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Sunday, December 21st, 2025
the Fourth Week of Advent
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Young's Literal Translation

Proverbs 31:7

He drinketh, and forgetteth his poverty, And his misery he remembereth not again.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Drunkenness;   Wine;   Thompson Chain Reference - Woman;   The Topic Concordance - Drunkenness;   Government;   Sobriety;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Lemuel;   Proverb, the Book of;   Woman;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Lemuel;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Agur;   Lemuel;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Proverbs, Book of;   Vine;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Acrostic;   Ethics;   Lemuel;   Marriage;   Massa;   Proverbs, Book of;   Song of Songs;   Trade and Commerce;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Lemuel ;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Gall;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Lem'uel;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Drink, Strong;   Drunkenness;   Lemuel;   Poverty;   Proverbs, Book of;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Education;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Let him drink so that he can forget his povertyand remember his trouble no more.
Hebrew Names Version
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.
King James Version
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
English Standard Version
let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more.
New American Standard Bible
Let him drink and forget his poverty, And remember his trouble no more.
New Century Version
Let them drink and forget their need and remember their misery no more.
Amplified Bible
Let him drink and forget his poverty And no longer remember his trouble.
World English Bible
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Let him drinke, that he may forget his pouertie, and remember his miserie no more.
Legacy Standard Bible
Let him drink and forget his povertyAnd he will not remember his trouble any longer.
Berean Standard Bible
Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
Contemporary English Version
Let them drink and forget how poor and miserable they feel.
Complete Jewish Bible
let him drink, forget his poverty and cease to remember his troubles.
Darby Translation
let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
Easy-to-Read Version
Let them drink to forget their troubles. Let them forget they are poor.
George Lamsa Translation
That they may drink, and forget their sorrows, and remember their miseries no more.
Good News Translation
Let them drink and forget their poverty and unhappiness.
Lexham English Bible
He will drink and forget his poverty, and his misery he will not remember any more.
Literal Translation
let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
that they maye drynke it, & forget their misery & aduersite.
American Standard Version
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.
Bible in Basic English
Let him have drink, and his need will go from his mind, and the memory of his trouble will be gone.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
King James Version (1611)
Let him drinke, and forget his pouertie, and remember his misery no more.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
That they may drynke it, and forget their miserie and aduersitie.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
A righteous man knows how to judge for the poor: but the ungodly understands not knowledge; and the poor man has not an understanding mind.
English Revised Version
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Drinke thei, and foryete thei her nedinesse; and thenke thei no more on her sorewe.
Update Bible Version
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.
Webster's Bible Translation
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
New English Translation
let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.
New King James Version
Let him drink and forget his poverty, And remember his misery no more.
New Living Translation
Let them drink to forget their poverty and remember their troubles no more.
New Life Bible
Let him drink and forget how poor he is, and remember his trouble no more.
New Revised Standard
let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and, his wearying toil, let him remember no more.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Let them drink, and forget their want, and remember their sorrow no more.
Revised Standard Version
let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Let him drink and forget his poverty And remember his trouble no more.

Contextual Overview

1 Words of Lemuel a king, a declaration that his mother taught him: 2 `What, my son? and what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows? 3 Give not to women thy strength, And thy ways to wiping away of kings. 4 Not for kings, O Lemuel, Not for kings, to drink wine, And for princes a desire of strong drink. 5 Lest he drink, and forget the decree, And change the judgment of any of the sons of affliction. 6 Give strong drink to the perishing, And wine to the bitter in soul, 7 He drinketh, and forgetteth his poverty, And his misery he remembereth not again. 8 Open thy mouth for the dumb, For the right of all sons of change. 9 Open thy mouth, judge righteously, Both the cause of the poor and needy!'

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Ephesians 5:18

Reciprocal: Genesis 41:30 - shall be Genesis 41:51 - forget 2 Samuel 16:2 - that such Job 11:16 - Because Proverbs 23:20 - not Jeremiah 16:7 - cup Zechariah 10:7 - and their Luke 14:13 - call Luke 22:18 - the fruit

Cross-References

Genesis 20:6
And God saith unto him in the dream, `Yea, I -- I have known that in the integrity of thy heart thou hast done this, and I withhold thee, even I, from sinning against Me, therefore I have not suffered thee to come against her;
Genesis 31:14
And Rachel answereth -- Leah also -- and saith to him, `Have we yet a portion and inheritance in the house of our father?
Genesis 31:15
have we not been reckoned strangers to him? for he hath sold us, and he also utterly consumeth our money;
Genesis 31:29
my hand is to God to do evil with you, but the God of your father yesternight hath spoken unto me, saying, Take heed to thyself from speaking with Jacob from good unto evil.
Genesis 31:41
`This [is] to me twenty years in thy house: I have served thee fourteen years for thy two daughters, and six years for thy flock; and thou changest my hire ten times;
Leviticus 26:26
`In My breaking to you the staff of bread, then ten women have baked your bread in one oven, and have given back your bread by weight; and ye have eaten, and are not satisfied.
Numbers 14:22
for all the men who are seeing My honour, and My signs, which I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and try Me these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice --
Nehemiah 4:12
And it cometh to pass, when the Jews have come who are dwelling near them, that they say to us ten times from all the places whither ye return -- [they are] against us.
Job 1:10
Hast not Thou made a hedge for him, and for his house, and for all that he hath -- round about?
Job 19:3
These ten times ye put me to shame, ye blush not. Ye make yourselves strange to me --

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Let him drink, and forget his poverty,.... Which has been very pressing upon him, and afflicting to him; let him drink till he is cheerful, and forgets that he is a poor man; however, so far forgets as not to be troubled about it, and have any anxious thoughts how he must have food and raiment k;

and remember his misery no more; the anguish of his mind because of his straitened circumstances; or "his labour" l, as it may be rendered; so the Septuagint and Arabic versions, the labour of his body, the pains he takes to get a little food for himself and family. The Targum is,

"and remember his torn garments no more;''

his rags, a part of his poverty. Such virtue wine may have for the present to dispel care, than which it is said nothing can be better m; and to induce a forgetfulness of misery, poverty, and of other troubles. So the mixed wine Helena gave to Telemachus, called Nepenthe, which when drunk, had such an effect as to remove sorrow, and to bring on forgetfulness of past evils n; and of which Diodorus Siculus o and Pliny p speak as of such use. The ancients used to call Bacchus, the god of wine, the son of forgetfulness; but Plutarch q thought he should rather be called the father of it. Some, by those that are "ready to perish", understand condemned malefactors, just going to die; and think the Jewish practice of giving wine mingled with myrrh or frankincense, or a stupefying potion to such that they might not be sensible of their misery r, such as the Jews are supposed to otter to Christ, Mark 15:23; is grounded upon this passage; but the sense given is best: the whole may be applied in a spiritual manner to such persons who see themselves in a "perishing", state and condition; whose consciences are loaded with guilt, whose souls are filled with a sense of wrath, have a sight of sin, but not of a Saviour; behold a broken, cursing, damning law, the flaming sword of justice turning every way, but no righteousness to answer for them, no peace, no pardon, no stoning sacrifice but look upon themselves lost and undone: and so of "heavy hearts"; have a spirit of heaviness in them, a heaviness upon their spirits: a load of guilt on them too heavy to bear, so that they cannot look up: or are "bitter in soul"; sin is made bitter to them, and they weep bitterly for it: now to such persons "wine", in a spiritual sense, should be given; the Gospel, which is as the best wine, that, goes down sweetly, should be preached unto them; they should be told of the love of God and Christ to poor sinners, which is better than wine; and the blessings of grace should be set before them, as peace, pardon, righteousness, and eternal life, by Christ, the milk and wine to be had without money and without price; of these they should drink, or participate of, by faith, freely, largely, and to full satisfaction; by means of which they will "forget" their spiritual "poverty", and consider themselves as possessed of the riches of grace, as rich in faith, and heirs of a kingdom; and so remember no more their miserable estate by nature, and the anguish of their souls in the view of that; unless it be to magnify and adore the riches of God's grace in their deliverance.

k "Tunc dolor a curae rugaqae frontis abit", Ovid. de Arte Amandi, l. 1. l עמלו "laboris sui", Pagninus, Montanus. m Cyprius poeta apud Suidam in voce οινος. n Homer. Odyss. 4. v. 220, 221. o Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 87, 88. p Nat. Hist. l. 21, c. 21. q Symposiac. l. 7. Probl. 5. p. 705. r Vid. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 43. 1. Bemidbar Rabba, s. 10. fol. 198. 4.


 
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