Proverbs 23:33

33 Weird sights will appear before your eyes, and you will not be able to think or speak clearly.

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 Don't let wine tempt you, even though it is rich red, and it sparkles in the cup, and it goes down smoothly.
32 The next morning you will feel as if you had been bitten by a poisonous snake.
33 Weird sights will appear before your eyes, and you will not be able to think or speak clearly.
34 You will feel as if you were out on the ocean, seasick, swinging high up in the rigging of a tossing ship.
35 "I must have been hit," you will say; "I must have been beaten up, but I don't remember it. Why can't I wake up? I need another drink."
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.