Isaiah 51:21

21 Therefore hear this, you who are afflicted, who are drunk, 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.

Isaiah 51:21 In-Context

19 These two things have befallen you--who will condole with you? --devastation and destruction, famine and sword; who will comfort you?

20 Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a net; they are full of the wrath of the LORD, the rebuke of your God.

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

22 Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people: "Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more;

23 and I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who have said to you, 'Bow down, that we may pass over'; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over."