Context No. 204 of 4322 · Proverbs

Proverbs 23:17-35: in context

17Don’t let your heart envy sinners, but rather fear the LORD all day long. 18Indeed surely there is a future hope, and your hope will not be cut off. 19Listen, my son, and be wise, and keep your heart on the right path! 20Don’t be among ones drinking too much wine, or those who gorge themselves on meat; 21for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags. 22Listen to your father who gave you life, and don’t despise your mother when she is old. 23Buy the truth, and don’t sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding. 24The father of the righteous has great joy. Whoever fathers a wise child delights in him. 25Let your father and your mother be glad! Let her who bore you rejoice! 26My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways. 27For a prostitute is a deep pit; and a wayward wife is a narrow well. 28Yes, she lies in wait like a robber, and increases the unfaithful among men. 29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? 30Those who stay long at the wine; those who go to seek out mixed wine. 31Don’t look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly. 32In the end, it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper. 33Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will imagine confusing things. 34Yes, you will be as he who lies down in the middle of the sea, or as he who lies on top of the rigging: 35“They hit me, and I was not hurt! They beat me, and I don’t feel it! When will I wake up? I can do it again. I will look for more.”

This passage is a run of parental instruction in Proverbs, and it moves from envy to appetite to the most extended description of drunkenness in the Bible.

It opens with a warning not to envy sinners, but to continue in the fear of the LORD, because there is a future and your hope will not be cut off. Then the practical counsel: do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge on meat, because the drunkard and the glutton come to poverty and drowsiness clothes a man in rags. Then a line about listening to the father who begot you and not despising your mother when she is old, and the instruction to buy truth and not sell it.

Then the closing portrait, which is written as a set of riddles with an answer. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife, complaints, wounds without cause, redness of eyes? Those who linger long over wine. Do not look at it when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Then the man himself, seeing strange things, feeling nothing when he is beaten, saying when I wake I will seek another drink. The passage ends inside his voice, not outside it. What do I keep returning to on waking, whatever it cost me the night before?

Sources

Proverbs 23:17-18: do not envy sinners, for there is a future and your hope will not be cut off
Proverbs 23:29-30: the riddle, who has woe, who has sorrow, answered by those who linger over wine
Proverbs 23:31-35: the serpent's bite, and the closing line spoken from inside the drinker's own voice