Proverbs 21:17

21:17 The one who loves ¹  pleasure ²  will be ³  a poor person; ⁴ 

whoever loves wine and anointing oil ⁵  will not be rich.

Deuteronomy 21:20

21:20 They must declare to the elders ⁶  of his city, “Our son is stubborn and rebellious and pays no attention to what we say – he is a glutton and drunkard.”

Isaiah 28:1-3

The Lord Will Judge Samaria

28:1 The splendid crown of Ephraim’s drunkards is doomed, ⁷ 

the withering flower, its beautiful splendor, ⁸ 

situated ⁹  at the head of a rich valley,

the crown of those overcome with wine. ¹⁰ 

28:2 Look, the sovereign master ¹¹  sends a strong, powerful one. ¹² 

With the force of a hailstorm or a destructive windstorm, ¹³ 

with the might of a driving, torrential rainstorm, ¹⁴ 

he will knock that crown ¹⁵  to the ground with his hand. ¹⁶ 

28:3 The splendid crown of Ephraim’s drunkards

will be trampled underfoot.

Joel 1:5

1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, ¹⁷  and weep!

Wail, all you wine drinkers, ¹⁸ 

because the sweet wine ¹⁹  has been taken away ²⁰  from you. ²¹ 

Joel 1:1

Introduction

1:1 This ²²  is the Lord’s message ²³  that was given ²⁴ 

to Joel ²⁵  the son of Pethuel:

Colossians 1:11

1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ²⁶  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully

Colossians 1:10

1:10 so that you may live ²⁷  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ²⁸  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Galatians 5:21

5:21 envying, ²⁹  murder, ³⁰  drunkenness, carousing, ³¹  and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!

Philippians 3:19

3:19 Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things. ³² 

¹ sn The participle “loves” (אֹהֵב, ’ohev) indicates in this context that more is involved than the enjoyment of pleasure, for which there is no problem. The proverb is looking at “love” in the sense of needing and choosing, an excessive or uncontrolled indulgence in pleasure.

² sn “Pleasure” is actually the Hebrew word “joy” (שִׂמְחָה, simkhah). It is a metonymy of effect, the cause being the good life that brings the joy. In the second colon, “wine” and “oil” would be metonymies of cause, the particular things in life that bring joy. Therefore the figures in the lines work together to give the complete picture.

³ tn The phrase “will be” is supplied in the translation.

⁴ tn Heb “a man of poverty”; NRSV “will suffer want.”

⁵ sn In elaborate feasts and celebrations the wine was for drinking but the oil was for anointing (cf. NAB, NCV “perfume”). Both of these characterize the luxurious life (e.g., Ps 23:5; 104:15; Amos 6:6).

⁶ tc The LXX and Smr read “to the men,” probably to conform to this phrase in v. 21. However, since judicial cases were the responsibility of the elders in such instances (cf. Deut 19:12; 21:3, 6; 25:7-8) the reading of the MT is likely original and correct here.

⁷ tn Heb “Woe [to] the crown [or “wreath”] of the splendor [or “pride”] of the drunkards of Ephraim.” The “crown” is Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom (Ephraim). Priests and prophets are included among these drunkards in v. 7.

⁸ tn Heb “the beauty of his splendor.” In the translation the masculine pronoun (“his”) has been replaced by “its” because the referent (the “crown”) is the city of Samaria.

⁹ tn Heb “which [is].”

¹⁰ tn Heb “ones overcome with wine.” The words “the crown of” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The syntactical relationship of the final phrase to what precedes is uncertain. הֲלוּמֵי יָיִן (halume yayin, “ones overcome with wine”) seems to correspond to שִׁכֹּרֵי אֶפְרַיִם (shikkore ’efrayim, “drunkards of Ephraim”) in line 1. The translation assumes that the phrase “the splendid crown” is to be understood in the final line as well.

¹¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 16, 22 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

¹² tn Heb “Look, a strong and powerful [one] belongs to the Lord.”

¹³ tn Heb “like a rainstorm of hail, a wind of destruction.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “like a rainstorm of mighty, overflowing waters.”

¹⁵ tn The words “that crown” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The object of the verb is unexpressed in the Hebrew text.

¹⁶ tn Or “by [his] power.”

¹⁷ sn The word drunkards has a double edge here. Those accustomed to drinking too much must now lament the unavailability of wine. It also may hint that the people in general have become religiously inebriated and are unresponsive to the Lord. They are, as it were, drunkards from a spiritual standpoint.

¹⁸ sn Joel addresses the first of three groups particularly affected by the locust plague. In v. 5 he describes the effects on the drunkards, who no longer have a ready supply of intoxicating wine; in vv. 11-12 he describes the effects on the farmers, who have watched their labors come to naught because of the insect infestation; and in vv. 13-14 he describes the effects on the priests, who are no longer able to offer grain sacrifices and libations in the temple.

¹⁹ tn Heb “over the sweet wine, because it.” Cf. KJV, NIV, TEV, NLT “new wine.”

²⁰ tn Heb “cut off” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); NAB “will be withheld.”

²¹ tn Heb “your mouth.” This is a synecdoche of part (the mouth) for whole (the person).

²² sn The dating of the book of Joel is a matter of dispute. Some scholars date the book as early as the ninth century b.c., during the reign of the boy-king Joash. This view is largely based on the following factors: an argument from silence (e.g., the book of Joel does not mention a king, perhaps because other officials de facto carried out his responsibilities, and there is no direct mention in the book of such later Israelite enemies as the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians); inconclusive literary assumptions (e.g., the eighth-century prophet Amos in Amos 9:13 alludes to Joel 3:18); the canonical position of the book (i.e., it is the second book of the Minor Prophets); and literary style (i.e., the book is thought to differ in style from the postexilic prophetic writings). While such an early date for the book is not impossible, none of the arguments used to support it is compelling. Later dates for the book that have been defended by various scholars are, for example, the late seventh century or early sixth century or sometime in the postexilic period (anytime from late sixth century to late fourth century). Most modern scholars seem to date the book of Joel sometime between 400 and 350 b.c. For a helpful discussion of date see J. A. Thompson, “The Date of the Book of Joel,” A Light unto My Path, 453-64. Related to the question of date is a major exegetical issue: Is the army of chapter two to be understood figuratively as describing the locust invasion of chapter one, or is the topic of chapter two an invasion of human armies, either the Babylonians or an eschatological foe? If the enemy could be conclusively identified as the Babylonians, for example, this would support a sixth-century date for the book.

²³ tn Heb “the word of the Lord.”

²⁴ tn Heb “that was.” The term “given” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

²⁵ sn The name Joel means in Hebrew “the Lord is God.” There are a dozen or so individuals with this name in the OT.

²⁶ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.

²⁷ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

²⁸ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

²⁹ tn This term is plural in Greek (as is “murder” and “carousing”), but for clarity these abstract nouns have been translated as singular.

³⁰ tc ‡ φόνοι (fonoi, “murders”) is absent in such important mss as Ì⁴⁶ א B 33 81 323 945 pc sa, while the majority of mss (A C D F G Ψ 0122 0278 1739 1881 Ï lat) have the word. Although the pedigree of the mss which lack the term is of the highest degree, homoioteleuton may well explain the shorter reading. The preceding word has merely one letter difference, making it quite possible to overlook this term (φθόνοι φόνοι, fqonoi fonoi).

³¹ tn Or “revelings,” “orgies” (L&N 88.287).

³² tn Grk “whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly and glory is their shame, these who think of earthly things.”