Proverbs 23:33

33 Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will utter perversities.

Proverbs 23:33 Meaning and Commentary

Proverbs 23:33

Thine eyes shall behold strange women
Being inflamed with wine, shall look upon women, other men's wives, and lust after them; or harlots, whom seeking after or meeting with, when in their cups, are drawn into their embraces; excess of wine leads to whoredom {w}. So Aben Ezra supplies the word "women", and Jarchi interprets it to this sense; but the Targum renders it, "strange things"; and so many others: a drunken man, through the lunges and vapours that ascend into his brain, fancies he sees strange sights; he sees things double; imagines that he sees trees walk, and many such like absurd and monstrous things; and thine heart shall utter perverse things;
or the mouth, from the abundance of the heart, and imagination of it, shall utter things contrary to sense and reason, contrary to truth and righteousness, contrary to chastity and good manners, contrary to their own honour and credit, contrary to God and men; the mouth then utters all that is in the heart, which it at other times conceals. It may have a particular respect to the unchaste, filthy, and obscene words, uttered to strange women, into whose company men fall when in liquor.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F23 "Vina parant animos Veneri", Ovid. de Arte Amandi, l. 1.

Proverbs 23:33 In-Context

31 Do not gaze at wine while it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.

32 In the end it bites like a snake and stings like a viper.

33 Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will utter perversities.

34 You will be like one sleeping on the high seas or lying on the top of a mast:

35 “They struck me, but I feel no pain! They beat me, but I did not know it! When can I wake up to search for another drink?”