Isaiah 51:21

21 Therefore hear this, you afflicted one, made drunk, but not with wine.

Read Chapter Compare

PREVIOUS Isaiah 51:20 NEXT Isaiah 51:22

Isaiah 51:21 in Other Translations

KJV

21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:

ESV

21 Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, but not with wine:

NLT

21 But now listen to this, you afflicted ones who sit in a drunken stupor, though not from drinking wine.

MSG

21 Therefore listen, please, you with your splitting headaches, You who are nursing the hangovers that didn't come from drinking wine.

CSB

21 So listen to this, afflicted and drunken one-but not with wine.

Isaiah 51:21 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 51:21

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted
By Babylon, by antichrist and his followers; hear, for thy comfort, the following prophecy: and drunken, but not with wine;
not with wine in a literal sense; nor with the wine of the fornication of the whore of Rome; nor with idolatry, as the kings of the earth are said to be, ( Revelation 17:2 ) ( 18:3 ) but, as the Targum expresses it, with tribulation; with afflictions at the hand of God, and persecutions from men.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Isaiah 51:21 In-Context

19 These double calamities have come upon you— who can comfort you?— ruin and destruction, famine and sword— who can console you?

20 Your children have fainted; they lie at every street corner, like antelope caught in a net. They are filled with the wrath of the LORD, with the rebuke of your God.

21 Therefore hear this, you afflicted one, made drunk, but not with wine.

22 This is what your Sovereign LORD says, your God, who defends his people: “See, I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger; from that cup, the goblet of my wrath, you will never drink again.

23 I will put it into the hands of your tormentors, who said to you, ‘Fall prostrate that we may walk on you.’ And you made your back like the ground, like a street to be walked on.”

Cross References 2

1. S Isaiah 14:32
2. ver 17; S Isaiah 29:9