Here follows the picture of him who loves strong drink to the life, ay, and the death.
“Who hath (or, oh!) woe? Who hath (or, alas!) sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness (or, darkness) of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to try mixed wine.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly.
At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter froward things.
Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, and as he that lieth down on the top of a mast.
They have smitten me [thou wilt say], I am not sore; they have beaten me, I felt not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again” (vers. 29-35).
As the chapter began with the evil of self-indulgence in eating especially in a ruler's house, so it ends with the still more evident danger of hard drinking, no matter where it may be. How graphic is the wise man's sketch!
Of all the lusts of the flesh, none from first to last exposes so much to shame and grief as intoxication. Others may be fatally ruinous to one's self or to our partners; but this is more stupefying, insensate, and disposed alike to folly and violence. “Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?” The question is readily answered, “They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek out (or, try) mixed wine.” For intemperance ever seeks more and stronger incentives, till the thirst after them becomes overpowering,
No less wise is the advice given to nip the inclination in the bud. “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth (or, giveth its color) in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly (or, moveth itself aright).” Resist the beginnings, be not caught by the attractive look. “Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” “The wine of violence” is not the only danger, but the bright and the agreeable also.
What is the end in this world, of which the preacher here warns? At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” As this is true of all our own will, so it particularly is the effect of yielding to this debasing gratification. What bodily anguish it entails, what self-reproach for conscience!
The follies too, which are among its results, are so stupid as to expose the victims to derision, as well as to excited feelings and expressions alien to them at ordinary times. “Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter froward things:” conduct which they themselves deplore when sober, hardly believing that they can have committed themselves to such disgrace.
But this is not all. “Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea”: all sense of danger is gone in this temporary madness, only exceeded by an opposite peril, “and as he that lieth down on the top of a mast.”
The talk too is no less idiotic: “They have smitten me”; yet “I am not sore"; “They have beaten me;” yet “I felt not.” “When shall I awake?” they babble out, but even so, they are not ashamed to say, “I will seek it yet again.”