The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 449

HOMILETICS. Vers. 1,8.-The drunkards of Ephraim. While Scripture, from first to last, upholds the moderate use of wine as cheering and "making glad the heart of man," it is dis- tinct and severe in its denunciations of drunkenness and unrestrained revelry. The son who was "stubborn anrl rebellious, a glutton and a drunkard," was to be brought by his parents before the elders under the Jewish Law, and "stoned with stones that he might die" (Deut. xxi 20, 21). Nabal's drunkenness and churlishness together caused him to be "smitten by the Lord that he died" (1 Sam. xxv. 38). Solomon warns his son against drunkenness by reminding him of the fact, which experience he.d sufficiently proved by his time, that "the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty" (Prov. xriii. 21). The " drnnkards of Ephraim" are denounced in unsparing terIDB by Isaiah and A.mos. Christians are taught that drunkards "shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. vi. 10), and bidden, "If any man that is called a brother be a drunkn.rd, with such a one, no, not to eat" (1 Cor. v. -11). Drunkenness and gluttony are naturally coupled together, as being ea.eh of them an abuse of God's good gifts to man; bnt drunkenness is far the worse of the two, since, by robbing man of his self-control, it is a.pt to lead him on to a number of other sins and crimes, and thus, while not perhaps worse in itself, it is in its consequences far more injurious than gluttony. Drunkenness is often pleaded as an excuse for the crimes whereto it leads; but some of the wisest amongst ancient legislators were so far from accepting this plea, that they doubled the penalty for an offence if a man was drunk when he committed it (A.rist., •Eth.Nie.,' ill. 5, § 8). In the case of the "drunkards of Ephraim," it may be suspected that the desire to drown their cares in wine was at the root of their drunke~- ness (comp. eh. xxii 13; Prov. xxxi. 6, 7). But, however we may pity those who so act, we cannot excuse them. Difficulties are a call upon us to use to the utmost the intellect wherewith we are endowed by God, if so be we may anyhow devise an escape from our troubles-not a reason for our pushing reason from its seat, and rushing blindfold on ca.la.mity. Vers. 9, 10.-The obfections of t1,nbelievers to such a, prea,ch the truth. The argu- mentwm ad hominem, to which Isaiah's adversaries had recourse, is one very generally employed by those who a.re indisposed to receive religious teaching. "Who are you," the teacher is asked, " that you should set yourself up to teach ue? On what grounds do you suppose that you are so much wiser than we? We are not babes-not tied to our mothers' apron-strings, not mere children without experience of life. We think that probably we know quite as much on any religious subject as you. Why ~hould you imagine that we do not? n It is difficult to meet thie objection. By settmg up to be a religious teacher a man does certainly ol.aim to be wiser than his neighbours, OD. :nvnr. 1-29.J 1'HE :BbOK or TlIE P:tl.Ot>HET ISAtAI1. 463