Because it gives such a vivid picture of compulsive drinking, Proverbs 23:29-35 is a favorite passage of mine.
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29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30 Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine.
31 Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.
32 In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.
33 Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things.
34 You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast.
35 “They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink.”
Not only does this passage truly capture the out-of-control drinking of an alcoholic, it also displays the rich imagery of biblical Hebrew in the process. The description of unmanageability and negative consequences would fit right in with the personal stories in the AA Big Book or on one of the modern recovery blogs.
The passage begins with a series of rhetorical questions that lays out the unmanageability suffered by alcoholics and problem drinkers throughout the ages: woe, sorrow, strife, complaining, wounds without cause and red eyes. Who has all things? “Those who tarry long over wine.” The litany of questions also suggests someone who is familiar with the negative consequences from “tarrying over wine.” It seems that the author knew of what he wrote from personal experience.
According to R. Laird Harris in the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, wine was the most intoxicating drink known in ancient times. The reference to mixed wine suggests a process of first evaporating wine with a high sugar content; then mixing it with more wine to get a higher alcoholic content in the “mixed wine.” Even in Old Testament times problem drinkers knew how to maximize their high with the “hard stuff.”
The imagery of verse 31 is wonderfully seductive: red, red wine that sparkles in your cup and goes down smoothly. But watch out! It bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. The message then and the message today is the same for an alcoholic. The seductive appeal of sparkling wine is just as dangerous as a biting serpent. And if you do not listen to the warning , you could end up dead.
Now we enter into the heart of a drunken stupor: your eyes see strange things; your heart utters perverse things. Watch this YouTube video of Robin Williams describing how alcoholics “see strange things and utter perverse things.” Nothing much had changed there.
The imagery in verse 34 is of being on a ship in the midst of a storm. Tossed about by the waves, one minute you are in the midst of the sea; the next at the top of the mast. In Psalm 107:27, sailors in a storm are said to be reeling like drunken men. Drunkenness is feeling like you are on a storm tossed ship. Can anyone relate? Like a storm, drunkenness must be “ridden out;” endured until the end. And you are powerless to calm the seas and end the storm.
The drinker says that he was struck, but not hurt (35a); beaten, but he did not feel it (35b). When you’re drunk, pain fails to register. Sometimes you don’t even remember what hit you. The terror of the strange things seen and perverse things uttered is like a dream: when will he awake? And if he does, more wine becomes the goal: “I must have another drink.”
Wine leads to negative consequences for those who pursue it; and the aftermath of a drunken storm leads right back to wine. A bleak, hopeless circle is depicted. The main point of the passage is then: Do not look at wine; it bites like a serpent and leads to an unending circle of sorrow.
So why do we do it? Why do humans turn to wine and other intoxicants? Ronald Siegel suggested in his book, Intoxication, that pursuing intoxicants is a “fourth drive,” following hunger, thirst and sex.
“History shows that we have always used drugs. In every age, in every part of this planet, people have pursued intoxication with plant drugs, alcohol, and other mind-altering substances. . . . This ‘fourth drive’ is a natural part of biology, creating the irrepressible demand for drugs.”
“For man is a spiritual as well as an animal being. He may be moved by things that influence his spiritual nature, or by things that influence his animal nature. . . . People drink and smoke, not casually, not from dullness, not to cheer themselves up, not because it is pleasant, but in order to drown the voice of conscience in themselves.”
In the end, the apostle Paul had it spot on. In Romans 7:21-23 he said: “So I find it to be l law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
credit: Weighing the heart, Canadian Museum of History
The ancient Egyptian journey into the afterworld was complicated. Similar to Christianity, they believed death was a temporary interruption, rather than the termination of life. They believed there was a state of being where there was a continuation of, and even fulfillment of the good things of this life. The well-known ritual of mummification was done to enable the soul to return to the body, giving it breath and life in the new existence. Funerary texts consisting of spells and prayers were written and placed on tables outside the tomb’s burial chamber to help the dead on their journey to the afterworld. This journey was full of danger and the spells were an essential weapon against those dangers.
A solar bark or barge carried the mummy through the underworld, where serpents armed with knives, and five-headed, fire-spitting dragons were encountered. When the deceased arrived in the realm of Duat (Land of the Gods), they had to pass through seven gates, accurately reciting one of the spells at each stop. If they were successful, they arrived at the Hall of Osiris, the place of judgment, where the gods performed the “weighing of the heart ceremony” to judge whether the person’s earthly deeds were truly virtuous. The ceremony was overseen by Anubis, a jackal-headed god, and was recorded by Thoth, the god of writing.
Forty-two gods listened to the confessions of the deceased, who claimed they were innocent of crimes against the divine and social order. These were in the form of denials, such as: “I have not killed” or “I have not blasphemed a god” (See “The Protestation of Guiltlessness” in Ancient Near Eastern Texts). The individual’s heart was then placed on a scale, counterbalanced by a feather, representing Maat, the goddess or truth and justice. “If the heart was equal in weight to the feather, the person was justified and achieved immortality.” If not, it was devoured by Amemet, a crocodile, lion, hippopotamus goddess. “This meant that the person would not survive in the afterlife.”
There are parallels in the Bible, even with the particular allusion of weighing the heart. But there, it is the Lord (Yahweh), not the Egyptian gods, who weighs the heart. Proverbs 21:2 says, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.” The Hebrew word for heart can also mean mind or understanding. Rarely does it refer to concrete, physical things. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament said the majority of its usages refer either to the inner, immaterial nature in general or to one of the three personality functions of man—emotion, thought, or will.
In his commentary, Bruce Waltke said Proverbs 21:1 underscores the Lord’s sovereignty over the king, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.” The Lord is master over the most powerful of human beings, and even their heart. Natural streams of water are not meant, as their direction is fixed. So, the reference here is thinking of irrigation ditches or canals that direct the water according to the Lord’s design: “The Lord is the Farmer; the king’s heart is the flexible channel; and his well-watered garden is the pious and ethical needy.”
While 21:1 notes the Lord’s sovereignty over the king in his bestowing of blessings (the stream of water), 21:2 points to His omniscience over every human being (weighing the heart) and implies the king’s ability to reward and punish justly. This characteristic of a king, being rightly submissive to the Lord and thus able to reward and punish justly, is the context for Nathan rebuking David for his actions in killing Uriah and taking Bathsheba to be his wife.
When Nathan told David the parable of the rich man and the poor man’s lamb, David pronounced judgment against the rich man’s killing of the poor man’s lamb. Nathan then revealed the rich man was David himself and proceeded to pronounce the judgment of the Lord against David for his actions (2 Samuel 12:1-15). The king was judged by the Lord because he had failed in his duty to act justly and upright. Waltke noted how verse 21:2 has a variant in Proverbs 16:2, where the Lord weighs the spirit, not the heart: “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.”
Whereas in 16:2 the conflict of assessment pertains to the planner and doer of an action (16:1, 3), here it pertains to the recipient of the Lord’s blessing through his king. God will not divert life-giving water upon those who act according to their own value system. Self-distrust must be matched by bold confidence in the Lord, who keeps his promises to bless the upright (see 3:5; 16:3).
Proverbs 21:1 and 21:2 are also linked by a chiastic structure with “heart” (verse 1a, verse 2b) and “the Lord” (verse 1b, verse 2a). Then these two verses are linked to the following verses (21:3-29) through YHWH, “the Lord,” and his desire for righteousness and justice, “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (21:3). The comparative here in verse 21:3 does not exclude sacrifice as a good. It simply says it is more desirable to the Lord than sacrifice. “Both ethical behavior and cultic actions, such as fine-sounding hymns and well-phrased prayers, are important and desired by the Lord, but he prefers ethics over the cult (cf. 15:8; 20:25).”
Verse 7 explicitly juxtaposes this preference of the Lord to the refusal of the wicked to do what is just, to seek the well-being of all citizens under the heavenly King’s rule. “They divorce ethics and cultus and are repugnant to him.” Verses 21:25-29 intensifies the point. The refusal of the sluggard to labor kills him (v. 21:25); it results in daily craving (v. 21:26). The sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination; more so when he does it with evil intentions (v. 21:27). A false witness will die, but the (true) word will endure (v. 21:28).
When we judge by what seems right in our own eyes, we are following our conscience and not God. God values our obedience to his moral law more than keeping the cultic law. Know that the Lord weighs our hearts and spirits, and that when we commit our work to the Lord, our plans will be established (Proverbs 16:3). To obey the Lord is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). Waltke noted how Egyptian literature, through common grace, taught the same value: “More acceptable is the character of one upright of heart than the ox of the evildoer.”
Whether you follow the Lord or some other god like Anubis or Toth, remember they weigh your heart.
In the article, “What does it mean to be human?, the Smithsonian noted how DNA studies have demonstrated that on average, genetic differences between individual humans is about .1%. When the same kind of study is done comparing chimpanzees and bonobos with humans, the diversity is about 1.2%. The DNA difference of humans, chimpanzees and bonobos with gorillas is about 1.6%. “The DNA evidence leaves us with one of the greatest surprises in biology: the wall between human, on the one hand, and ape or animal, on the other, has been breached.” Given the close genetic relations we humans have to chimpanzees, apes and monkeys, perhaps it will be no great surprise to hear that researchers have shown they also have a weakness for ethanol. No, really, monkeys and chimpanzees like to get tipsy.
Watch this short BBC video of monkeys stealing alcoholic drinks from unaware, distracted humans at the beach. Keep watching and you’ll also see a suspiciously tipsy monkey who has trouble standing up. The video claims there are even tea totaling monkeys, at around the same percentage as humans. “In line with human habits, most [monkeys] drink in moderation. Twelve percent are steady drinkers and 5% drink to the last drop.” The theory is that like monkeys, we developed a taste for alcohol when we scoured the forest for ripe fermenting fruit.
This behavior also exists in the wild, independent of human drinking and fermentation behaviors. Here is a short video of a chimpanzee drinking fermented, alcoholic plant sap in the wild. The BBC also reported on a 17-year study of wild chimpanzees in the African country of Guinea where the chimpanzees repeatedly ingested naturally fermented palm wine from raffia palm trees. Local humans harvest the “palm wine” by tapping the trees at the crown and gathering the sap in plastic containers. Researchers have then seen chimpanzees—often in groups—climbing the trees to drink the fermented palm sap out of the containers.
The chimps even used drinking tools which the researchers called leaf sponges. They would chew handfuls of leaves and crush them into absorbent sponges. Then they would dip their sponge into the liquid and suck out the contents. In order to measure the extent of the chimp’s drinking, the scientists measured the alcohol content of the wine and filmed the chimps’ “drinking sessions.” Some individuals consumed the alcohol equivalent to of a bottle of wine. “[They] displayed behavioural signs of inebriation, including falling asleep shortly after drinking.”
Dr Catherine Hobaiter, from St Andrews University, said: “It would be fascinating to investigate the [behaviour] in more detail: do chimps compete over access to the alcohol? Or do those who drank enough to show ‘behavioural signs of inebriation’ have a bit of a slow day in the shade the next morning?”
The actual study, “Tools to Tipple: Alcohol Ingestion by Wild Chimpanzees Using Leaf-Sponges,” was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. It reported that the ethanol in the palm wine varied between 3.1% alcohol by volume (ABV) and 6.9% ABV. Over 17 years the researchers observed 51 drinking events among the chimpanzees. They always used a leaf tool to drink, dipping it into the container with the fermented palm sap. “Individuals either co-drank, with drinkers alternating dips of their leaf-sponges into the fermented palm sap, or one individual monopolized the container, while others waited their turn.”
Some of the chimpanzees at Bossou consumed significant quantities of ethanol and displayed behavioural signs of inebriation. . . . Unlike examples of primates ingesting anthropogenic sources of ethanol elsewhere, such as introduced green monkeys at St Kitts targeting tourist cocktails [seen in the above video], chimpanzee attraction to fermented palm sap at Bossou does not result from former provisioning of ethanol by local people.
In another study, “Hominids Adapted to Metabolize Ethanol Long Before Human-Directed Fermentation,” Carrigan et al. suggested that an enhanced ability to metabolize alcohol in the last common ancestor of living African apes and humans may have resulted from an evolutionary change with an enzyme (ADH4). The changed enzyme enabled them to metabolize ethanol and happened “near the time that they began using the forest floor, about 10 million years ago.” The researchers thought their findings had implications not only for understanding the forces shaping hominin adaptations to ground-based living, but also for understanding the medical complexities of humans and alcohol today.
There is a short audio on The Academic Minute on “Human Alcohol Consumption” summarizing the above research. In much the same way humans are wired to enjoy sugar, salt and fat. Carrigan et al. suggest our genes adapted to promote alcohol consumption. The theory is this gave our ancestors a dietary benefit, as ethanol was present in fermenting fruit that fell from the trees onto the ground.
The results were very clear – the ancestor of humans and our close relatives, the chimpanzee and gorilla, acquired a mutation ~10 million years ago that enable them to metabolize ethanol much more efficiently than previous ancestors. This coincided with a major global climate change that caused the African forests to shrink, and suggests our ancestors adapted to ethanol in fruit to cope with a dwindling food supply.This does not mean our genomes are adapted to the much higher levels of ethanol found in modern alcoholic beverages … and so much like with sugars, salt and fat, we are now at risk of over-consuming something that was once scarce but important.
Another academic paper by Robert Dudley, “Ethanol, Fruit Ripening, and the Historical Origins of Human Alcoholism in Primate Fruigivory,” made a similar point from his research in the Republic of Panama. “Sustained evolutionary exposure to low-concentration ethanol will favor the evolution of metabolic adaptations that maximize physiological benefits associated with ethanol ingestion while concomitantly minimizing related costs.” Conversely, exposure to higher concentrations of ethanol not naturally encountered may cause harm. Dudley’s 2004 paper led to the publication of his 2014 book, The Drunken Monkey: Why We Drink Alcohol. Dudley’s work was the origins of what is called “The Drunken Monkey Hypothesis,” which proposed that: “A strong attraction to the smell and taste of alcohol conferred a selective advantage on our primate ancestors by helping them locate nutritious fruit at the peak of ripeness.” In the Middle Ages, people learned to distill spirits, concentrating the natural alcoholic content of fermented fruits and grains. “The once advantageous appetite for alcohol became a danger to human health and well-being.”
The last part of the hypothesis suggesting that the development of distillation in the Middle Ages changed the advantageous appetite for alcohol to a danger for human health is not accurate. Hundreds, even thousands of years before that time people understood the dangers of even fermented fruits to human health and well-being. There is a Chinese proverb that says: “To stop drinking, study a drunkard when you are sober.” An Egyptian proverb says: “Yesterday’s drunkenness will not quench today’s thirst.” The Greek poet Theognis, writing in the sixth century BC, made several comments on the problems with over indulging wine. Here are a few:
“Surely to drink much wine is an ill.” “Wine maketh light the mind of wise and foolish alike, when they drink beyond their measure.”My head is heavy with drink, Onomacritus, and wine constraineth me; I am no longer the dispenser of my own judgment, and the room runneth round. Come, let me rise and try if haply wine possess my feet as well as my wits. I fear I may do some vain thing in my cups and have great reproach to bear.” “Wine maketh light the mind of wise and foolish alike, when they drink beyond their measure.”“He that overpasseth the due measure of drinking is no longer master either of his tongue or his mind, but telleth reckless things disgraceful to sober ears, and hath no shame in what he doeth in his cups, a wise man once, but now a fool.”
There are also biblical passages condemning drunkenness, such as Proverbs 20:1, which says: “Wine is a mocker and strong drink brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.” Proverbs 23:29-35 is an extended passage about the negative consequences drunkenness. Verses 31-32 read: “Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.” So dividing the history of human appetite for alcohol as advantageous before distillation and dangerous afterwards seems to miss the point.
However, the allure of alcohol as a motive for human tree dwelling ancestors to spend more time on the ground looking for it in fermented fruit fits well with another hypothesis for why humans changed from hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers in the so-called Neolithic Revolution.
In his paper on the origins of brewing technology in ancient Mesopotamia, Peter Damerow noted where the technique of brewing beer has been discussed as a possible motive for the development of human culture in Neolithic times. The theory suggests that rather than using grain for other foodstuffs like bread, the discovery of the intoxicating effect of ethanol in beer “caused the transition from hunting and gathering to living in stable settlements, domesticating animals, and cultivating the soil.” This happened about 7,000 BC. While there is no conclusive evidence to support this hypothesis, “there can be no doubt that the emergence of agriculture was closely related to the processing of grain after the harvest, and that beer brewing soon belonged to the basic technologies of grain conservation and consumption.”
It is intriguing and somewhat perverse to say the lure of intoxication seems to have guided human development at two crucial crossroads.
