Proverbs 31:6-7
Strong Drink for the Perishing
1. This passage is a continuation of the advice given to King Lemuel by his mother.
2. She warns him about the potential dangers of wine and women.
3. Last week we looked at vs. 4-5.
a. Lemuel’s mother told her son that wine and strong drink are not for kings.
b. They are dangerous because they cause you to forget the law (and kings were to uphold the law), and because they cause you to pervert judgment, and the king was to uphold justice in the land for the afflicted.
c. Alcohol perverts a person’s ability to discern between right and wrong; sensible and not sensible.
d. We might use the mayor of Toronto as a sad illustration of this.
4. Previously she warned her son that wine and strong drink cause a man to “give the strength of their youth” to chasing immoral women, and it has been the destruction of many a king.
5. One is hard pressed to see in this passage a ringing endorsement of wine and strong drink.
6. However, in vs. 6-7, Lemuel’s mother does state that there is a legitimate use for wine and strong drink.
1. Some believers who are bent on justifying drinking, and are looking for a passage to justify it, have tried to see justification in this verse.
a. It says, “GIVE strong drink” to certain individuals.
b. Give it to those who are perishing, and to those with a heavy heart.
c. Their twisted view of this passage is that the Bible allows us to drink if we are sad or have a heavy heart… or if we are going through a period of misery and trials.
d. However, that is not what the passage teaches.
2. We have noted several times already in this short context, that the author has been using “synonymous parallelisms.”
a. In this very common Hebrew poetic form, the author describes the same thing in two different expressions.
b. They both mean the same thing (synonymous) but they express the thought differently for emphasis and to add a various shade of meaning.
c. We saw this poetic form in vs. 3 –
• Strength is parallel to ways
• Women is parallel to “that which destroys kings”
d. We saw this poetic form in vs. 4 –
• Kings is parallel to princes (royalty)
• Wine is parallel to strong drink (undiluted wine IS strong drink)
e. We see this same poetic form in vs. 6 –
• Strong drink is parallel to wine
• “Him that is ready to perish” is parallel to “those that be of heavy hearts”
3. Some connect the command to “give” strong drink to certain individuals as being connected with what is said in verse 4: “It is not for kings, O Lemuel to drink wine or strong drink… give it to those who are poor and miserable, but it is not for you.”
a. In this interpretation, the command to “give” strong drink to others is almost sarcastic.
b. And the main thrust of Lemuel’s mother’s argument is that “it is not for kings… not for you!”
c. I don’t take that view.
d. I believe that the situation described here is a legitimate usage for wine and strong drink. It is what the text says.
4. Lemuel’s mother is pointing out that there is a legitimate usage for strong drink.
a. It is for those who are ready to perish.
• The term “perish” means “destroyed.”
• It is often used of perishing in the sense of spiritual condemnation – perishing for all eternity in the Lake of Fire.
• However, the term is also used of “dying” – the destruction of the body – the end of a person’s earthly life.
• This is the sense in which it is used in our proverb.
• The proverb speaks of a person who is ready to perish is one who is on his deathbed.
• Try to put yourself in social setting of the day in which this was written.
» Doctors prescribe pain killers for people who are suffering on their death beds today.
» Imagine if you had an arrow stuck in your chest. They could pull it out, but there was not much they could do beyond that—then.
» Imagine on your deathbed with painful bone cancer… or you fell off your horse (or camel) and had multiple broken bones. What pain!
» They had no pain killers or anesthesia in those days.
» They used undiluted wine (strong drink) instead. It was all they had.
» That was a legitimate usage of alcohol in those days.
» Of course, today, we have much more effective pain killers for those recovering from surgery or who were in an awful accident. Thus, there is NO NEED to use alcohol today.
» This was a medical use of alcohol. Paul told Timothy to USE a little wine for his stomach. It was the best medicine they had then.
» In Luke 10:34 we are told that the good Samaritan came upon a man injured and beaten, lying on the side of the road—potentially to die. He poured “oil and wine” on the man’s wound. This was the best medicine they had to sanitize the wound.
» Mark 15:23 – They gave wine mingled with myrrh to Jesus on the cross—but He refused. It was commonly used to numb pain.
» We have better medicines today. We don’t NEED alcohol any more for medicinal purposes.
• If a person was beaten, badly wounded, agonizing in pain, and on his death bed—give him strong drink!
• That was the advice of Lemuel’s mother.
• Remember, she said, “It’s not for you Lemuel; but give it to someone who needs it for medicinal purposes.”
5. Vs. 6b – Give “wine to those that be of heavy hearts.”
a. What does this expression teach us?
b. Should we drink alcohol when we are down in the dumps and are sad and heavy about something going on in our lives?
c. If this expression appeared all by itself without any context, we might conclude that.
d. However, it does appear in a context. In vs. 3 and 4, the author has been using synonymous parallelisms.
e. That means that they are both describing the same thing – emphasizing a different aspect of the same thing.
f. In other words, the man with a heavy heart is the man who is ready to perish.
• He is physically suffering in pain.
• He is on his deathbed.
• He is obviously of a heavy heart.
• Give strong drink to him.
g. And again, this speaks of a legitimate medicinal use for wine.
1. Here we have yet another Hebrew poetic form.
a. This is either yet another synonymous parallelism or it is a synthetic parallelism… with virtually the same meaning.
b. Synonymous:
• “Let him drink and forget his poverty” is parallel to (let him drink—implied) and “remember his misery no more.”
c. Synthetic:
• (1) let him drink; (2) forget his poverty; (3) remember his misery no more.
• Under this form, the point is to lay a foundation and build upon it.
d. Either way, forgetting poverty and remembering misery no more are connected.
2. Here Lemuel’s mother is clear: LET HIM DRINK!
a. This man is allowed to drink. But what man is she speaking of? The man she just described!
b. It is the man on his deathbed who is not in good spirits—he is in agony.
c. The alcohol is given for one reason: to forget! To cause the man to stop thinking about his pain. It is used as a painkiller… medicinally.
3. Alcohol is for those living in poverty and misery.
a. In this passage, the poverty and misery are parallel too.
b. POVERTY: A condition of lacking something; a deficiency; scarcity.
• It is often used of poverty; being poor.
• However, it does not necessarily mean finances.
• It speaks of a poor, lowly condition of life.
• The man in question here—whether he is a pauper or a prince is in a lowly condition: agonizing on his death bed!
c. MISERY: Trouble; affliction; toil; grievance; pain.
• It is possible that the misery that made wine use legitimate included extreme emotional distress—such as a mother who just lost her three sons and her newborn when her house burned down and she has gone into a physical shock…
d. However, in the context, Lemuel’s mother is still speaking about the same situation: a man agonizing on his deathbed, with a heavy heart, lacking essentials of life (like a good painkiller!), and is in misery.
e. The advice of Lemuel’s mother is “Let him drink!” Strong drink is for him!
f. And again, “It is not for you O Lemuel. You don’t want to forget the law. You need your ability to reason and distinguish right from wrong. You are not on your deathbed—you are seated on a throne. Let the man agonizing on his deathbed drink it—but not you!
4. Our passage tells us who alcohol is for and who it is not for.
a. It is for those who are in need of medicine to numb their pain. It is for those who are in misery and have heavy hearts because of their poor physical condition.
b. It is NOT for those who need their faculties. It is not for those who want to be able to discern between right and wrong – between sensible and that which is not sensible. It is not for those who want to REMEMBER God’s Law.
c. You really have to twist the meaning of this passage to make it support social drinking for the Christian in the 21st century.