Bible Commentaries

The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.

The words of King Lemuel. — Lemuel’s lesson, Bathsheba’s catechism. Lemuel she calls him, because God had owned him. "I will be his father, and be shall be my son"; 2 Samuel 7:14 and was "with him" so long as he was "with God," according to 2 Chronicles 15:2 . Indeed, when he grew discinct and dissolute, then God’s soul sat loose to him, and was disjointed from him, Jeremiah 6:8 and the rather because he had had the benefit of better education. His father had taught him, and had taken much pains with him. Proverbs 4:4 His mother Aristippus dictus est μητροδιδακτος , quod eum mater Areta docuisset. also had counselled and cautioned him early not to give his strength to wine and women; and yet he was most inordinate in his love to these two. Ecclesiastes 2:1-26 This was almost as great an aggravation of his sin, that he had been better taught and brought up, as that other, that he forsook the Lord that had "appeared unto him twice." 1 Kings 11:9 The "words of King Lemuel" they are called, because, though composed by his mother, yet for his use, in the same sense as Psalms 127:1 , is styled "A song of degrees of Solomon," or "for Solomon," though made by his father, who tells him there that which he found true by experience, "Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord," …, for by all his wives Solomon had none but one son, and him none of the wisest either.

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What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?

What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? — An abrupt speech, importing abundance of affection; even more than might be uttered. There is an ocean of love in a parent’s heart, a fathomless depth of desire after the child’s welfare, in the mother especially. Some of the Hebrew doctors hold that this was Bathsheba’s speech to her son after his father’s death, when she partly perceived which way his genius leaned and led him: that she schooled him in this way, q.d., Is it even so, my son, my most dear son, … Oh do not give thy strength to women, …

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Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings.

Give not thy strength to women. — Waste not unworthily the fat and marrow of thy dear and precious time, the strength of thy body, the vigour of thy spirits, in sinful pleasures and sensual delights. See Proverbs 5:9 .

Nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. — Venery is called by one death’s best harbinger. It was the destruction of Alexander the Great, of Otho the emperor (called for his good parts otherwise Miraculum mundi ), of Pope Sextus the Fourth ( qui decessit tabidus voluptate, saith the historian, died of a wicked waste), and of Pope Paul the Fourth, of whom it passed for a proverb, Eum per eandem partem animam profudisse per quam acceperat. The Lacedemonian commonwealth was by the hand of divine justice utterly overturned at Leuctra, for a rape committed by their messengers on the two daughters of Scedosus. And what befell the Benjamites on a like occasion is well known out of Judges 20:29-48 , that I speak not of the slaughter of the Shechemites, Genesis 34:25-29 …

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[It is] not for kings, O Lemuel, [it is] not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:

It is not for kings to drink wine, — i.e., To be "drunk with wine, wherein is excess," Ephesians 5:18 where the apostle determines excessive drinking to be downright drunkenness, viz., when as swine do their bellies, so men break their heads with filthy quaffing. This, as no man may lawfully do, so least of all princes; for in maxima libertate minima est licentia. Men are therefore the worse because they are bound to be better.

Nor for princes strong drink. — Or, as some read it, Where is the strong drink? It is not for princes to ask such a question. All heady and intoxicating drinks are by statute here forbidden them. Of Bonosus the emperor it was said that he was born non ut vivat sed ut bibat, not to live but to drink; and when, being overcome by Probus, he afterwards hanged himself, it was commonly jested that a tankard hung there, and not a man. But what a beast was Marcus Antonius, that wrote (or rather spewed out) a book concerning his own strength to bear strong drink? And what another was Darius King of Persia, who commanded this inscription to be set upon his sepulchre, "I was able to hunt lustily, to drink wine soundly, and to bear it bravely." Kυνηγειν εκρατουν, οινον πολυν πινειν, και τουτον φερειν καλως . - Strabo. That Irish rebel Tiroen, A.D. 1567, was such a drunkard, that, to cool his body when he was immoderately inflamed with wine and whisky, he would many times be buried in the earth up to the chin. Camden’s Elisabeth. These were unfit men to bear rule.

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Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.

Lest they drink and forget the law. — Drunkenness causeth forgetfulness (hence the ancients feigned Bacchus to be the son of forgetfulness), and stands in full opposition to reason and religion: when the wine is in, the wit is out. Seneca saith, that for a man to think to be drunk, and yet to retain his right reason, is to think to drink rank poison, and yet not to die by it. Plutarch in Sympos.

And pervert the judgment, … — Pronounce an unrighteous sentence: which when Philip king of Macedon once did, the poor woman whose cause it was, presently appealed from Philip now drunk, to Philip when he should be sober again. The Carthagenians made a law that no magistrate of theirs should drink wine. The Persians permitted their kings to be drunk one day in a year only. Solon made a law at Athens that drunkenness in a prince should be punished with death. See Ecclesiastes 10:16-17 .

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Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.

Give strong drink to him, … — To those that stand at the bar, rather than to them that sit on the bench. Wine maketh glad the heart of man. Judges 9:13 Psalms 104:15 Plato calls wine and music the μαλακτικα - mitigators of men’s miseries. Hence that laudable custom among the Jews at funerals to invite the friends of the deceased to a feast, and to give them the "cup of consolation." Jeremiah 16:7 And hence that not so laudable of giving wine, mingled with myrrh, to crucified malefactors, to make them die with less sense. Bacchus et afflictis requiem mortalibus affert. - Tibul. Christ did not like the custom so well, and therefore refused the potion. People should be most serious and sober when they are to die, since in death, as in war, non licet bis errare It is not permitted to error twice. - if a man miss at all, he misses for all and for ever. Vitellius therefore took a wrong course, who, looking for the messenger Death, made himself drunk to drown the fear of it. Vitellius trepidus, dein temulentus.

And wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. — Heb., Bitter of spirit, as was Naomi when she would needs be called "Marah"; Ruth 1:20 as was Hannah when she pleaded that she had neither drank wine nor strong drink (though at that time she had need enough of it), but was "a woman of a sorrowful spirit"; 1 Samuel 1:15 as was David when his heart was leavened and soured with the greatness of his grief, and he was "pricked in his reins." Psalms 73:21 This grief was right, because according to God - η κατα Yεον λυπα , 2 Corinthians 7:11 so was that bitter mourning, Zechariah 10:12 and Peter’s weeping bitterly. These waters of Marah, that flow from the eyes of repentance, are turned into wine; they carry comfort in them; there is a clear shining after this rain. 2 Samuel 23:4 Such April showers bring on May flowers.

“Deiecit ut reveler, premit ut solatia praestet:

Enccat ut possit vivificare Deus.”

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Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

Let him drink and forget his poverty. — And yet let him drink moderately too, lest he increase his sorrows, as Lot did, and not diminish them, for drunkenness leaves a sting behind it worse than that of a serpent or of a cockatrice. Proverbs 23:32 Wine is a prohibited ware among the Turks, which makes some drink with scruple - others with danger. The baser sort, when taken drunk, are often bastinadoed To beat or cane on the soles of the feet. upon the bare feet. And I have seen some, saith mine author, Blunt’s Voyage, p. 105. after a fit of drunkenness, lie a whole night crying, and praying to Mohammed for intercession, that I could not sleep near them, so strong is conscience, even where the foundation is but imaginary.

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Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.

Open thy mouth for the dumb, — i.e., Speak wisely and freely for those that either cannot or may not speak for themselves. Thus Nicodemus spoke for our Saviour; John 7:21 Paphnutius in the council for the married clergy; Pliny to Trajan for the persecuted Christians; the Elector of Saxony for Luther, … Oecolampadius saith Oecolamp. in Job xxxiii. that wise men only open their mouths, for a fool’s mouth is never but open. Hence, κεχηνοτες , gapers, are put for fools in Lucian and Aristophanes.

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