Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to [him], and makest [him] drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!
Ver. 15. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink] The Babylonians (among other their flagitious practices afore mentioned) were much addicted to drunkenness, as is recorded by Herodotus, Ctesias, and others. Their land was sick of drink, and would therefore spue them out: themselves were men of wine, Habakkuk 2:5 (see the note), and should therefore drink deep of the wine of God's fierce wrath. They drank to their neighbours or companions, not in a way either of courtesy or charity, but purposely to intoxicate them, to make them drunk, that they might either deride them or abuse them to filthy pleasure, or both; they bucked them with drink, and then laid them out to be shunned and scorned, as Noah was by his graceless son. Therefore as he cursed Canaan (though Scaliger excuse him), and it stuck to his posterity for ever, so doth God here denounce a woe to drunkards, and so sets it on, as no creature shall ever be able to take it off.
That puttest thy bottle to him] Not thy bowl only, but thy bottle, that he may drink, and be drunk, and spue, and fall, Jeremiah 25:27. This is ordinarily practised by our roaring boys (as they will needs be called by a woeful prolepsis, here for hereafter), in their Cyclopical, κυκλοποσιαι. Either by persuasions or threats the bottle is set to the mouth, and must be emptied ere it come thence. The civil, sober, and temperate man is urged, and, it may be, forced to swallow down long and needless draughts, as a horse doth a drench, by domineering drunkards, that they may see his nakedness, triumph over him, as laid up, or (as the new term is), satisfied. Their vile courses are here graphically, and in lively colours, described by the Holy Ghost; to set forth the hatefulness thereof, and how woeful will be the issue. There are those who read the words thus, That puttest thine anger to him, thy fervour, and thy fury, viz. if he pledge thee not whole ones, and drink not all the outs, as they call them. Domitius, the father of Nero, slew Liberius, an honest Roman, because he refused to drink so much as he commanded him. Others read it, That puttest thy poison to him; and indeed, Ebrietas eat blandus daemon, dulce venenum, suave peccatum. Drunkenness is a fair spoken devil, a pleasant poison, a sweet sin, which he that hath in him hath not himself, and which he that runs into runs not into a single sin, but is wholly turned into sin. How often (saith a grave divine) have I seen vermin sucking the drunkard's blood, as fast as he that of the grape or malt, yet would he not leave his hold or lose his draught? Gualther reads it, Coniungens fervorem tuum, Joining thine heat, inflaming thyself, that thou mayest drink him under the board. This was great Alexander's sin and ruin; so it was Mark Antony's (who wrote a book of his abilities to drink down others, De sua bibacitate librum conseripsit, seu potius evomuit), and before them both Darius's, as Athenaeus hath left recorded. How much better his successor, Ahasuerus, who made a law at his great feast that every man should drink according to his pleasure, Esther 1:8. So Minos, King of Crete, ordered that his subjects should not drink one to another, εις μεθην, unto drunkenness.
“ Quinetiam Spartae mos est laudabilis ille,
Ut bibat arbitrio pocula quisque sue. ”
Among the old Germans, diem noctemque continuare potando, nulli probrum, saith Tacitus, It was no disgrace to drink night and day together. It is still the sin of that nation, as Gualther upon this text heavily complaineth; and it is grown to a proverb, the drunken Dutchman. Of them the English, much commended for their sobriety, learned, in the Netherland wars, to drown themselves by immoderate drinking; and by drinking to others' healths, to impair their own; so that in our days came forth the first restraint thereof by severity of laws, saith Camden; who yet, being so great an antiquity, could not but know that in the year 959 Edgar, king of this land, made an ordinance for putting pins in cups, that none should quaff whole ones.
And makest him drunk also] Robbest him of himself, and layest a beast in his room. The same Hebrew word, Zolel, signifieth a drunkard and a vile person: filthy venomous creatures breed in those fennish grounds, Job 40:21. Behemoth lieth in them; which Gulielmus Parisiensis applieth to the devil in drunken hearts; whereas in dry places, sober souls, he walketh about seeking rest but findeth none, Matthew 12:43. The very heathen, in hatred of this sin, feigned that Cobali (a harmful and pernicious kind of devils) accompanied Bacchus; and that Acratus, or the intemperate devil, was their captain. Seneca calleth it a voluntary madness, another a noonday devil (daemon meridianus), no more a night walker, as once, 1 Thessalonians 5:7. The Lacedaemonians punished it severely; so do the Turks to this day, pouring ladlefuls of boiling lead down their throats sometimes; and at least thrashing of them on the bare feet, till they are disabled for walking in haste again to their societies of good fellowship. Morat Bassa commanded a pipe to be thrust through the nose of a Turk which was found taking tobacco; and so in derision to be led about Constantinople. Let men shun this shameful sin, and be far from drawing others to it; for have they not sins enough of their own to answer for? Must they needs go to hell in company? Dives desired that his brethren and companions in sin might not come to that place of torment, Luke 16:28. This he did not out of any goodwill to them, but because he knew if they were ever damned, he should be double damned.
That thou mayest look on their nakedness] Those parts that nature would have covered are called nakedness, per Antiphrasin. To look on them with delight is by some held a sin against nature; the ground of their opinion is Genesis 3:7. To make men drunk for that purpose is worse. But if for further abuse of their bodies to uncleanness (as Attalus, the Macedonian, dealt by Pausanias, a young courtier, who afterwards slew King Philip, because he would not punish Attalus for so doing), that is worst of all; and hath a woe, woe, woe, hanging at the heels of it, Pausaniam solutum mero Attalus non suae tantum verum et convivarum libidini, velut scortum vile subiecit, ludibriumque omnium inter aequales reddidit.