Isaiah 28:7-8 But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way… This is how all debasement continues, aggravates itself, and brings itself to shameful issue. No man begins at the point of being swallowed up in any evil: he approaches it almost stealthily, he touches it experimentally, he retains for a certain time his self-control in relation to it, — he will handle it, but easily, so that he can set it down again should it so please him. But at the end there is swallowing up, destruction — death is in the cup, and death must be drunk up by those who put their lips to the forbidden vessel. When Edward IV condemned his own brother, George Duke of Clarence, to be killed, we are told that the duke desired to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey, and the historian well adds, "as became so stout a drunkard." To this end may men come who never dreamed of coming to it, who meant to show the world how easy it would be to toy with the devil, to touch him, set him back, smile at him, laugh at him, use him as a dog, bind him as a slave; and to all these initial usages will the devil submit himself, knowing that at some fatal unsuspected moment he will lasso the man who supposes he can take him captive, and he will carry him away to the chambers of death. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. |
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