Ver. 35. They have stricken me, [shalt thou say, and] I was not sick , etc.] Or “grieved not” f648 ; or was not wounded or skin broken f649 ; see ( Jeremiah 5:3). The drunken man is here represented as saying, that though his companions, with whom he quarrelled and fought in his drunken frolics, beat him very much, yet he was not sensible of the pain and smart; and it had left no sickness nor disorder upon him; he did not find himself much the worse for it; they have beaten me ; as with hammers f650 ; battered and bruised him terribly, laying very hard and heavy strokes upon him; [and] I felt [it] not ; or “knew it not” f651 ; did not perceive it, was not sensible of it, when the blows were given, or who gave them; and thus feeling no more, and coming off so well, as he thinks, he is so far from being reclaimed from this vice, that he is more strengthened in it, and desirous of it; when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again : that is, the wine and his boon companions, though he has been so used. So the Vulgate Latin version, “when shall I awake, and again find wines?” being heavy with sleep through intemperance, and yet thirsty, is desirous of shaking off his sleep, that he may get to drinking again, and “add drunkenness to thirst”, ( Deuteronomy 29:19); so the Septuagint version, “when will it be morning, that going I may seek with whom I may meet?”
Verses 29-35 - Solomonwarns against drunkenness. Those that would be kept from sin must keep from all the beginnings of it, and fear coming within reac of its allurements. Foresee the punishment, what it will at last en in, if repentance prevent not. It makes men quarrel. Drunkards wilfull make woe and sorrow for themselves. It makes men impure and insolent The tongue grows unruly; the heart utters things contrary to reason religion, and common civility. It stupifies and besots men. They are i danger of death, of damnation; as much exposed as if they slept upo the top of a mast, yet feel secure. They fear no peril when the terror of the Lord are before them; they feel no pain when the judgments of God are actually upon them. So lost is a drunkard to virtue and honour so wretchedly is his conscience seared, that he is not ashamed to say I will seek it again. With good reason we were bid to stop before the beginning. Who that has common sense would contract a habit, or sel himself to a sin, which tends to such guilt and misery, and exposes man every day to the danger of dying insensible, and awaking in hellWisdom seems in these chapters to take up the discourse as at the beginning of the book. They must be considered as the words of Chris to the sinner __________________________________________________________________
