vehemence of expression, says it is a voluntary devil, a chosen madness.–
(2) But while this is the case, it has a greater tendency than almost any other crime to destroy the feeling of shame and to harden conscience.
(3) It leads to other great sins. Its name is legion; for, in reality, there is scarcely any vice or folly that it does not either originate or encourage. It is said by Eustathius that the nurses of Bacchus were painted with snakes and daggers in their hands, to show that drunkards were beastly and bloody.
(4) Intemperance is dangerous to the peace of society, and puts to hazard the lives of mere Vulgar quarrelling in low life, and polite duelling in high, disturb, separate, and destroy families. How many have been the murderers of others in seasons of intemperate festivity. Ammon was slain by his brother Absalom when indulging in wine. Simon the high priest, and two of his sons, were sacrificed to the inebriation of their brother. Judith slew Holofernes, when the latter was in a state of intoxication. Alexander the Great killed Clitus at a feast, and inflicted upon himself a vain repentance.
2. The prophet points out the connection between intemperance and unhallowed festivity, and an infidel disregard of the works and ways of Deity. Thus are body and soul at once degraded and ruined. Under the influence of intemperance men are led to disregard the operations of His hands, not only undervaluing the works of God, but unmindful of His providential and gracious dispensations. His judgments do not alarm, His mercies do not conciliate them; they despise the one, and disown the other.
II. THE WOE DENOUNCED BY THE PROPHET UPON THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF INTEMPERANCE. The woe is to be plainly traced in the conscious unhappiness of the delinquent, even though he seem gay and smiling–in the general and almost certain loss of health, that first of earthly blessings–in the diminution and probable loss of property, and of every resource–in the dereliction of friends worth having in the terrors of an unprepared for death, or the even more horrible condition of a moral death unfelt, and a natural death unheeded–and, lastly, in the quenchless burnings of the bottomless pit. Habits of intemperance are progressively formed, and therefore require the exercise of extreme carefulness, self-discipline, and prayer. Beware of the first step–of the first temptation–of the first immoderate indulgence. I conclude by presenting you with three short maxims of human wisdom, and one precept of Divine inspiration. He that will not fear, shall feel the wrath of heaven. He that lives in the kingdom of sense, shall die into the kingdom of sorrow. He shall never truly enjoy his present hour, who never thinks on his last. Be not filled with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. (F. A.Cox, D. D. , LL. D.)
Following strong drink
1. The Almighty has set His face solemnly and strongly against the sin denounced in the text.
2. Unquestionably, the surest way of stopping the ravages of strong drink will be by means of total abstinence. The fear of ridicule, the force of habit, the consideration of health, the charge of inhospitality, or the appearance of unsociableness, one or other of these arguments prevail with the vast multitude to induce them to stand aloof from the total abstinence movement.
3. Certain precautions which are within the compass of those who are not prepared to give their adhesion to total abstinence.
(1) We may be careful about ourselves and the example we set.
(2) We should be very careful of the influence we exercise on those around and connected with us. If we are careful of the example we set, it must be on account of the influence which that example may exert.
(3) Let us be exceeding jealous of leading anyone into temptation.
(4) Let us be on our guard against making drunkenness a subject of wit, drollery, and fun.
(5) Be careful how you yield to the opinion of those friends who would urge you to increase the quantity of stimulant you are in the habit of taking in the course of the day.
(6) In all eases within your knowledge, in which persons cannot use without abusing strong drink, exert all your influence to induce them to become total abstainers. (J. Mould, M. A.)
The drunkards doom
I. THE SIGN OF THE DRUNKARDS CAPTIVITY. In every vice there is a stage beyond which, humanly speaking, recovery is impossible. A time comes when the jaws of the trap snap together and the victim is caught. In intemperance this point is reached imperceptibly, and the victim is ignorant long after others see his danger.
II. THE HELPLESSNESS OF THE CAPTIVE DRUNKARD. Isaiah describes him as following strong drink. As the obedient dog at his masters heels, or as the moth after the light, so the drunkard follows strong drink. At first he thinks he does so for the pleasure he derives from it, but he soon recognises that he is helpless in so doing. As a man swept down towards the rapids looks longingly towards those on the bank who can render no help, so the drinker yearns after virtues and peace which can never more be his. No tyrant was ever more exacting. Though he be prostrate in the morning, yet he must rise at his captors bidding, and by forced marches hasten to his doom.
III. THE DOOM THAT AWAITS THE DRUNKARD.
1. Moral insensibility. They regard not the work of the Lord. They call good, evil; and evil, good. Drink so blunts the sensibilities that the victim under its influence can commit crimes from which at other times he would shrink. More crimes are committed in drink than out of it.
2. Shamelessness. After obliterating the distinction between right and wrong he turns and defies God and glories in sin. When the prophet warns him that God will visit him, he dares Him to do His worst. Let Him make speed, and hasten His work, that we may see it.
3. Hell. The drinker tempts the devil, for even hell has to enlarge its appetite to receive him. When the destroyer would be satisfied, the drinker stimulates his satiated desire, determining to be lost. So he ends his course with the drunkards grave and the drunkards hell. (R. C. Ford, M. A.)
Isaiahs testimony to the licentiousness and degeneracy of his age
1. Contrary to modern and superficial notions, which confine intemperance to northern climes, and exclude it from vine-growing countries, the people of Israel, following the example of their chief men, were addicted to the grossest indulgence in intoxicating liquors. The juice of the grape (yayin) and the juice of other fruits (shakar) were drunk in their fermented state; and probably both, certainly the latter, were mixed with pungent and heavy drugs (verse 22) in order to gratify a base and insatiable appetite. Men rose up early and sat up late to prosecute these vicious indulgences, and they boasted of themselves as mighty and valiant (verse 22) in proportion as they were able to gulp down large quantities of these compounds and to carry their drink well.
2. The attendant and in no small measure the consequential evils were of the most aggravated kind. The Divine works were disregarded (verse 12), ignorance reigned (verse 13), sin abounded (verse 18), mens moral conceptions were the opposite of the truth (verse 20), self-conceit grew luxuriantly (verse 21), bribery and injustice were rampant (verse 23). The vengeance of God was awakening against them and would take the triple form of famine, pestilence, and invasion, so that their supplies of drink would be cut off (verses 6, 7, 10), the pest-stricken would lie in the streets (verse 25), and hostile nations would ravage the land (verses 26-30). (Temperance Bible Commentary.)
Musical merriment silencing conscience
And the harp, etc. Better, And guitar and harp, tambourine and flute, and wine constitute their banquet;–as if to drown the voice of conscience and destroy the sense of Jehovahs presence and working in their midst. (Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)
Edisons testimony to the value of abstinence
I once asked the greatest of inventors, Thomas A. Edison, if he were a total abstainer; and when he told me that he was, I said, May I inquire whether it was home influence that made you so? and he replied, No, I think it was because I always felt that I had a better use for my head. Who can measure the loss to the world if that wonderful instrument of thought that has given us so much of light and leading in the practical mechanism of life had become sodden with drink, instead of electric with original ideas? (Frances E. Willard.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. Wo unto them that rise up early] There is a likeness between this and the following passage of the prophet Amos, Am 6:3-6, who probably wrote before Isaiah. If the latter be the copier, he seems hardly to have equalled the elegance of the original: –
“Ye that put far away the evil day
And affect the seat of violence;
Who lie upon beds of ivory,
And stretch yourselves upon your couches;
And eat the lambs from the flock,
And calves from the midst of the stall;
Who chant to the sound of the viol,
And like David invent for yourselves instruments of music;
Who quaff wine in large bowls,
And are anointed with the choicest ointments:
But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.”
Kimchi says, “they consider not the heavens nor their hosts: they pray not the morning nor the evening prayer unto the Lord.”
Follow strong drink] Theodoret and Chrysostom on this place, both Syrians, and unexceptionable witnesses in what belongs to their own country, inform us that shechar ( in the Greek of both Testaments, rendered by us by the general term strong drink) meant properly palm wine, or date wine, which was and is still much in use in the Eastern countries. Judea was famous for the abundance and excellence of its palm trees; and consequently had plenty of this wine. “Fiunt (vina) et e pomis; primumque e palmis, quo Parthi et Indi utun tur, et oriens totus: maturarum modio in aquae congiis tribus macerato expressoque.” Plin. lib. xiv. 19. “Ab his cariotae [palmae] maxime celebrantur; et cibo quidem, sed et succo, uberrimae. Ex quibus praecipua vina orienti; iniqua capiti, unde porno nomen.” Id. xiii. 9. signifies stupefaction: and in Hebrew likewise the wine has its name from its remarkably inebriating quality.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That rise up early in the morning; which was unusual, and scandalous in that case, Ecc 10:16; Act 2:15. They made drinking their daily trade and business.
That continue until night; thereby wasting both precious time, and Gods good creatures, and the health of their bodies, as well as of their souls. He useth this word partly to show their folly and misery, because the wine was so far from quenching and satisfying their appetites, that it did indeed inflame and increase them; and partly to prevent the vain excuse of them, who thought themselves innocent because they did not drink to drunkenness, although they cast themselves into an intemperate heat through their excess.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. Second Woeagainstintemperance.
earlywhen it wasregarded especially shameful to drink (Act 2:15;1Th 5:7). Banquets for revelrybegan earlier than usual (Ecc 10:16;Ecc 10:17).
strong drinkHebrew,sichar, implying intoxication.
continuedrinking allday till evening.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning,…. To rise up early in the morning is healthful, and to rise to do business is commendable; but to spend the day in drunkenness and intemperance is very criminal, which is here meant:
[that] they may follow, strong drink; not only drink it, but follow on to drink; diligently seek after it, where the best is to be had; go from house to house till they have found it; closely follow the drinking of it, till inebriated with it:
that continue until night; at their pots, with their drinking companions, even all the day till night comes, the twilight either of the evening or of the morning:
[till] wine inflame them; their bodies with heat, and their souls with lust.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The second woe, for which the curse about to fall upon vinedressing ( Isa 5:10) prepared the way by the simple association of ideas, is directed against the debauchees, who in their carnal security carried on their excesses even in the daylight. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to run after strong drink; who continue till late at night with wine inflaming them!” Boker (from bakar , bakara , to slit, to tear up, or split) is the break of day; and nesheph (from nashaph , to blow) the cool of the evening, including the night (Isa 21:4; Isa 59:10); ‘ichr , to continue till late, as in Pro 23:30: the construct state before words with a preposition, as in Isa 9:2; Isa 28:9, and many other passages (Ges. 116, 1). Shecar , in connection with yayin , is the general name for every other kind of strong drink, more especially for wines made artificially from fruit, honey, raisins, dates, etc., including barley-wine ( ) or beer ( in Aeschylus, also called , and by many other names), a beverage known in Egypt, which was half a wine country and half a beer country, from as far back as the time of the Pharaohs. The form shecar is composed, like (with the fore-tone tsere ), from shacar , to intoxicate; according to the Arabic, literally to close by stopping up, i.e., to stupefy.
(Note: It is a question, therefore, whether the name of sugar is related to it or not. The Arabic sakar corresponds to the Hebrew shecar ; but sugar is called sukkar , Pers. ‘sakkar , ‘sakar , no doubt equivalent to (Arrian in Periplus, ), saccharum , an Indian word, which is pronounced Carkara in Sanscrit and sakkara in Prakrit, and signifies “forming broken pieces,” i.e., sugar in grains or small lumps (brown sugar). The art of boiling sugar from the cane was an Indian invention (see Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 269ff.). The early Egyptian name for beer is hek (Brugsch, Recueil, p. 118); the demotic and hieratic name henk , the Coptic henke . The word ) is also old Egyptian. In the Book of the Dead (79, 8) the deceased says, “I have taken sacrificial cakes from the table, I have drunk seth – t in the evening.” Moses Stuart wrote an Essay upon the Wines and Strong Drinks of the Ancient Hebrews, which was published in London (1831), with a preface by J. Pye Smith.)
The clauses after the two participles are circumstantial clauses (Ewald, 341, b), indicating the circumstances under which they ran out so early, and sat till long after dark: they hunted after mead, they heated themselves with wine, namely, to drown the consciousness of their deeds of darkness.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
Verse 11-17:
1. This woe is for those who devote themselves to the gratification of their own lusts by strong drink (Verse 11, 22; Isa 22:12-13; Isa 28:1; Isa 28:3; Isa 28:7-8), amusements and gluttony (Amo 6:1; Amo 6:5-6; 2Pe 2:12-15) – while ignoring the Lord and his plan for their lives, (Job 21:13-15; Psa 28:5).
2. Willful ignorance will result in their captivity, humiliation, shame and utter ruin, (Isa 1:3; Isa 27:11; Deu 32:28-29; Jer 8:7); hell (the holding place of the dead) has opened its mouth wide to consume those who, in pomp, pride and vainglory, have exalted themselves against Jehovah, their God, (Verse 14-15; Pro 30:15-16; Hab 2:5; comp. Num 16:30-34).
3. The righteous Lord will be exalted by the judgment that He executes upon their wretched heads, (Verse 16; Isa 28:17; Isa 30:18; Isa 2:11; Isa 2:17; Isa 33:5; Isa 33:10; Isa 8:13), while the flocks of aliens and strangers graze the pasture-land of an inconsiderate people, (Verse 17; Isa 7:25).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning to follow strong drink The Prophet does not aim at an enumeration of all the vices which then prevailed, but only points out some particular kinds of them, to which they were peculiarly addicted. After having handled the general doctrine, he found it necessary to come to particular vices; and the enumeration of those was more urgently needed, for there would have been no end of going through them all one by one. Having reproved covetousness, he now attacks drunkenness, which undoubtedly was also a prevailing vice; for the kinds of vices which he selects are not those which were found in one person or another, but those which universally prevailed; and indeed the vices are of such a kind as infect the whole body by their contagion.
To rise early means to be earnestly employed in doing anything; as when Solomon says,
Woe to the nation whose princes eat in the morning, (Ecc 10:16😉
that is, whose chief care is to fill their belly and enjoy delicacies. This is contrary to the order of nature; for man, as David says,
“
riseth that he may go to his work, and may be engaged in business till the evening.” (Psa 104:23.)
Now, if he lay aside his labors, and rise to partake of luxuries, and to follow drunkenness, this is monstrous. He adds —
And who continue till night. The meaning is, that from the dawn of the morning to the twilight of the evening they continue their drunken carousals, and are never weary of drinking. Abundance and luxury are closely joined together; for when men enjoy abundance, they become luxurious, and abuse it by intemperance.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
STRONG DRINKTHE DEVILS ALLY
Isa 5:11-12
I AM to speak to you now of the most monstrous iniquity that defiles the face of the earth and damns the souls of menDRINK. Slavery was a blot on our civilization, and, rather than suffer such a stain, we washed it out with the warm blood of our bravest men. But the slavery that chained the ebony ankles of the South was mild, as compared with the despotism of Rum; and the cruelest cut that the tyrannical master ever gave to the shoulder of his brother in black was merciful, when compared to the sorrows of the soul that wears the galling chains, and feels the merciless lash, of the liquor habit.
Dr. Haygood, in an address before the Evangelical Alliance some years ago, said, suggestively enough, In dealing with drink, the thing most to be feared is that the mass of the people do not fear it. We are used to it. As soldiers in war look on wounds and death until they grow hard of heart, so the people are so familiar with the plague of drunkenness that they do not realize the ruin it is bringing to everything in our civilization that is good.
My purpose in speaking is twofold: I am solicitous to rouse good men for the long and terrible conflict that must precede American sobriety, and none the less anxious to save weak men from the thraldom toward which every intemperate act is hastening them.
But what sentences has Sacred History that surpass this test for vivid statement of truth? With one stroke of the inspired pen it lights up the hideous features of intemperance, as the lightnings flash has often brought to view the demons face, who sought the darkness for his deeds. Following its suggestions, we claim three things as Scripturally defined.
STRONG DRINK COMMONLY ENSLAVES ITS SUBJECT
Mark you, I say, Commonly, because I want to be as conservative as is essential to the strictest construction of the truth. I know there are some men who drink, and keep always to moderate bounds, but such men are the exceptions, and rare at that. A recent speaker on temperance referred to that old preacher who used to introduce the marriage ceremony with these words, John, matrimony is a blessing to a few, a curse to many, and an uncertainty to us all! John, will you venture? The most that advocates of moderate drinking could say is, Our custom is a curse to thousands, never, certainly, a blessing to any, and an uncertainty to us all, and to touch the first drop is to face a danger; to indulge in occasional drink is to consent to Satans advantage, and to defend the practice of tippling is to play into the very hands of the devil himself, and become his slave. The Drink Demon is never satisfied until it has captured and enslaved the soul it solicits.
It pursues its would-be subject with a stealthy step. I have read the story of a lioness, whose noiseless approach made possible the destruction of seventeen human lives before she appeared to the eye of one armed man. But the victims that have fallen a prey to the more slyly approaching demon of drink, who can tell? He approaches many a soul by means of the blood that silently courses every artery and vein of the body! There are among the children of men some sons who have been compelled to accept, as a part of their bitter legacy, a predisposition to strong drink. The late Dr. Anderson gave a painful illustration of that truth. He related the history of a young man whom he baptized, in an Eastern city, at the age of sixteen. Shortly after his baptism he begged of his pastor the privilege of refusing to touch the wine employed in administering the Lords Supper; and gave as a reason his inability to abstain from drink, should one drop ever pass his lips. When Dr. Anderson expressed his surprise that one so young should be the confirmed subject of such a habit, the youth replied, I have never tasted liquor in my life, but father drinks, and the consuming love of alcohol is in my blood and fires my brain. Afterward, to save himself from yielding to the temptation to taste it, he quit the bedside of a sick friend in haste, because he smelled the wine that sat on the table at the head of the bed and, when he reached the street, the consuming desire to go to the nearest saloon and drink was so overmastering, that he had to meet it by praying mightily to God, while he ran to the refuge of a mothers love and the closed door of his own room.
But such cases are not common! The stealth of strong drink more often appears in the plea of moderationthe ensnaring argument that a moderate use of liquor is at once reasonable and safe. By such sophistry, Satan has tolled his millions into Drinks slaughter-pen. It is a rare thing that you meet a novice in drink who will admit any sort of danger. He is on his dignity at the bare suggestion that he will one day be a miserable slave of this demon, and gives you to understand that he is no common mortal to capitulate so easy; no dog, to do the deeds of the drunken. All such souls can quit whenever they like, but as Sam Small remarked, We take notice they never like. To try it might demonstrate the danger to some. Mr. C. M. Hawkins of Independence, Missouri, once related in the columns of his paper the story of a young man who had thoughtlessly fallen into the custom of taking a glass of liquor before breakfast every morning. When a friend expressed solicitude about the final consequence, the young man answered, Oh, there is no danger, it is merely a little luxury. I can quit any time. Prove that you can, replied his wiser friend. A week later they met, and the pale face of the youth led his adviser to ask if he were ill. Oh, no, but I am struggling against the fearful and unsuspected hold the habit of that daily drink had upon me. I have held out so far, and hope to conquer it, but your advice came none too soon to save me!
No man knows whether he can quit or not, until he proves it. A weeks total abstinence demonstrates nothing; to be sober for a month, or even a year, is no positive proof. The only relative I have ever lost through drink kept the demon under for two and three years at a stretch often, and yet it conquered him at last, and sent him to the drunkards grave. The only sufficient evidence that a man is his own master, is for him to refuse to gratify any and every desire for strong drink.
If once the spirit of man is captured by strong drink, it holds him with the iron hand of habit.
Its approaches are stealthy and with show of gentleness, but, like the hungry lioness, it fairly roars with the delight of destruction when once its teeth and talons have taken hold. To see some young man tasting lighter wines with growing relish, forebodes the day when strong drink shall discover her destructive power, and chain him with links less easily broken than those that keep the elephant to his stall. That was an apt illustration of the methods employed by strong drink in ensnaring men, that some one gave concerning the old woman who was gently coaxing her drunken husband home. A passerby remarked, All drunkards wives are not so gracious as you are, madam! Sh-h-h, she said in a whisper, Ive got to call him sweet names to get him home; but wait until he drops inside the threshold. Ill be there then! So the drink devil deals with men. It pays them splendid attention, flatters their large-heartedness, and calls them by honeyed names while filling the first glasses. But wait until you are within its power and it will be there then; there to strip you of reason and reduce you to the level of the lowest brute; there to strip you of your money and pauperize your home; there to abuse your body until it will require a weeks nursing to enable you to return to sober duties;
there to rob you of the last vestige of manhood and send you into eternity a sin-cursed soul! It is well nigh impossible to get the egotistical tippler to believe that the occasional drinkers of today will be the sots and social outcasts of tomorrow, but, if experience ever demonstrated any truth past the point of sane doubt, it has shown that he who takes a little for his stomachs sake in youth, when that stomach has no need of it, will be taking more for his stomachs ache, when his drunken hands fail to provide the necessary bread.
Our city is full of men today who cant sober themselves; men who are enslaved and, whether they wish it or no, will rise before the daybreak to follow strong drink, and will see home no more, until wine has so enflamed them that reason departs and other hands carry them to bed. Up at Bar Harbor some years since, a poor wretch, being tried for drunkenness, expressed more of truth than he intended. His lawyer, begging the Court for clemency, addressed the Judge as follows, May it please your honor, I know this man and he is not often in this state! The poor fellow, roused by the remark from his stupor, replied, You-u-re mistaken, mi frien. I lif in this State. Let the iron hand of habit fasten strong drink upon a man and he is apt to live in the state of intoxication and beastliness.
But to inexorable habit, strong drink adds all possible injury and insult. It might seem that Satan would be satisfied when a man had offered all his powers of body, mind and soul, a sacrifice to that filthy goat of the centuries, the god Bacchus. But until hell is heaped with lost souls, Satan will never cease to ask of drink votaries, not only their own bodies, intellects and spirits, but also the broken hearts of wives, the hunger and nakedness of children and the hope of Heaven.
Like Beckfords Giour, who, after he had eaten fifty of the most beautiful boys that the Caliphs Kingdom could afford, continued to thirst for human blood and growl with sullen muttering, More, more, so does this demon. Every man given to strong drink is expected to add to his offerings to Bacchus the broken and bleeding heart of his own wife. They say that when Booth killed Lincoln, his infuriated pursuers, having caught him, cut out his heart and brought it back to the Capitol as a trophy of their work. Every saloon in the city engages in the business of sending out drunken husbands to hunt down the women they have sworn to love and cut out their hearts and bring them to the altar erected over the counter to Bacchus, that there the innocent blood may mingle its crimson with the accursed cup.
The sight of such suffering, which every drunkards wife is subjected to, seems to affect this ally of Satan as the taste of human blood affects the tigress. It only rouses all its murderous instinct to ask for more and the father is sent back into that same home to break her heart, to strip his children of food and clothing and bring their hunger and nakedness. Mr. Kohansky, an intelligent Pole, who once attended my church in Chicago with considerable regularity, told me once how he had seen a saloonist near him take money from the hands of a child, whose drunken father sent her barefoot and ragged through the snow of midwinter to bring him beer and whiskey. Satan himself was never more Satanic than such a man. Among all hells earthly servants, surely no one so often gets the encore of the pit as he who helps to fasten upon a man a habit that leads him to kill his own wife, by the most tortuous process known to history; and slay his own children with the cruelest hand that ever shed the blood of murdered innocents. God was not stating it too strongly when He said, Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink. He only knew, or knows, the measure of that woe that comes to the subjects once enslaved by this ally of Satan, whose workshop is the annex to hell.
This text suggests the further fact that
STRONG DRINK EMPLOYS MANY SENSUAL ACCESSORIES
If the wine of the ancients called to its assistance the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, the modern intoxicant knows even better what additional agencies to engage that the passions of men may be most inflamed. An evening spent in seeing the inside of our blind pigs would be a painful, yet a helpful revelation to those Christian and moral men, who do not consent that this institution is the sine qua non of Satanic success.
You will find them fitted out with every device that the devil has used effectively in the destruction of men. No wonder saloonists were wont to seek the disgrace of every godly person who visited their places to report what he had seen. No wonder they consented to that public statement which questioned the propriety of a Gospel minister ever entering their open doors. Their business gave control to the Prohibition amendment, when the public came to know its execrable character.
The powers of unchaste painting and music are brought to play upon the sensual natures of men. Young women have crowded hell-holes in appalling numbers and have given as an excuse for going that they enjoyed the music and dancing; and the passerby knows that music and dancing is the order of their evenings. Inflamed by wine, men are dangerous; but when intoxicated still further by such music, and surrounded by such paintings as decorate such walls, and in touch with lustful, half-drunken women, what else can result than revelries that shame the most sensual scenes of the old Bacchanalian feasts?
The sights that greet you, as the paintings of nude women look down from the wall, are such as to impress every moral man, much more a Christian man, with the damnable character of such dens. But when one goes where the last shred of decency is stripped, and the devil dares to do his worst, it deepens anger into an unutterable sorrow, and he returns from the sight, sighing, How long, oh, Lord, how long? How long shall manhood continue to be so degraded and Divinity so insulted and despised? How long will a free people, who claim to be half-Christianized and boast their better civilization, remain the insulted subjects of the most loose-lived lords that ever determined a nations politics, set a deep, dark, indelible stamp on its social life, and profaned the holiest altars of its religion?
Again, the holes of green cloth are coupled with saloons. The demon of strong drink flourishes and fattens on the fortunes and misfortunes of men who gamble. If the proprietors of the place permit a man from the street to win against the employers of the house, in order to bait into boldness the more timid spirits, and he quits ahead, he feels so good he calls in all his friends and treats. In that case there is little or nothing lost. What the partner in the upper room sacrificed for the sake of greater gain, the partner in the lower room received again. I was in a barbers chair in Chicago and my German friend of the tonsorial art said, I chust hav to laugh me to zee vot vools some mens make of demselves! How is that? I inquired. Veil, dat man acrost de street vas bettin mit the saloon mon, de oder day, and von a dollar! He feel so gut dat he turn round and spend two dollar for viskey. Den he go home and show im pardner vat he von. De pardner, he laughed little and said, Dot is pewter dollar ! And dot is the vay it goes.
Exactly! I have no question whatever, that if the account had been perfectly kept from the time that the Roman soldiers gambled for the seamless garment of Christ, until now, that for every dollar won by the more fortunate gamesters, two have been returned to the drink-dealer, the full partner of the proprietor of the gambling place.
On the other hand, if a man loses, he is sure to drink to drown his trouble and forget the ill-luck of having been such a fool as to give a little fortune to the lean-necked vultures that sit about the wheel night after night, picking greenies as clean as carrion crows leave the dead. I dare say that among all the accessories of the saloon, no one more often drives a man to the desperate act of drinking himself dead-drunk, than the circumstance of having left the wheel or the card table robbed of his weeks wages, if not of his employers stolen capital. Such men must forget and drink is happy to assist them to do so for six hours, after which they awake to a consciousness more bitter by reason of the debauch.
But again, strong drink strengthens itself by the closest partnership with strange women. It is not putting it too strongly to say that by far the bigger majority of drink shops are parties to such an alliance. Their rear rooms are brothels, or else some room overhead. Many of them are filled with bad women, whose first appeal to the young men that approach them is, Let us have something to drink. The woman back of the bar, or in the room overhead, or even in a separate house at the side, is the drummer for strong drink. She has the dual incentive of getting a per cent of money paid and of seeing her paramour put more and more within her power by the stupor or excitement thus produced; if not the triple one of adding theft to drinks and adultery. She has also the protection of that lawless place in which to do her work, and the security of the drink-dealers bond, if, for any misdemeanor, she should happen to arrest. It is a notable fact, and one that further proves what is self-evident to any observer, that the alliance between adultery and drink is such that, when South Carolinas dispensary law went into effect, a majority of the brothels were immediately broken up; the fallen women scattered as if their protectors had been slain and their houses destroyed.
Think, will you, of the strain to which every sacred relation, domestic, social and religious, is put when a man enters a drinkshop to order a glass of wine, or beer, or whiskey, and falls at once under the combined influence of whiskey adulterated to the poisonous point, and the fascinations of a bad woman, bred in the blandishments of a black art. It is before such powers that wives are forgotten; innocent children banished from memory; the sweet sacredness of a pure home despised, and the soul for which Christ died dives into the sewer of all social filth and loses so much of manhood that angels weep and the harps of Heaven are either silent, or sound a melancholy dirge.
Strong drink knows how to employ sensual accessories and the man who takes to it prepares to give his body to uncleanness, his mind to imbecility and his soul to hell. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts, and now is added the gamblers wheel and the brothels. It would take the reed of Heaven, with which the angel took the measure of the New Jerusalem, to measure the shores of the drunkards distress. Yes, God was right, it is woe! Such woe!
But again, our text teaches that
STRONG DRINK DISSIPATES DIVINER THOUGHTS AND DESTROYS THE SENSE OF GOD
The lovers of wine regard not the work of the Lord neither consider the operation of His hands
There are two or three reasons why intemperance must always produce that result.
The better men who indulge in strong drink are shamed out of their self-respect. The public is more charitable toward its unfortunate members than man is charitable toward himself. It is easier to lose ones good opinion of oneself than to forfeit the favor of others, and it is far more disastrous to character. At a home in Owensboro, Kentucky, I met a most delightful family, years since. The young man, a law graduate of the University of Virginia, and also of the naval school at Annapolis, did not know the taste of liquor. In speaking of intemperance, he said, I have grown up here in the most saloon-cursed city of the South; the famous city of distilleries; but I have abstained from touching intoxicants because, if I took but one drink, I would lose something of my own self-respect, and it is too precious to part with.
Ah, he was right! The man who forfeits that gives up one of the most precious possessions God ever bestowed. Halliday said, Whenever we can bring a man to have a proper respect for himself, that moment we have secured him against the commission of any heinous crime. What the love of virtue is to woman, as her safeguard against sensual suggestions, as her crown of honest pride, as her evidence of sweet divinity within, that self-respect is to man. Dont hope to hold it against intemperance, for strong drink has stifled and smothered that diviner element from the millions of lives that have indulged it. Dr. Cuyler said truly enough, To be a sober man costs self-restraint and the scoff of fools. To be a tippler costs a ruined purse, a ruined body and a lost soul. The sensualist pays for his vices a tremendous toll. But one of the first payments, which the saloon asks of men who wish to be made drunk, is valuable above all treasures of gold. It is self-respect! Who can afford it?
Again, strong drink dissipates those diviner sentiments of affection for ones own; ones wife, ones children, ones brothers and sisters, ones friends, ones home! To me there is no sadder phase of this sorrowful theme, than that which appears when mens hearts grow hard through drink; and mens conscience of right, and customs of affection die and dwindle on the very altar where they blossomed into rarest beauty. I have read from Macauleys pen, how the inhuman Judge Jeffreys used to find fiendish pleasure in passing judgments of the severest sort. Macauley declares that he seemed never so happy as at sight of human misery. Thus when he had opportunity of ordering an unlucky adventuress to be whipped at the carts tail, he would exclaim, Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly, man! Scourge her till the blood runs down. It is Christmas, a cold time for the Madame to strip! See that you warm her shoulders thoroughly.
But the bloody Jeffreys was not more brutal than any man or woman is like to become, when once the liquor habit has done its worst. When I look into the swollen eyes of the drunkards wife, or on the pale, pinched, half-clad, quarter-fed children that go out against the cold in search of work, I think surely the demon has done its worst. But recall your newspaper reading, and see how pitiless this monster is; how even the grave is gentle as compared. It was on a 28th of one July that a drunken man over in Michigan, quarreled with his brother and wife, and in his fury, snatched the innocent babe from the fathers arms and dashed out its brains against a fence post. It was another 13th of July that a Chicago drunkard killed four of his own little bairns, with equal brutality. It was on August the 11th at Cleveland, Ohio, that a third subject, in despondent fit, brought on by drink, drove the cruel knife through the temple of his baby girl, and then, to complete the work of death, sent a bullet into the opposite temple. Time would forbid me to speak in detail of the deeds of D C of Chicago; of J W of Stanhope, New Jersey; of J H of Brooklyn; of B and of C of Southport, New York; of C of Chicago; of P , T W , G F , D C , and many another, whose murders a daily press reported in a few weeks, and yet, every one of them, and how many more we will never know, did their frenzied deeds under the maddening influence of alcohol. I charge drink with daily murders of the most inhuman and revolting sort. The deeds that drinking men do, discover how strong drink drives from human hearts the last Divine spark and leaves only devils in control.
Mr. Flower, of the arena, once related a pathetic incident that his slum work in Boston had brought to light. It was the care of a little fatherless waif, who sold papers to support his drunken mother. It so happened one day that trade was poor and he took home fewer pennies than usual. The intoxicated mother was enraged when he counted out the copper coins, and seizing him, threatened to throw him out of the tenement window. He pled and fought for his life but she pushed him through the glass and cut his flesh. The sight of blood seemed to affect her as it might a furious beast, and she pushed the harder to break his hold and hurl him to the pavement below. At that moment the neighbors burst the door and she was arrested and lodged in jail. When she was tried, they called him as a witness, but he refused to utter one word against her, or tell what she had done. A gentleman engaged in slum work sought an interview with him alone, hoping to quiz from him the particulars of the tragedy, but he only answered, Mister, dont let em hurt her! Mama wouldnt a done it. It is drink that is to blame. Oh, truly, they that mix wine with their feasts, regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands.
It renders men unmindful of Gods power, and skeptical concerning His grace. They strive to forget His power, for they wish to delay judgment on their sins. They question the reality of His grace, because they have served Satan until he has led them to doubt that God is good. If drinking men would but believe in that love! How many poor inebriates have I seen saved by the sense of Gods love. There was Francis Murphy, the eloquent temperance orator. The tender touch of love, which God gave him through the hand of a noble Christian, saved his soul and set him to fight the demon that once dragged him down. There was Sam Small, Atlantas gutter-lawyer, reclaimed by Sam Jones Gospel of love! There was the brilliant John G. Wooley, who, when he heard Moody talk of God, said, If those things are true then I can be reclaimed, and God redeemed and honored him. Oh, yes, God can save! But He, alone, can break the bonds of drink and drive the demon back!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
THE MISERIES OF THE DRUNKARD
Isa. 5:11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, &c.
The miseries of the drunkard.
I. Personal, ungodly companionship, eclipse of intellect, demoralisation of nature [616] retribution, here and hereafter.
[616] Not in the day of thy drunkenness only dost thou undergo the harm of drunkenness, but also after that day. And as when a fever is passed by, the mischievous consequences of the fever remain, so also when drunkenness is passed, the disturbance of intoxication is whirling round both soul and body. And while the wretched body lies paralysed, like the hull of a vessel after a shipwreck, the soul yet more miserable than it, even when this is ended, stirs up the storm, and kindles desire; and when one seems to be sober, then most of all is he mad, imagining to himself wine and casks, cups and goblets.
And like as in a storm when the raging of the water has ceased, the loss by reason of the storm remains; so likewise here too. For as there of our freight, so here too is there a casting away of nearly all our good things. Whether it be temperance, or modesty, or understanding, or meekness, or humility, which the drunkenness finds there, it casts all away into the sea of iniquity.
But in what follows there is no more any likeness. Since there, indeed, upon the casting out the vessel is lightened, but here it is weighed down the more. For in its former place of wealth it takes on board sand, and salt water, and all the accumulated filth of drunkenness, enough to sink the vessel at once, with the mariners and the pilot.Chrysostom, 347407.
II. Domestic, poverty [619] dissension, vice, misery,J. Lyth, D.D.
[619] Thieves cannot steal land, unless they be Westminster Hall thieves, crafty contenders that eat out a true title with a false evidence; but the drunkard robs himself of his lands. Now he dissolves an acre, and then an acre, into the pot, till he hath ground all his ground at the malt-quern, and run all his patrimony through his throat. Thus he makes himself the living tomb of his forefathers, of posterity. He needs not trouble his sick mind with a will, nor distrust the fidelity of executors. He drowns all his substance at the ale-fat, and though he devours much, is the leaner every way. Drunkenness is a costly sin. It is like gunpowder, many a man is blown up by it. He throws his house so long out at windows, till at last his house throws him out of doors. This is a tipplers progress: from luxury to beggary; from beggary to thievery; from the tavern to Tyburn; from the alehouse to the gallows.Adams, 1653.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
NATIONAL UNGODLINESS
Isa. 5:11-17. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, &c.
National ungodliness.
I. Its phases, dissipation, drunkenness, forgetfulness of God.
II. Its punishment, captivity, famine, pestilence, humiliation.
III. The certainty of its visitation, God must be vindicated, His people must be delivered [622] Lyth, D.D.
[622] The individual culprit may sometimes
Unpunished to his after-reckoning go:
Not thus collective man; for public crimes
Draw on their proper punishment below.
When nations go astray, from age to age
The effects remain, a fatal heritage.
Bear witness, Egypt, thy huge monuments,
Of priestly fraud and tyranny austere!
Bear witness thou, whose only name presents
All holy feelings to religion dear
In earths dark circlet once the precious gem
Of living lightO fallen Jerusalem!
Southey.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(11) Woe unto them that rise up early.The same class as in Isa. 5:8 meets us under another aspect. In Judah, as elsewhere, the oppressors were conspicuous for their luxury (Amo. 6:5-6). They shocked public feeling by morning banquets (Ecc. 10:16-17; Act. 2:14). Not wine only, but the strong drink made from honey and from dates and other fruits (possibly including, as a generic term, the beer for which Egypt was famous) was seen on their tables. The morning feast was followed, perhaps with hardly a break, by an evening revel. (Comp. Isa. 22:13; Isa. 28:7.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Second woe on high-living and revelry, Isa 5:11-12.
In the train of the luxury of the times, drunkenness follows. The woe is deserved because (observe the particularity of the statement) appetite seeks gratification from early morn, through the day, and into night.
11, 12. Strong drink A drink of topers, ( , shakar,) made from dates, grain, grapes, and whatever else will produce intoxication.
Till wine “Wine,” here, is from the word , yayin, a term generic of this liquid, whether fermented or not; but here it is fermented and intoxicating, for the latter fact is specifically stated. “Strong drink” is also stated here to originate revelry, and music becomes in request.
The harp The same in kind that David used in chanting his odes. [For figure of the instrument and mode of handling see the next page.]
The viol This was of wood, made hollow, and overstrung. The original word, , nebhel, is generic of the ancient guitar, four forms of which have been taken from the ruins of Egypt.
The tabret A kind of drum, perhaps with strings attached.
The pipe A flute or flageolet.
They regard not God is not in all their thoughts. They look not toward his work the operation of his hands. These parallel words of course mean the same thing, namely, What God teaches men through nature, providence, and revelation; hence, these instructors being overlooked, God is compelled to teach them by a severer discipline by famine and captivity.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Second Woe ( Isa 5:11-17 ).
Isa 5:11-12
‘Woe to those who rise up early in the morning,
That they may follow strong drink,
Who tarry late into the night,
Until wine inflames them.
And the harp, and the lute, the tabret and the pipe,
And wine are in their feasts.
But they do not regard the work of Yahweh,
Nor have they considered the operation of His hands.’
The first woe was against greed and avarice, the second is against over excess in pleasure seeking. It was one of the dangers, especially of those in high positions, that they could leave their responsibilities to others while they indulged themselves. These drank day and night and spent their time in no doubt ribald and sensual musical entertainment (compare Isa 22:13; Isa 28:1; Isa 28:8; Hos 7:5; Amo 6:5-6). Overindulgence in music and dancing can be as intoxicating as overindulgence in drink.
These were men who could have made a great difference in society, but instead they were saturated with fleshly indulgence. Their whole thoughts were on pleasure, and, in contrast, they did not take regard to the work of Yahweh, which should have been their main aim and responsibility. They were too taken up with themselves and their delights. Many today are similar. All thoughts of God and His requirements are dismissed by indulgence in music, drink, sport and drugs.
‘They do not regard the work of Yahweh, nor have they considered the operation of His hands.’ God and His ways are dismissed. For the ‘work (po‘al) of Yahweh’ see Deu 32:4 where the stress is on His faithful and righteous judicial work; Job 36:24 where the stress is on his general government of the universe; Psa 44:1 where the stress is on His delivering power; Psa 64:9-10 where the stress is on His judgments. Thus these men do not take note of what He has done, and what He is doing, because they are saturated with music and wine and pleasure.
The ‘operation (work – ma‘aseh) of His hands’ can describe His work of judgment (Isa 10:12; Isa 29:3); His miraculous works (Exo 34:10); His work of creation (Psa 8:3; Psa 8:6; Psa 19:1); and His overruling of creation (Psa 92:4-5). Thus these men ignore His activity in the world. They are too pleasure ridden to consider it, or even notice it, and thus fail to fulfil God’s demands. But the consequences of this will soon come on them.
Isa 5:13-15
‘Therefore my people are gone into captivity,
For lack of knowledge,
And their honourable men are famished,
And their multitude are parched with thirst.
Therefore Sheol has enlarged her appetite,
And opened her mouth without measure,
And their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, descend into it,
And he who rejoices among them.
And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled,
And the eyes of the lofty are humbled.’
And because these men and their compatriots had failed to ‘know’ God Israel would suffer (or had suffered). They would find themselves captive, whether in exile or in their own land, subjected to the authority of outsiders.
It is constantly important to recognise that Hebrew only has two tenses, (although seven conjugations) the direct and indirect, the complete and incomplete. They were more concerned with the completeness and incompleteness of actions than with chronology. Thus the use of the perfect tense does not always depict past action, but rather action seen as completed whether past or future.
Here it may simply be a way of expressing the completeness and certainty of what God would do in the future, (often erroneously called ‘the prophetic perfect’) rather than indicating that it was in the past. It is saying that it is a certain and sure judgment that either has or will assuredly soon come on them in devastating completeness. Alternatively it may be seen as a comment added later by the prophet declaring the fulfilment of God’s verdict on their behaviour. But however we see it, it is depicting the consequence of their behaviour.
So through their ‘lack of knowledge’ of God, because they had failed to know and observe His ways, they are or were destined for captivity. And Israel, the northern kingdom, would indeed go into captivity and exile in 722 BC, even while Isaiah was still alive, their honourable men and their people chained and pleading for food and water. And Judah also would be invaded and made desolate, with captivity and exile for them also a certain but more distant prospect, unless they repented. Then would the pleasure ridden leaders, and the pleasure ridden people, instead of being able to overindulge themselves, be famished and thirst-ridden, and all because they had failed to know Yahweh and acknowledge and trust Him.
But worse. The grave would open its mouth to them in its own great thirst, a mouth gaping and wide open, and it would swallow up huge numbers of them. And into it would go their glory, and their pomp, and those who ‘rejoiced’ and behaved hilariously in their wild parties and excesses. ‘Their glory’ may indicate their important men in their grandeur and splendour, or the whole of what they gloried in, including paradoxically their glorying in the cult of Yahweh (contrast Isa 4:2).
Note how the punishment is made to fit the crime. Because they overindulged their ‘thirst’, they themselves would thirst, and a thirsty grave will swallow them. What men sow they will reap. We may not fear captivity in our day, but the grave awaits us all.
‘And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled, and the eyes of the lofty are humbled.’ The result will be total humiliation for all, both poor and wealthy, both insignificant and grand, and even for the royal house itself. Men lowered their eyes before the great, but even those who are so lofty that they do not need to lower the eyes will find that they are made to do so by what will come on them.
‘Sheol’ – the unseen shadowy world of the dead, unknown and unknowable. The grave and what lay beyond it. It was seen as a land of shadows, of grave-like creatures, where there is no joy or reality. There was then no concept of a satisfying afterlife.
Isa 5:6-17
‘But Yahweh of hosts is exalted in judgment,
And God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.
Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture,
And the waste places of the fat ones will wanderers eat.’
In contrast with the humbling of rebellious man will be the exaltation of Yahweh. His righteous acts and judgments will result in the exaltation of His name, and all creation will declare the rightness of what He has done. He will be revealed as ‘the Holy One’, the ‘Set Apart One’, set apart by His righteousness. The word ‘holy’ means that which has been set apart for a sacred purpose (so paradoxically the cult prostitutes were called ‘holy ones’ by those who followed the cult) thus God as the Holy One is the One essentially set apart in His uniqueness. And that uniqueness is here declared to consist in His total righteousness, His total moral purity, rightness, and goodness. He is the essence of all that is right, and true, and wholesome, and good.
The words that follow may be seen in various ways. Either as wholly depicting the glorious future of His own when He achieves His final triumph, and also welcomes ‘strangers’. Or as a total picture of the final desert of the rebellious. Or as a contrast the one with the other.
In the first interpretation it is saying that so great will be the prosperity of His people that not only will they feed in their own pasture, in what God has given them, and grow fat in the best sense (compare Mic 2:12; Jer 31:10), but there will be so much to spare that aliens and wanderers will be able to feast on it too. There was certainly a literal fulfilment of this in the shorter term in periods during the pre-Christian period when Israel comparatively greatly prospered, and even moreso spiritually in the days of the early church, but its greater, more figurative, fulfilment awaits that day when we feast with Him before the throne (Joh 14:2; Rev 7:16-17).
Alternately the thought may be that all that once belonged to those wealthy, condemned Israelites, will from this time on merely be pasture for lambs, who will be able to wander anywhere and graze among the ruins of what is left, while aliens and strangers will feed in the waste places which were once their prosperous estates. It could thus be depicting that they have lost everything.
Or it may be that we are to see the reference to the lambs as referring to the blessing on the remnant, while the second part of the verse refers to the judgment on the rebellious as bringing blessing to ‘strangers’ because the land becomes available to tramps. In view of the fact that Scripture regularly depicts God’s own true people as sheep or lambs this may seem the most probable interpretation. Out of the devastations of judgment will come blessing for the righteous, who will feast on God’s pasture, while what the rebellious gloried in will become a waste place, but God will then turn this to the benefit of aliens who will gain from what the rebellious have lost. Thus will come triumph out of disaster.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 5:11-14. Woe unto them that rise up, &c. Another vice which the prophet reproves in these verses, is luxury or intemperance; whose companion and daughter is Inconsideration of the works of God, whose child also is Ignorance. See the beginning of the 13th verse. The work of the Lord, and the operation of his hands, may signify, in their greatest extent, all that God has done, as well in the creation of the world as in the establishment and rule of his church from the beginning of time; but more particularly it may here refer to the study of the divine law, and God’s peculiar dispensations toward the Jewish people. Isa 5:13-16. We have in these verses the punishment of the preceding crime, and Isa 5:17 the consequences of that punishment. To luxury, abundance, revelling, intemperance in the use of earthly, goods, are opposed poverty, famine, thirst, a want of necessaries, a total abolition of all glory, magnificence, and pomp; and the like. The allusion in the beginning of the 14th verse is, according to Bishop Lowth, to the form of the ancient sepulchres, which were subterraneous caverns hollowed out of a rock; the mouth of which was generally closed by a great stone. The Hebrew, laken hirchiibah sheol napshah, might be tendered literally, Wherefore the grave hath enlarged her soul. The prosopopoeia is extremely fine and expressive, and the image is fraught with the most tremendous horror. Vitringa supposes that, according to the letter, some powerful prince, the terrible messenger of death and hell, is here described; who, armed by the divine judgment, spreads death and devastation around him. Nebuchadnezzar and the Roman princes are thus well characterized.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
How striking are these expressions! wine and dancing, revelling and music, rioting and sensuality, bring on their own punishments. Hell and the grave yawn to receive those who kill themselves by intemperance. Both poor and rich, in their different means of gratification, fall under the same sins, and are alike cut off in their transgression. Here is an awful picture of a fallen state. Alas! every age produceth but the same. See a similar representation, Amo 6:1-7 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isa 5:11 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, [that] they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, [till] wine inflame them!
Ver. 11. Woe unto them that rise up early. ] Heb., The early risers, but for an ill purpose. O intolerandum flagitium, saith one, a homines inertiae, somnique plenissimos, &c.; O intolerable wickedness, that men so lazy, and more sleepy than dormice, should be up and at it so very early – they rise early to corrupt their actions, saith another prophet Zep 3:7 – and should have their brains crowing before day. Neither are they so soon up alone, but they call up others (as the Hebrew word here signifieth) to serve them, and sit with them on their ale bench; for they are good fellows, they say, and must have company.
That they may follow strong drink.
That continue unto night.
Till wine inflame them.
a Osor. in loc.
b Studium ebrietatis illis obiecit,
c Lib. xiv. cap. ult.
d Fuller’s Church History, p. 61.
e Camden’s Elisabeth, p. 89.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
strong drink. Hebrew. shekar. App-27.
night. Hebrew. nesheph. A Homonym. Compare Isa 21:4 with Isa 59:10. See notes on Job 24:15, and 1Sa 30:17
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 5:11-23
Isa 5:11-12
WOE TO PLEASURE-SEEKING; DISSIPATION
“Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them. And the harp and the lute, the tabret, and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.”
This is a perfect picture of the reveling, drunken, irresponsibility of countless persons in our own society today; and the ultimate consequences of it shall not be any less serious than those which overtook ancient Israel. The international news services carried a story over the airwaves the very day this is being written stating that, “At least 100,000 deaths every year are caused by the consumption of alcohol in the United States.” America seems intent upon drowning themselves in alcohol.
Note also the part played by instruments of music in the reveling and dissipation of the people. It has always been this way; and from the earliest times, instruments of music have been associated with pagan worship, as when, for example, Nebuchadrezzar associated them with the worship of his golden image. The reason for this is visible in the current influence of “rock music” upon teenagers.
Isa 5:13-17
HUMILIATION; CAPTIVITY AND DEATH SHALL RESULT
“Therefore my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst. Therefore Sheol hath enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend into it. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled; but Jehovah of hosts is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall the wanderers eat.”
“The present tense in Isa 5:13 is the perfect of prophetic certitude. Note also that there is the strong affirmation here that Israel deserves the death, destitution, and deportation that awaited them. Here is a terrible metaphor of death. The grave, or Sheol, is compared to a great monster opening its mouth to swallow the evil people. The last verse of this paragraph is ambiguous. Rawlinson wrote that the reference to the feeding lambs means that, “Sheep shall feed on the desolated estates of the covetous; and the last clause is a reference to the occupation of Israel’s lands by wandering tribes of Arabs and others.
Isa 5:18-19
WOE TO CYNICAL MATERIALISTS
“Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin as it were with a cart rope; that say, Let him make speed, let him hasten his work; that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!”
These verses are the language of scoffing materialists who use one of Isaiah’s favorite names for God, but in mockery. These fearless sinners even dare to challenge the eternal God to “Do his thing in their presence!” Strangely, the words suggest the mockery of the leaders of Israel who challenged Jesus Christ to come down from the Cross. The mention of cords of falsehood and cart ropes, as Hailey stated, suggests that the “people are slaves to their idols and their sins … They are harnessed with their falsehoods and their idolatry. Archer compared the picture given here to that of a group of pagan worshippers “drawing the cart of a great idol in festal procession. Those backslidden people dragged along their idol of iniquity, challenging the Holy One of Israel.
Isa 5:20
WOE TO THOSE WHO REVERSE MORAL STANDARDS
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
Dummelow called this the “perversion of all moral distinctions.” Calling sins by names that appear to approve of them is an old satanic trick. Thus the infidel is called a free thinker; the drunkard is called sociable; the alcoholic suffers from alcoholism; the stingy is called thrifty, etc.
Isa 5:21
WOE TO PROUD; EGOTISTICAL INTELLECTUALS
“Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight.”
The apostle Paul described perfectly the people of any generation who fall into this category, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Rom 1:22).
Isa 5:22
WOE TO HARD DRINKERS AND DEBAUCHEES
“Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink!”
Peake described these characters as “Drunkards, heroes, not for the fray, but for the debauch, having the hard head of the hard drinker. Not content with ordinary wine, they mix spices with it to enhance its flavor and increase its strength.
Isa 5:23
WOE TO CROOKED JUDGES
“(Woe to them) that justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him.”
The first three words of this verse are not in the text but are most certainly understood. Thus there are seven of these woes pronounced upon apostate Israel. Even the judiciary of wicked Israel had become corrupt; their judges had become evening wolves (Zep 3:3). There could be but one answer to the problem of such a wicked society; and that answer was at once announced by the prophet; but it must not be supposed that Israel alone would suffer the terrible judgment announced here for the sinful kingdom (Amo 9:8). The judgment of Israel, as is also the case of many judgments of God upon wicked peoples throughout history, was a type of the eternal judgment itself. Thus, as we shall see in the final paragraph of this chapter, there will appear elements of both the judgment of Israel and that of the eternal judgment also.
Isa 5:11-17 WOE AGAINST DISSIPATION: Misuse of Gods beneficence. They rise early, not to work and live constructively, but to revel and play in riotous music, feasting and dancing. A greedy, grasping, monopolizing people. Luxury loving, drinking, feasting and reveling. Consuming the land-while the rest of the people lived like slaves. The only liberty they care for is a selfish liberty-license to do as they please. There is no room in their drink-weakened, pleasure-loving brains for serious thought of sober government. Their only thought is how to enjoy this moment, this day; and they squeeze every day dry and fling it to one side after it is finished.
Captivity is the inevitable consequence of such dissipation. Moral, intellectual, political and spiritual enslavement surely follows such decadence. Loss of personal worth, personal identity and death await such actions. In this instance, the people, their wealth, and their haughtiness will come to an end. Both high and low will meet the same end-captivity.
The lambs and sheep of foreigners will feed in their land. The places formerly owned by the wealthy shall be occupied and used by strangers. Assyrians, Arabs, Samaritans and other nomadic tribes inhabited this land during their captivities.
Isa 5:18-19 WOE AGAINST UNBELIEF: Not having faith in God they sin openly as those who draw or pull after them a load of sin with cords or ropes. They are so enslaved to their sins and to Satan, they are like harnessed oxen who pull heavy burdens; the difference being men voluntarily wish it to be so while animals have no choice. And we call animals, dumb! And far from being penitent, they are brazen. When told of Gods coming judgment, instead of fleeing to hide in the rocks, they scoff, What is God waiting for-tell Him to come on. We would like to see Him come in judgment! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Absence of the fear of the Lord leads to stupidity (Cf. II Tim. chapters 3 and 4).
Isa 5:20 WOE AGAINST MORAL CONFUSION:Moral confusion always results from unbelief (Cf. Rom 1:18-32). Where there is no faith in God there are no clear-cut moral distinctions-no clear conception of what is right and wrong. There can only be moral relativism-a thing is right because we want it to be-moral anarchy. Dostoevski has his priest character say, in The Brothers Karamasov, If there is no God everything is permissible. Nietzsche, the insane German philosopher, insisted that what the world needed was a transvaluation of values. Nietzsche was simply carrying out his evolutionary atheism to its rational end. When unbelief takes over, all values are turned upside-down. What is good is said to be bad; what is bad is said to be good. The playboyism of our 20th century attempts to convince people that Christian ethics (especially in sex) are evil. Where this reversal of values occurs, cowardice becomes caution; recklessness becomes courage; stinginess becomes thrift; prodigality becomes generosity; sin becomes maladjustment! Right or wrong becomes a matter of custom. Cursing, drinking, promiscuous sexual activity, gambling are all justified on pragmatic bases. There appear as many ethical standards as there are individuals. People make up their own laws to suit their own purposes. Recognition of authority, except for oneself, disappears. Society soon resembles a chicken with its head cut off-no coordination, no purpose, no control. Moral anarchy results in civil and social destruction and death.
Isa 5:21 WOE AGAINST CONCEIT: Not only do they sin blatantly-they take pride in their adeptness in sinning. They are wise in their own eyes. The farther men drift from God in unbelief the more conceited they become (Cf. Rom 1:18-32; 2Pe 3:3-7; 2Co 10:7-12). God becomes something to set on a table as a kind of ornament. Religion becomes a fetish, having no real place, no real function in life. The real issues and problems of society are made relative to selfish interests. Pride is the snare of the devil. Pride brought the judgment of God upon angels.
Isa 5:22-23 WOE AGAINST PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: Selfishness is the first step into degradation. Selfishness means dethronement of God. As a result of such dethronement men turn to false securities-false gods. Wine, sex, money all are sought as replacements for God. The leaders of Judah become sots-alcoholics. Drunkards administered the government! In America we have drunken legislators, drunken government executives, and drunken military leaders administering our government! Drunkenness, graft, bribery, injustice, corruption of all kinds were rampant in Judah at this time. The justification for such action was cynical unbelief. One important issue of such living is moral anarchy. The inevitable consequence of such a society is arrogant rulers and an oppressed populace. The leaders of the country boasted and prided themselves, not in how well they ruled, but in how well they mixed drinks and how drunken they were able to become.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
rise: Isa 5:22, Isa 28:1, Pro 23:29, Pro 23:30, Ecc 10:16, Ecc 10:17, Hos 7:5, Hos 7:6, Hab 2:15, Luk 21:34, Rom 13:13, 1Co 6:10, Gal 5:21, 1Th 5:6, 1Th 5:7
inflame: or, pursue, Isa 28:7, Isa 28:8, Pro 20:1, Pro 23:32
Reciprocal: Pro 19:10 – Delight Pro 23:20 – not Ecc 7:2 – better Isa 10:1 – Woe Isa 21:4 – the night Isa 24:9 – General Amo 6:4 – lie Hab 2:5 – he transgresseth Luk 12:19 – take Eph 5:18 – be not 1Ti 3:3 – Not given to wine Jam 5:5 – have lived 1Pe 4:3 – excess
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 5:11-12. Wo unto them, that rise up early, &c. Here we find another vice reproved, namely, that of luxury, or intemperance; whose companion and daughter is Inattention to the works of God, whose child, also, is Ignorance; see Isa 5:13; that rise up early to follow strong drink As husbandmen and tradesmen rise early to follow their employments; as if they were afraid of losing time from that which is the greatest misspending of time and the most sinful abuse of it. That continue until night Spending the whole day at their cups; till wine inflame them Inflame their lusts and passions: for chambering and wantonness, on the one hand, and contentions and wounds without cause, on the other, generally follow upon rioting, and drunkenness, Rom 13:13; Pro 23:29. And the harp, and the viol, &c., are in their feasts Musical instruments of all sorts must accompany their wine, that every sense may be gratified to the utmost, and their pleasures rendered more exquisite. But they regard not the work of the Lord What God hath lately done, and is yet doing, and about to do, among them; his grievous judgments, partly inflicted, and partly threatened, which require another course of life, even to give themselves to fasting and prayer, and to reform their manners, that so they might remove the calamities which, now afflicted them, and prevent those which were approaching.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
5:11 Woe to them that {p} rise early in the morning, [that] they may follow strong drink; that continue until {q} night, [till] wine inflames them!
(p) Who spare no pain nor diligence to follow their lusts.
(q) Who are never weary of their rioting and excessive pleasures but use all means to provoke to the same.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The second blight on the "grapes" was pleasure-seeking. In Isaiah’s day this vice manifested itself in drinking too much wine and strong drink, usually at a continuous round of parties (cf. Isa 22:13; Isa 28:1-8; Hos 7:5; Joe 3:3; Amo 6:6). These people were "party animals" who paid no attention to the Lord or His works. Seeking pleasure is not wrong in itself unless it becomes too absorbing, as it had with many Israelites. Too much partying produces insensitivity to spiritual things.
"When the passion for pleasure has become uppermost in a person’s life, passion for God and his truth and his ways is squeezed out." [Note: Oswalt, p. 160.]