“Come, let me get the wine, let us imbibe the strong drink, and tomorrow will be like today, only far better!”
From words of comfort the prophet here, by a very sudden change of his style, passes to words of reproof and conviction, and goes on in that strain, for the most part, in the three following chapters; and therefore some here begin a new sermon.
Commenting on Isaiah 56:9-12
Come ye, say they,.... Either to their fellow bishops and priests, when got together, jovially carousing; or to the common people, encouraging them in luxury and intemperance: I will fetch wine; out of his cellar, having good store of it, and that of the best, hence called "priests' wine"; and so, at Paris and Louvain, the Popish priests called their wine "vinum theologicum": and we...
fetch wine--language of the national teachers challenging one another to drink. BARNES translates, "I will take another cup" (Isa 5:11). to-morrow, &c.--Their self-indulgence was habitual and intentional: not merely they drink, but they mean to continue so. In the midst of the excesses of the unfaithful watchmen (Isa 56:10-12), most of the few that are godly perish: partly by vexation at the prevailing ungodliness; partly...