1 Wine is a mocker, and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
"Wine" and "strong drink" are personified as themselves doing what they make men do. The latter (see Leviticus 10:9 note) is here, probably, the "palm-wine" of Syria.
Wine is a mocker - It deceives by its fragrance, intoxicates by its strength, and renders the intoxicated ridiculous.
Strong drink - שכר shechar, any strong fermented liquor, whether of the vine, date, or palm species.
(a) Wine [is] a mocker, strong drink [is] raging: and whoever is deceived by it is not wise.
(a) By wine here is meant him that is given to wine, and so by strong drink.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging,.... Wine deceives a man; it not only overcomes him before he is aware, but it promises him a pleasure which it does not give; but, on the contrary, excessive drinking gives him pain, and so mocks him; yea, it exposes him to reproach and disgrace, and to the mockery and derision of others; as well as it sets him to scoff at his companions, and even to mock at religion, and all that is good and serious; see Hosea 7:5; and strong drink not only disturbs the brain, and puts the spirits in a ferment, so that a man rages within, but it sets him a raving and quarrelling with his company, and everybody he meets with; such generally get into broils and contentions, and get woe, sorrow, and wounds, Proverbs 23:29. Aben Ezra gives this as the sense of the words,
"a man of wine''
(that is, one that is given to wine, a wine bibber), so Ben Melech,
"is a mocker, and he cries out for strong drink, that it may be given him;''
which is not a bad sense of the words.
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise; whosoever gives himself to it, is not on his guard against it, but is overcome by it, does not act a wise but an unwise part: wine besots as well as deceives men. This may be applied to the wine of fornication, or to the false doctrine and superstition of the church of Rome; with which the nations of the earth are deceived and made drunk, and which puts them upon blaspheming God, deriding his people, and using cruelty to them, Revelation 17:2.
It seems hard to believe that men of the greatest abilities, as well as the ignorant, should render themselves fools and madmen, merely for the taste or excitement produced by strong liquors.
(Proverbs. 20:1-30)
mocker--scorner. Such men are made by wine.
strong drink--made by spicing wine (compare Isaiah 5:11, Isaiah 5:22); and it may include wine.
raging--or boisterous as a drunkard.
deceived--literally, "erring," or reeling.
This proverb warns against the debauchery with which free-thinking is intimately associated.
Wine is a mocker, mead boisterous;
And no one who is overtaken thereby is wise.
The article stands with יין. Ewald maintains that in 10:1-22:6 the article occurs only here and at Proverbs 21:31, and that it is here, as the lxx shows, not original. Both statements are incorrect. The article is found, e.g., at Proverbs 19:6; Proverbs 18:18, Proverbs 18:17, and here the personification of "wine" requires it; but that it is wanting to שׁכר shows how little poetry delights in it; it stands once for twice. The effects of wine and mead (שׁכר from שׁכר, to stop, obstruct, become stupid) are attributed to these liquors themselves as their property. Wine is a mocker, because he who is intoxicated with it readily scoffs at that which is holy; mead is boisterous (cf. הומיּה, Proverbs 7:11), because he who is inebriated in his dissolute madness breaks through the limits of morality and propriety. He is unwise who, through wine and the like, i.e., overpowered by it (cf. 2-Samuel 13:28), staggers, i.e., he gives himself up to wine to such a degree that he is no longer master of himself. At Proverbs 5:19 we read, שׁגה ב, of the intoxication of love; here, as at Isaiah 28:7, of the intoxication of wine, i.e., of the passionate slavish desire of wine or for wine. The word "Erpicht" [avidissimus], i.e., being indissolubly bound to a thing, corresponds at least in some degree to the idea. Fleischer compares the French: tre fou de quelque chose. Isaiah 28:7, however, shows that one has to think on actual staggering, being overtaken in wine.
A mocker - Wine immoderately drunk makes men mockers. Raging - Makes men full of rage.
*More commentary available at chapter level.