10-29-2010, 01:30 PM
The verse in proverbs does not condemn wine as a whole. In that verse, wine is personified to show the ill effects of abusing the wine. The use of wine, according to the Bible, is nowhere outright forbidden. But there are many warnings about its over use.
Leviticus 10:9-11
(9) "Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
(10) You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean,
(11) and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the LORD has spoken to them by Moses."
In the above verses, the priests are told not to drink, while carrying out their duties as priests. This is evidenced by the phrase
"when you go into the tent of meeting"
. They were not forbidden from drinking wine as a whole, only while they are carrying out their duties.
according to the Jewish canons, every priest that is fit for service, if he drinks wine, it is forbidden him to enter in (to the tabernacle, and so) from the altar (of burnt offering) and inward (into the holy place); and if he goes in and does his service it is profane (unlawful and rejected), and he is guilty of death by the hand of heaven; and he that drinks the fourth part (of a log) of wine at one time, of wine forty days old; but if he drinks less than a fourth part of wine, or drinks a fourth part and stops between, and mixes it with water, or drinks wine out of the press within forty days (i.e. not quite so many days old), though more than a fourth part, he is free, and does not profane his service; if he drinks more than a fourth part of wine, though it is mixed, and though he stops and drinks little by little, he is guilty of death, and his service is profane (or rejected); if he is drunk with the rest of liquors that make drunk, he is forbidden to go into the sanctuary; but if he goes in and serves, and he is drunk with the rest of liquors that make drunk, whether of milk or of figs (a strong liquor made of them), he is to be beaten, but his service is right; for they are not guilty of death but on account of wine in the hour of service; and it does not profane service, but being drunken with wine -- John Gill's Exposition of the Bible