Today's question is about depression, and it comes to us from an anonymous listener. "Pastor John, about a year ago I was going through one of the lowest times of depression in my entire life. During this time I was reading scripture. I came across Proverbs 31, verses 6 and 7, which say this, "Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to him whose life is bitter.

Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his trouble no more." That seems like exactly what I didn't need. Does this passage teach us to use alcohol in numbing the pain of depression?" Let's read these verses, Proverbs 31, 6 and 7, in context. So here's verses 4 through 9, and they're very short.

"It is not for kings, O Lemuel." So this is Lemuel's mother. You know that early in the context. This is Lemuel's mother teaching him about how to be a king. "It is not for kings, O Lemuel. It is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed, and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.

Give strong drink to the one who's perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress. Let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more. Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy." So there's the context.

On both sides of the verse about giving drink to the one who's perishing, the stress is, "Don't pervert the rights of the afflicted. Judge righteously, defend the poor, and as a means to that end, watch out for strong drink. It unfits the mind for the kind of thinking that leaders have to do in order to do justice.

So Lemuel's mother is picking up on a theme that runs through the Old Testament about alcohol and how it distorts reality and unfits the mind for responsible action and therefore should be used with the greatest caution. Let me just give you a taste of that theme that she's picking up on.

Ecclesiastes 10, 17, "Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility and your princes feast at the proper time for strength and not for drunkenness." In other words, happy when you have princes that don't abuse their alcohol. What happens when leaders give themselves to strong drink?

1 Kings 16, 9, "When Asa the king was at Tirzah drinking himself drunk at the house of Arzah, who was over the household of Tirzah, Zimri came and killed him." Or 1 Kings 20, 16, "When Ben-Hadad the foreign king was drinking himself drunk in the booths they attacked him and defeated him." Or Isaiah 28, 7, "The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink." They are swallowed by wine.

They stagger with strong drink. They reel in vision. They stumble in giving judgment. That's what Lemuel's mother is so concerned about. Or Hosea 4, 10, "Hoard him wine and new wine. Take away the understanding." That's what she's so concerned about. Or Proverbs 20, verse 1, "Wine is a mocker.

Strong drink is a brawler. Whoever partakes is led astray by it and is not wise." Or Proverbs 23, 31, "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.

Your eyes will see strange things and your heart will utter perverse things." This is not what kings should do, Lemuel's mother is saying. Your heart must stay clear. Your eyes must be open. Your mind must be sharp so that you can utter just and wise things. So the greatest concern of this passage is verse 5, "Lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of the afflicted." Now that leaves two possible meanings for these words inserted here about—let me read them.

"Give strong drink to the one who's perishing and wine to those bitter in distress. Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more." Now here's two possible meanings for that in that particular context. One, use strong drink like we use morphine. If someone is perishing and in great pain, use the means at your disposal to relieve the pain.

Give strong drink to the one who is perishing. I don't think—this is his specific answer to his question—I don't think that justifies us in using alcohol to escape our sorrows or our mental miseries. That would not relieve the symptoms of sorrow but would cut us off from the real remedy, namely knowing clearly the truth of God in Christ.

So that's the first possible meaning. Use it like morphine. I mean, that's the way it's been used in history. Every TV western I've ever seen, when they're gonna cut off the guy's finger, they give him whiskey, right? Well, so would I. I mean, come on. Just like I'm so thankful today for pain medication.

Number two, and this is what most of the commentators I've looked at believe is the case, namely that this is irony. This is Lemuel's mother who has just told her son that the king should beware of strong drink, and then she says, "Give it to the miserable." Tremper Longman, in his commentary, suggests that she would be saying this.

This is a quote, "Don't act like those derelicts who drink to forget their hardships. Be like the king you are." So it's irony. It's saying, "Go ahead and give it to them to do with it what they do, but you're the king, and you don't use alcohol that way." Now, frankly, I'm just not sure which of those, but both of them, I think, would be legitimate interpretations of these verses.

In either case, she's not teaching her son or us in our very low and discouraging moments to damage our ability to see the truth that can heal us deeply. Don't open your mouth to obscure reality. Open your mouth to make right judgments. In other words, don't open your mouth to take in the very thing that would make you blind to the truth that can heal you.

Open your mouth as a king to speak right things, and open your ears to hear right things that would deliver you from misjudgment. That's a good exposition. Thank you, Pastor John. And thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast. We're always honored that so many of you listen along with us each week.

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And there you'll also find a little button if you want to send us a question of your own. And what better time to do that than over the weekend, which is upon us. Lord willing, we will return on Monday with another of your questions, but I'm not sure exactly what it is.

In any case, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening, and we will see you on Monday. you you you you you you