Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
Ver. 1. Wine is a mocker, &c.] For, first, it mocks a the drunkard, and makes a fool of him, promising him pleasure, but paying him with the stinging of an adder, and biting of a cockatrice, Proverbs 23:32. See Trapp on " Pro 23:32 " Wine is a comfortable creature, Jdg 9:12 one of the chief lenitives b of human miseries, as Plato calls it; but "excess of wine" 1Pe 4:3 c is, as one well saith, Blandus daemon, dulce venenum, suave Teccatum; quam qui in se habet, se non habet; quam qui facit, non facit peccatum, sed totus est peccatum. That is, a fair spoken devil, a sweet poison, a 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. Secondly, It renders a man a mocker, even one of those scorners, for whom judgments are prepared, as Solomon had said in the foregoing verse. See Hos 7:5 Isaiah 28:1 1Sa 25:36-38 Abigail would not tell Nabal of his danger till he had slept out his drunkenness, lest she should have met with a mock, if not with a knock.
Strong drink is raging.] All kinds of drink that will alienate the understanding of a man and make him drunk, as ale, beer, cider, perry, metheglin, &c. Of this Pliny d cries out, Hei, mira vitiorum solertia inventum est quemadmodum aqua quoque inebriaret. Portentosum sane potionis genus! quasi non ad alium usum natura parens humane generi fruges dedisse videatur. So witty is wickedness grown now, that there is a way invented to make a man drunk with water; a monstrous kind of drink surely! as if dame Nature had bestowed grain upon us to such a base abuse. See Trapp on " Pro 23:29 " St Paul very fitly yoketh together drunkards and railers. 1Co 6:9
And whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.] For when the wine is in the wit is out. They have a practice of drinking the Outs, as they call it - all the wit out of the head, all the money out of the purse, &c. - and thereby affect the title of roaring boys, by a woeful prolepsis (doubtless), here for hereafter.
a Decepit ebrietas Lotum quem Sodoma non decepit.
b μαλακτικον .
c οινοφλυγιαι .
d Lib. xiv., cap. ult.