Isaiah 5:22-23

Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine. .. which justify the wicked for reward

Wine-loving lawyers and judges

Among the men whom Isaiah denounces as the corrupters and destroyers of the society of which they are the leaders, are the unjust lawyers and judges: he mentions as characteristic of them, that they are heroes at drinking, and spice their wine to make it stronger; by which, perhaps, we are to understand, not that their heads and senses were overcome with wine like the drunkards spoken of above, but that the effect on their hearts and consciences was such as to harden them in their criminal perversion of the law.

Perhaps the passage might be illustrated by instances of the professional character of hard-drinking but strong-headed judges of other times. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

Aromatites

The Romans called this spiced wine “Aromatites.” (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

Drunkenness

The woe denounced in the text against those notorious for drunkenness is made up of the unavoidable effects it produces, and these effects are too dear a price to be paid by a reasonable creature for all the sensual pleasures of this life, did they even accompany this single sin.

I. THE DRUNKARD’S EXCUSES.

1. His first excuse is charged to the account of good fellowship. But surely, friendship can never be founded on anything else than an amiable and affectionate disposition, a likeness of temper, and true honesty of heart on both sides. Will strong drink bestow these on us? Can mutual love and confidence be built on vice? And how doth drunkenness pro mote the gaiety of conversation? Does it not rather destroy all conversation, for what is conversation, but the communication of rational and agreeable thoughts?

2. The next excuse for drinking to excess is, that it stupefies the cares and troubles of the drunkard, which arise from three different quarters,--his ill state of health, the unfortunate posture of his worldly affairs, or the stings of his guilty conscience.

3. The drunkard hath other more common and accidental excuses for his vice. He says he is so exposed to company and business, that it is impossible for him to avoid drinking to excess. Then, he is of so easy and flexible a temper, that he cannot resist the importunities of his friends, as he calls them. Thus, he is for softening his vice into a sort of virtue, and calling that mere good nature, which his creditor calls villainy, and his family cruelty.

II. THE WOE DENOUNCED BY ALMIGHTY GOD; or, in other words, the miserable effects, as well temporal as spiritual, of his favourite vice.

1. Poverty.

2. Universal contempt.

3. Ill health and an untimely death.

4. These evils are as nothing compared to the spiritual evils that spring from drunkenness. In destroying his health he shortens his life, and so far is guilty of self-murder. In impairing his reason he makes his life useless and burdensome to the world. (J. Skelton.)

Mighty to drink wine

Strength is a great blessing, but if it is used in the service of sin it becomes a curse.

I. THE GREAT DRINKERS of that day were just the same sort of men as they are now here in our country.

1. They are grasping and selfish (Isaiah 5:8). They are often willing to take bribes if they are magistrates (Isaiah 5:23), and to condemn the innocent rather than lose their money or credit.

2. They are dull of understanding of the things of God (Isaiah 5:12).

3. They are greedy of sire Drink makes men pull destruction upon themselves (Isaiah 5:18).

4. They are liars (Isaiah 5:20). It would be difficult to find one lover of drink who was truthful. However kind and generous a sot may be, his word can never be depended upon. “Deceiving and being deceived” is his exact portrait.

5. Clever in their own eyes (Isaiah 5:21).

II. THE WOES the prophet declares are sure to come on these men mighty to drink wine.

1. Poverty (Isaiah 5:9). The great and beautiful houses will soon be vacant, and the neglected fields will soon be like the sluggard’s garden. More than half the empty houses and the farms that are given up in this country represent the doings of drink.

2. Degradation (Isaiah 5:13). Captivity to a Jew meant more than poverty--loss of honour, of position, of hope, grinding toil, pollution, horrid slavery. What can degrade body and mind like drink? (Isaiah 5:15.)

3. Death (Isaiah 5:14). There is a sin unto death. More than 60,000 drunkards go down to their dishonoured graves every year in Britain. Think of death and hell “gaping” to take in these hosts of slain. (Josiah Mee.)

The bane and antidote

(with Habakkuk 2:15):--

I. THE EVIL.

1. As affecting the individual. It is no trivial result to demoralise the human spirit.

2. As it ramifies itself throughout the framework of society.

(1) As respects the family.

(2) The wider circle of the general community.

II. THE CURE.

1. Total abstinence.

2. Legislative prohibition. (J. Guthrie, M. A.)

The unworthy glorying of the intemperate

They gloried in it as a great accomplishment, that they were able to bear a great deal of strong liquor, without being overcome by it. Let drunkards know from this Scripture that--

1. They ungratefully abuse their bodily strength, which God hath given them for good purposes, and by degrees cannot but weaken it.

2. It will not excuse them from the guilt of drunkenness that they can drink hard, and yet keep their feet.

3. Those that boast of their drinking down others glory in their shame.

4. How light soever men make of their drunkenness, it is a sin which will certainly lay them open to the wrath and curse of God. (M. Henry.)

Intemperance a fine art

Cyrus, writing the Lacedaemonians for assistance, spoke in very high terms of himself, telling them he had a greater and more prince y heart than his brother; that he was the better philosopher, being instructed in the doctrines of the Magi, and that he could drink and bear more wine than his brother. (Plutarch’s Artaxerxes.)

Mighty to drink wine

When Bonosus the drunken Roman had hanged himself, it went for a byword that a tun or tankard hung there and not a man. And when one was commended to King Alphonsus for a great drinker, and able to bear it, he answered that that was a good praise in a sponge but not in a prince. (J. Trapp.)

Darius, King of Persia, caused it to be engraved upon his tomb, “I could drink much wine, and bear it bravely.” Perhaps he was proud of it, but it was his shame. (J. Mee.)

Intemperance destroys character

The title of “Rois faineants”--“do-nothing kings”--expresses very aptly the character of the last descendants of the house of Clovis. At the moment when circumstances demanded from the occupants of the Frankish throne a more than ordinary share of talent and force of character, they lapsed into a state of imbecility and insignificance, both bodily and mental. Intemperance and debauchery entailed on them premature decrepitude; few attained the mature age of manhood; they rarely appeared in public, except at the annual pageant of the Champ de Mars. (Student’s France.)

A Japanese proverb

The Japanese have a true proverb which describes millions of sad cases: “A man took a drink, then the drink took a drink, then the drink took the man.” Effects of wine drinking:--Whilst the drunkard swallows wine, wine swallows him. God disregards him, angels despise him; men deride him, virtue declines him, the devil destroys him. (Augustine.)