UIsaya 51:21

Izhibhalo Ezingcwele

21 Ngako oko, khawuve le nto, wena ludwayinge, unxilayo kodwa kungengayo iwayini;

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Reciprocal: Isaiah 29:9 - they are Isaiah 51:20 - full Isaiah 63:6 - make Jeremiah 13:13 - I will Jeremiah 23:9 - like a drunken Jeremiah 25:27 - Drink Habakkuk 2:16 - drink Revelation 14:10 - drink

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted,.... By Babylon, by antichrist and his followers; hear, for thy comfort, the following prophecy:

and drunken, but not with wine; not with wine in a literal sense; nor with the wine of the fornication of the whore of Rome; nor with idolatry, as the kings of the earth are said to be, Revelation 17:2 but, as the Targum expresses it, with tribulation; with afflictions at the hand of God, and persecutions from men.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And drunken, but not with wine - Overcome and prostrate, but not under the influence of intoxicating drink. They were prostrate by the wrath of God.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 51:21. Drunken, but not with wine — AEschylus has the same expression: -

Αοινοις εμμανεις θυμωμασι· Eumen. 863.

Intoxicated with passion, not with wine.

Schultens thinks that this circumlocution, as he calls it, gradum adfert incomparabiliter majorem; and that it means, not simply without wine, but much more than with wine. Gram. Heb. p. 182.

The bold image of the cup of God's wrath, often employed by the sacred writers, (Isaiah 1:22,) is nowhere handled with greater force and sublimity than in this passage of Isaiah, Isaiah 51:17-23. Jerusalem is represented in person as staggering under the effects of it, destitute of that assistance which she might expect from her children; not one of them being able to support or to lead her. They, abject and amazed, lie at the head of every street, overwhelmed with the greatness of their distress; like the oryx entangled in a net, in vain struggling to rend it, and extricate himself. This is poetry of the first order, sublimity of the highest character.

Plato had an idea something like this: "Suppose," says he, "God had given to men a medicating potion inducing fear, so that the more any one should drink of it, so much the more miserable he should find himself at every draught, and become fearful of every thing both present and future; and at last, though the most courageous of men, should be totally possessed by fear: and afterwards, having slept off the effects of it, should become himself again." De Leg. i., near the end. He pursues at large this hypothesis, applying it to his own purpose, which has no relation to the present subject. Homer places two vessels at the disposal of Jupiter, one of good, the other of evil. He gives to some a potion mixed of both; to others from the evil vessel only: these are completely miserable. Iliad xxiv. 527-533.

Δοιοι γαρ τε πιθοι κατακειαται εν Διος ουδει

Δωρων, οἱα διδωσι, κακων, ἑτερος δε εαων,

Ὡ μεν καμμιξας δῳη Ζευς τερπικεραυνος,

Αλλοτε μεν τε κακῳ ὁγε κυρεται, αλλοτε δ' εσθλῳ·

Ὡ δε κε των λυγρων δῳη, λωβητον εθηκε.

Και ἑ κακη βουβρωστις επι χθονα διαν ελαυνει·

Φοιτᾳ δ' ουτε θεοισι τετιμενος, ουτι βροτοισιν.

"Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,

The source of evil one, and one of good;

From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,

Blessings to these, to those distributes ills;

To most he mingles both: the wretch decreed

To taste the bad unmixed, is cursed indeed:

Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,

He wanders outcast both of earth and heaven."

POPE.