11 Cursed are those who get up early in the morning to give themselves up to strong drink; who keep on drinking far into the night till they are heated with wine!
Who says, Oh! who says, Ah! who has violent arguments, who has grief, who has wounds without cause, whose eyes are dark? Those who are seated late over the wine: those who go looking for mixed wine.
Cursed are those who are strong to take wine, and great in making mixed drinks!
Wine makes men foolish, and strong drink makes men come to blows; and whoever comes into error through these is not wise.
Ho! crown of pride of those who are given up to wine in Ephraim, and the dead flower of his glory which is on the head of those who are overcome by strong drink!
And further, these are uncertain through wine, and have gone out of the right way through strong drink: the priest and the prophet are uncertain through strong drink, they are overcome by wine, they have gone out of the way through strong drink; their vision is false, they go wrong in their decisions. For all the tables are covered with coughed-up food, so that there is not a clean place.
With right behaviour as in the day; not in pleasure-making and drinking, not in bad company and unclean behaviour, not in fighting and envy.
In the end, its bite is like that of a snake, its wound like the wound of a poison-snake.
On the day of our king, the rulers made him ill with the heat of wine; his hand was stretched out with the men of pride. For they have made their hearts ready like an oven, while they are waiting secretly; their wrath is sleeping all night; in the morning it is burning like a flaming fire.
A curse on him who gives his neighbour the wine of his wrath, making him overcome with strong drink from the cup of his passion, so that you may be a witness of their shame!
But give attention to yourselves, for fear that your hearts become over-full of the pleasures of food and wine, and the cares of this life, and that day may come on you suddenly, and take you as in a net:
Envy, uncontrolled drinking and feasting, and such things: of which I give you word clearly, even as I did in the past, that they who do such things will have no part in the kingdom of God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 5
Commentary on Isaiah 5 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 5
In this chapter the prophet, in God's name, shows the people of God their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins, and the judgments which were likely to be brought upon them for their sins,
Isa 5:1-7
See what variety of methods the great God takes to awaken sinners to repentance by convincing them of sin, and showing them their misery and danger by reason of it. To this purport he speaks sometimes in plain terms and sometimes in parables, sometimes in prose and sometimes in verse, as here. "We have tried to reason with you (ch. 1:18); now let us put your case into a poem, inscribed to the honour of my well beloved.' God the Father dictates it to the honour of Christ his well beloved Son, whom he has constituted Lord of the vineyard. The prophet sings it to the honour of Christ too, for he is his well beloved. The Old-Testament prophets were friends of the bridegroom. Christ is God's beloved Son and our beloved Saviour. Whatever is said or sung of the church must be intended to his praise, even that which (like this) tends to our shame. This parable was put into a song that it might be the more moving and affecting, might be the more easily learned and exactly remembered, and the better transmitted to posterity; and it is an exposition of he song of Moses (Deu. 32), showing that what he then foretold was now fulfilled. Jerome says, Christ the well-beloved did in effect sing this mournful song when he beheld Jerusalem and wept over it (Lu. 19:41), and had reference to it in the parable of the vineyard (Mt. 21:33, etc.), only here the fault was in the vines, there in the husbandmen. Here we have,
Isa 5:8-17
The world and the flesh are the two great enemies that we are in danger of being overpowered by; yet we are in no danger if we do not ourselves yield to them. Eagerness of the world, and indulgence of the flesh, are the two sins against which the prophet, in God's name, here denounces woes. These were sins which then abounded among the men of Judah, some of the wild grapes they brought forth (v. 4), and for which God threatens to bring ruin upon them. They are sins which we have all need to stand upon our guard against and dread the consequences of.
Isa 5:18-30
Here are,