Bible Strands
Proverbs 31:4
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to crave strong drink,
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — A mother addresses King Lemuel as part of royal instruction, immediately following counsel to avoid squandering strength on women.
The words — אַל ('al) operates as a strict negative prohibition meaning "may not," and מְלָכִים (m.la.Khim) explicitly identifies the prohibited audience as "kings."
The thread — The warning against intoxicants for leaders appears in Proverbs 20:1, Ecclesiastes 10:17, and Isaiah 5:22, and directly connects to the surrounding verses in Proverbs 31:3 and Proverbs 31:5.
Why it lands — The text commands rulers to avoid wine and strong drink so that impaired judgment does not cause them to abandon decreed justice for the oppressed.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:
Cross-references
- Proverbs 20:1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
- Ecclesiastes 10:17 Blessed are you, O land whose king is a son of nobles, and whose princes feast at the proper time—for strength and not for drunkenness.
- Isaiah 5:22 Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and champions in mixing strong drink,
- Hosea 4:11 to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding.
- 1 Kings 20:16 They marched out at noon while Ben-hadad and the 32 kings allied with him were in their tents getting drunk.
- Habakkuk 2:5 and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations to himself and collects all the peoples as his own.
- Leviticus 10:9 “You and your sons are not to drink wine or strong drink when you enter the Tent of Meeting, or else you will die; this is a permanent statute for the generations to come.
- Esther 3:15 The couriers left, spurred on by the king’s command, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. Then the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was in confusion.
- Isaiah 28:7 These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling in their judgments.
- Daniel 5:2 Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.