Isaiah 51:22

"Therefore now hear this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:"

Key Reflection

This verse contrasts physical affliction and literal intoxication with a deeper spiritual state. Isaiah calls upon those who are spiritually burdened to listen, suggesting that their true "drunkenness" comes from being overwhelmed by sin or spiritual blindness rather than by physical wine.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling -(See the notes atIsaiah 51:17). This verse contains a promise that they would be delivered from the effect of the wrath of God, under which they had been suffering so long. Thou shalt no more drink it again -Thou shalt no more be subject to similar trials and calamities (seeIsaiah 54:7-9). Probably the idea here is, not that Jerusalem would never be again destroyed, which would not be true, for it was afterward subjected to severer trials under the Romans; but that the people who should then return - the pious exiles - should be preserved forever after from similar sufferings.

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