Hosea 7:5

In the day of our king the princes have made [him] sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.

Ver. 5. In the day of our king] Our good king, on whom they so much doted, that they forgot God and his sincerer service. Quaecunque a regibus dicuntur aut fiunt, Gallis mirifice solet placere. It is reported of the French by their own chronicles, that they are wonderfully well pleased with whatsoever is said or done by their king (Epit. Hist. Gallor. 134); so that they affect to speak like him, to be arrayed like him, and to imitate him in everything. Their song is, Mihi placet quicquid Regi placet. But is not this to idolize the creature? and have not many (otherwise well minded men) among us been by this means miscarried to their cost in our late combustions? This day of their king was either his birthday (so Pagnine rendereth it here, die natalis eius), or his coronation day (so the Chaldee paraphrast carrieth it), which also is the birthday of a king as he is king, 1 Samuel 13:1, unless haply he have the happiness to be crowned (not in his cradle only, as Europus, king of Macedon, and the late King James were, but) in his mother's womb, as Misdaetus, king of Persia, was, the crown being set upon his mother's great belly before he was born. Now in this solemn day of the king (when they should have been better busied), the princes have made him sick, or the princes were sick, they drank themselves sick, drowning their bodies and souls (as Richard III did his brother Clarence) in a butt of Malmsey. How many importunate and impudent drinkers are there, that by drinking other men's health destroy their own! See Master Prinne's Health's-sickness, and accord him that said,

“ Una salus sanis, nullam potare salutem,

Non est in pota vera salute salus. ”

But what beastly bedlams, or rather incarnate devils, were those three drunkards mentioned by Jo. Manlius in his Common Places, who drank so long till one of them fell down stark dead; and yet the other two, nothing terrified with such a dreadful example of divine vengeance, went on to drink, and poured the dead man's part into him as he lay by them? Oh horrible! Drunkenness is a detestable vice in any, but especially in men of place and power, Proverbs 31:4 . Woe be to those drunken vice-gods (as I may in the worst sense best call them), woe to the very crown of their pride, in drinking down many, Isaiah 28:1 , as Mark Antony wrote, or rather spued out, a book concerning his own abilities to bear strong drink! Darius also boasted of the same faculty in his very epitaph: a poor praise. Drunkenness in a king is a capital sin, and makes the land reel; witness Belshazzar carousing in the bowels of the sanctuary to the honour of Shar, his drunken god; Alexander the Great drinking himself to death, and killing forty-one more with excessive drinking, to get that crown of one hundred and eighty pounds weight, which he had provided for him that drank most (hence those feast days were called σακεαι ημεραι , they were like the Roman Saturnalia); Bonosus the emperor, that beastly drunkard, called therefore a tankard, (Hic pendet Amphora); and Tiberius, surnamed Biberius, for his tippling; like as Erasmus, called Eccius Ieccius, for the same cause: and well he might; for as he lived a shameful drunkard, so being nonplust at Ratisbon by Melancthon in a public disputation, and drinking more tban was fit that night at the Bishop of Mundina's lodgings (who had among the best Italian wines), he fell into a fever, whereof he died. Drunkenness is a flattering evil, a sweet poison, a cunning Circe, that besots the soul, destroys the body, dolores gignit in capite, in stomacho, in tote corpore acerrimos, grievous diseases and dolours in the head, stomach, whole man. At the last "it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder," Proverbs 23:32. The drunkard saith, as the vine in Jotham's parable, Non possum relinquere vinum meum, Take away my liquor, you take away my life. But it proves to him in the issue like that wine mentioned by Moses, Deuteronomy 32:33 : their wine is the poison of dragons, and cruel venom of asps, which makes the spirits warm, and the body sick to death.

With bottles of wine] Or, with heat through wine, as Isaiah 5:11, and so Jarchi expoundeth it. The same word signifieth the poison of a serpent, Psalms 58:4, which inflameth and killeth: confer Proverbs 23:32, and think of that cup of fire and brimstone, Psalms 11:6, to be one day turned down the wide gullets of intemperate drinkers; which will be much worse to them than was that ladle full of boiling lead, which the Turkish bashaw caused to be poured down the throat of a drunken wretch, without giving him any respite for the recovery of his lost wits.

He stretched out his hand with scorners] He, that is, the king, forgetting his kingly dignity, authority, and gravity (for there is a decorum, το πρεπον, to be observed in every calling, but by great ones especially), stretched out his hand, as a companion and comrade, as a hail-fellow-well-met (as they say), prostituting his regal authority to every scoundrel that would pledge him; or at least, giving them his hand to kiss, which Job saith God will not do, Job 8:20 .

With scorners] Those worst of men, Psalms 1:1, those pests, ακολαστοι λοιμοι, as the Septuagint here render it, those incorrigible persons, as they translate the word, Proverbs 20:1, where also it is fitly said, that wine is a mocker, because it maketh men mockers. Hence that of David, "with hypocritical mockers at feasts they gnashed upon me with their teeth," Psalms 35:16. And that holy jealousy of Job for his children, lest (while they were feasting and merry-making) they should curse God, or mock at men. Tales enim evadunt qui strenue helluantur (Tarnov.). It is ordinary with such as are full-gorged with good cheer, and throughly heated with wine, to set their mouths against heaven, and to license their tongues to walk through the earth, Psalms 73:9; they have a flout to fling, and a fool's bolt to shoot at their betters by many degrees; yea, though they be kings that do it (as here), they stretch out their hands with scorners, and jeer at the power and profession of godliness; they are no better than base fellows, as great Antiochus is called, Daniel 11:21, and as Kimchi upon this text noteth from his Father, that those that at the beginning of the feast or compotation were here called princes, are afterwards, when they fell to quafflngand flouting, called (in contempt) scoffers and scorners. Polanus and others, by stretching out the hand, understand, ad aequales haustus potare, &c., a drinking share and share alike with every base companion, till drunk; they became despicable. Nempe ubi, neque mens, neque pes suum facit officium. The Greeks, when they meet at feasts or banquets, drink small draughts at first, which by degrees they increase, till they come to the height of intemperance. Hence Graecari, and as merry as a Greek. How much better those Spartans, of whom the poet,

“ Quinetiam Spartae mos est laudabilis ille,

Ut bibat arbitrio pocula quisque suo? ”

How much better the Persians in Esther's time, Esther 1:8 , "the drinking was according to the law, none did compel," &c. And what a drunken beast was Domitius, the father of Nero, who slew Liberius, an honest Roman, because he refused to take up his cups, as he commanded him! (Sueton.). The Carthaginians made a law, that none of their magistrates during their office should drink any wine. Romulus being invited to a feast, would not drink much, quia postridie negotium haberet, because he had public business to despatch on the morrow. Ahasuerus, drinking more freely on the first day of the feast, became so frolic, that in his mirth he forgot what was convenient; and guided by his passions, sent for Vashti, Esther 1:5; Esther 1:10 .