And drunken, but not with wine - Overcome and prostrate, but not under the influence of intoxicating drink. They were prostrate by the wrath of God.

Drunken, but not with wine - Aeschylus has the same expression: -

Αοινοις εμμανεις θυμωμασι·

Eumen. 863.

Intoxicated with passion, not with wine.

Schultens thinks that this circumlocution, as he calls it, gradum adfert incomparabiliter majorem; and that it means, not simply without wine, but much more than with wine. Gram. Hebrews p. 182. See his note on Job 30:38.

The bold image of the cup of God's wrath, often employed by the sacred writers, (see note on Isaiah 1:22), is nowhere handled with greater force and sublimity than in this passage of Isaiah, Isaiah 51:17-23. Jerusalem is represented in person as staggering under the effects of it, destitute of that assistance which she might expect from her children; not one of them being able to support or to lead her. They, abject and amazed, lie at the head of every street, overwhelmed with the greatness of their distress; like the oryx entangled in a net, in vain struggling to rend it, and extricate himself. This is poetry of the first order, sublimity of the highest character.

Plato had an idea something like this: "Suppose," says he, "God had given to men a medicating potion inducing fear, so that the more any one should drink of it, so much the more miserable he should find himself at every draught, and become fearful of every thing both present and future; and at last, though the most courageous of men, should be totally possessed by fear: and afterwards, having slept off the effects of it, should become himself again." De Leg. i., near the end. He pursues at large this hypothesis, applying it to his own purpose, which has no relation to the present subject. Homer places two vessels at the disposal of Jupiter, one of good, the other of evil. He gives to some a potion mixed of both; to others from the evil vessel only: these are completely miserable. Iliad 24:527-533.

Δοιοι γαρ τε πιθοι κατακειαται εν Διος ουδει

Δωρων, οἱα διδωσι, κακων, ἑτερος δε εαων,

Ὡ μεν καμμιξας δῳη Ζευς τερπικεραυνος,

Αλλοτε μεν τε κακῳ ὁγε κυρεται, αλλοτε δ' εσθλῳ·

Ὡ δε κε των λυγρων δῳη, λωβητον εθηκε.

Και ἑ κακη βουβρωστις επι χθονα διαν ελαυνει·

Φοιτᾳ δ' ουτε θεοισι τετιμενος, ουτι βροτοισιν.

continued...

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 but, as the Targum expresses it, with tribulation; with afflictions at the hand of God, and persecutions from men.

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunk, but {r} not with wine:

(r) But with trouble and fear.

51:21 Not with wine - But with the cup of God's fury.

21. drunken . not with wine-(Isa 29:9; compare Isa 51:17, 20, here; La 3:15).

51:17-23 God calls upon his people to mind the things that belong to their everlasting peace. Jerusalem had provoked God, and was made to taste the bitter fruits. Those who should have been her comforters, were their own tormentors. They have no patience by which to keep possesion of their own souls, nor any confidence in God's promise, by which to keep possession of its comfort. Thou art drunken, not as formerly, with the intoxicating cup of Babylon's idolatries, but with the cup of affliction. Know, then, the cause of God's people may for a time seem as lost, but God will protect it, by convincing the conscience, or confounding the projects, of those that strive against it. The oppressors required souls to be subjected to them, that every man should believe and worship as they would have them. But all they could gain by violence was, that people were brought to outward hypocritical conformity, for consciences cannot be forced.