Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty [is] a fading flower, which [are] on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
Ver. 1. Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim.] Drunkenness is a sin, at the heel whereof hangeth many a woe. Some think it is a dry drunkenness that is here threatened - that there is a dry drunkenness as well as a wet; see Isaiah 51:21 2 Timothy 2:26, ινα ανανηψωσι, that they may awake out of their drunken sleep - a drunkenness with prosperity, which made them proud and dissolute, even the king of Israel and his counsellors also, not considering that in maxima libertate minima est licentia; " it is not for kings to drink wine." Pro 31:4
Whose glorious beauty is a fading flower.] Or, And to the fading flower of his goodly gallantry. Some conceive that the prophet here alludeth to the etymology of the word Ephraim, whereof see Genesis 41:42, but Ephraim was now declining and decaying.
That are overcome with wine.] Heb., Smitten, beaten, overmastered, as Sisera was by Jael's hammer, which hath its name from the word here used. Jdg 4:22 Tremellius rendereth it, obtusis vino, to those that are blunted with wine, or beaten about the ears with it. a
a Kραιπαλη, Crapula, παρα το παλλειν το καρα .