The Absence Of Divine Wisdom Is The Life Of The World's Drunkenness

*Pride is the wine *that stirs up rage *in his drunkenness; *the whole man is *controlled by him *because he is not *becoming wise. (MAST)

*[Pride is the wine] literally, in its verbal root, to boast to scorn. But this is a Hebrew noun or adjective that speaks of the ingredient of the life of this man. The strength or power of this man is his strong drink. While beer is typically associated with the Hebrew term “strong drink,” it (strong drink) is synonymously referring to the wine in this context as an illustration of the wine’s power over this one individual man who seems to be the subject of Solomon’s example to his son. Pride is a life that defines the character of these illustrations. Pride is what defines this poor example of a man. Pride is the will and ambition that motivates his desires and emotions. Pride is what controls him like an intoxicating drink. Pride is the unity of the whole world’s rebellion against God (Rev.17:1-2,6,15-16,18).

*[that stirs up rage] literally, to roar like a lion. But this is a noise of a rebellious complaint like the howling and moaning of a wolf in distress calling out to his pack to come to his aid. Pride is the ingredient to this raging will that ravages the man inside out. Pride possesses his thoughts and intoxicates his imaginations with a twisted view of reality. In his pride, he rages against this reality with hallucinations of his own self-righteousness. He is puffed up in his own estimation of himself and drinks in more of his own fantasies like a drunken orgy (Rev.17:3-4).

*[in his drunkenness] literally, strong drink. But out of the masculine stem of the verb, he rages, it is an adjective of him who is loud. It could be translated; he rages with drunkenness. It is describing the internal state of him who is against the Truth. While this pride may not always externally express itself in a physical brawl or fistfight, as some other translations may offer a suggestion, it can, however, also, silently be expressed externally of the loud rage occurring within the character of this proud man in the manner of his dress and the direction of his choices. His will and desire are to be everything opposite that common nature has declared him to be, and this internal rage continues to increase the more reality presses against him. He grows more dark and empty; the more his pride grows against the light and standard of reality. But as this adjective is uniting the two verbal stems in conjunction with the ingredient and strength of his pride of life, it is defining the whole of his life as a drunkard. His pride is drunkenness. Drunkenness is the life he drinks in like water. He lives in it; he sleeps in it; he clothes himself with it; he works in it; and he eats it (Job 15:16; Gen.3:14,19;Ps.119:25;Ecc.3:20).

*[the whole man is] literally, the whole. But acting as the summary conjunction of the previous statement, it is referring to the entire person, not just the ingredient that intoxicates the man. When pride (intent or motive) has power over the human will, then the whole man is controlled by it. If pride enthrones the will of man, the whole man is led by it. Pride is the head of every depraved man. Pride takes possession of everything he does. Therefore, Solomon makes it his intention to lead his son with a head of wisdom rather than pride. He is also informing his son not to feed the pride of man with this drunken form of life (1Jn.2:15). Let reality control your life (James 4:7). Imagine your life within its own restraints (Gen.6:5). You’d be living life within the soberness that God gave you (1Pet.5:8). Walking in the corrective pattern of the Word will straighten your path and makes your choices sound (1Pet.3:7;1Tim.1:10;2Tim.1:7,13;4:3;Tit.1:9,13;2:1-2). The Word is the wine diluted with the bread that fills the ignorance of our emptiness with the light of life. It brings joy into the understanding of our weaknesses. It is the head and mind of our love, which keeps us from evil (Matt.6:9-13). It compels us to do righteousness with cheerfulness in our belly (2Cor.9:7). It is our source of strength when we share in its joy (Ps.104:15).

*[controlled by him] literally, to sin. In its Qal form, isolated from the conjunction, it is to go astray actively; but in conjunction with the previous verb stem, the preposition takes it captive to the first cause, which is his pride. Therefore, sinning in ignorance is to be drunk with pride. Children who come into this world are innocent of the sins of this world because of their ignorance (Jer.19:4), but even these are not innocent of this drunken pride. Pride is the secret ingredient that causes us to stray from righteousness. We go astray from within the womb because we are drunk with this pride (Ps.51:5;58:3). We are taken captive by pride to sin in ignorance. Pride intoxicates the whole man with the ignorance of sin. Pride is the master that leads us into the darkness to stagger and stumble in blindness. Pride offers no light to our feet and blurs what is already a straight path with hallucinations that make it look crooked (Gen.3:1). Therefore, “he that sins” is in conjunction with the power of pride. Pride controls him who sins. Pride makes an intelligent man stupid (Prov.12:1;30:2). Man is not his own master. He is a slave to him who represents him. Pride is the head of sin, and he who sins is a slave of sin (Jn.8:33-36). Therefore to sin by pride is to be corrupted to the core with it (1Jn.3:6-9). Sin is at the core of man, and pride is his master. Pride is a dragon that cannot be tamed; it must be put to death (Rom.8:10). Pride will devour the whole man while he lives. There is no escape from its jaws of death, and its mouth is so wide, it swallows a man whole (1Cor.15:54;Matt.23:24). Only in the death of pride will the fear of God begin the reign of wisdom in your soul (Jer.2:19).

*[because he is not] Again, the preposition and the pronoun work together in conjunction with the first cause. He who is proud is enslaved to sin because he has not been made wise for salvation (2Tim.3:15). The negation of wisdom is the first cause of his will to sin (Rom.8:7;1Cor.15:56). He is drunk with pride, and pride controls him. Because he is without the wisdom from above, he staggers in the darkness of pride (Jn.8:12). Professing to be wise on his own, he became empty and void of all the wisdom of God (Rom.1:21-22). So he fills himself with more of himself in the delusion of his own imagination of himself with the pride of his own self-estimation (Rom.1:23-32). He literally makes himself the standard of reality. But because he is drunk with pride, he is nothing but a hopeless fool (Rom.2:1-3;Gal.6:3).

*[becoming wise] literally, to be or be becoming wise. But in its negation, he is “unbecoming” of wisdom. This is the progression of man in his fall from wisdom (2Tim.3:13). In the beginning, God made man upright in the heart of His perfect wisdom, but this drunkenness of pride has intoxicated man so severely that he is “unbecoming” of wisdom in this negation as a hopeless fool (Ecc.7:29). There is no hope for him in this drunken state. He is in a condition that he cannot recover himself from because he doesn’t have the wisdom (1Jn.2:15;James 1:5-6). In this state of pride, he cannot feed himself with wisdom but continually feeds himself with the ingredient that leaves him empty and void. He swallows himself whole, from the inside out like a violent dragon in the wilderness (Rev.17:3,16,18).