Proverbs 31:6–7

In these verses, King Lemuel's mother counsels that strong drink belongs not to kings and rulers (vv. 4–5) but to those who are perishing — the dying, the destitute, and the brokenhearted. The poor man's forgetting of his misery through wine is presented not as a license for excess, but as a compassionate concession to extreme human suffering. Read in the fuller light of Scripture and Catholic Tradition, these verses point beyond the literal medicinal use of wine toward the deepest consolation: the cup of salvation offered by Christ himself to all who are afflicted and near to perishing.

Verse 6 — "Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish"

The Hebrew shēkhār (שֵׁכָר), translated "strong drink," refers to fermented beverages made from grain, dates, or fruit — distinct from but parallel to yayin (wine). The phrase "ready to perish" (lě'ōḇēḏ, "to the one perishing/being destroyed") carries a gravity that is not merely economic. It evokes the threshold between life and death — a condemned prisoner awaiting execution, a man dying of exposure, a laborer crushed by destitution without hope of relief. Ancient Near Eastern custom, echoed in later rabbinic practice (cf. Sanhedrin 43a), prescribed wine mingled with incense or myrrh as a mild anesthetic offered to those about to be executed, to blunt their final agony. This verse is thus first and foremost an act of mercy, not a prescription for drinking. The imperative is addressed to those with power to give: the Queen Mother instructs her royal son that the resource he must withhold from himself (v. 4) is precisely what mercy demands he extend to those on the margins of survival.

Verse 7 — "Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more"

The second verse completes the thought by articulating the purpose of the gift: oblivion of suffering. The Hebrew verb shākhakh (forget) and the object 'onyô (his poverty/affliction) together frame this not as sinful escapism but as humane relief for someone overwhelmed by circumstances beyond his power. The parallelism of "poverty" and "misery" ('āmāl, toil or trouble) intensifies the portrait — this is a man doubly burdened, externally by want and internally by the grinding anguish that want produces. The mother's instruction is strikingly realistic and compassionate: society has an obligation to those it cannot immediately save to at least ease their suffering. This reflects the Wisdom tradition's deep concern for the anawim (the poor ones of God), who recur throughout Proverbs, Psalms, and the Prophets.

The Typological and Spiritual Senses

The Church Fathers were alert to the deeper resonance of this passage within the economy of salvation. In the anagogical sense, "the one perishing" is humanity in its fallen state — spiritually destitute, under the sentence of death brought by sin (cf. Romans 5:12). The "strong drink" given freely to such a one points toward the Cup of the New Covenant. At the Last Supper, Christ takes the cup and gives it — freely, to those who could not earn it — saying "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:27–28). The Eucharistic chalice is the ultimate fulfillment of this Solomonic counsel: it is given specifically to those who are , those who know their own poverty of spirit and come to the altar in need, not in strength.

Catholic Tradition illuminates this passage through at least three interlocking lenses.

The Corporal Works of Mercy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists among the corporal works of mercy: "Give drink to the thirsty" (CCC 2447). While that category is broader, these verses from Proverbs undergird its logic: mercy meets the suffering person where they are, not merely where we wish them to be. St. John Chrysostom, commenting on the obligation toward the poor, wrote that "the rich exist for the sake of the poor" (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, Hom. 34) — a sentiment structurally identical to the Queen Mother's inversion here: strong drink is not for the powerful but for the powerless.

The Eucharistic Cup as Consolation. The Church Fathers — notably St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistle 63) and St. Ambrose (De Sacramentis, V.3) — consistently interpreted the wine of Scripture as a type of the Eucharistic blood of Christ. Where Proverbs offers wine to ease the anguish of the dying, the Eucharist offers the Blood of Christ, which does not merely suppress spiritual anguish but transforms it. The CCC teaches that the Eucharist is "the medicine of immortality" (CCC 1405, citing St. Ignatius of Antioch), given precisely to those who would otherwise perish.

Solidarity with the Afflicted. Gaudium et Spes (27) calls the Church to a "special obligation" toward those suffering poverty and distress. These verses from Proverbs are a Wisdom-text root of that conciliar teaching: the social order is judged by how it treats those on the threshold of destruction, not those at the center of power.

For contemporary Catholics, these verses cut against two opposite temptations. The first is a certain pietistic rigidity that refuses to meet people in their concrete suffering, always deferring comfort until a "proper" spiritual remedy is applied. Proverbs here gives royal sanction to immediate compassion — even imperfect relief has its place. A Catholic working in addiction recovery, hospice ministry, homeless outreach, or prison chaplaincy will recognize this: the Church's presence in places of anguish is itself a form of "giving strong drink to those who are perishing."

The second temptation is the opposite: using these verses to justify numbing one's own sorrows rather than bearing them redemptively. The counsel here is directed outward — it is a command to give, not a permission to take. The Catholic is called to be the giver of consolation to others, while personally drinking from the cup Christ offers — a cup that does not anesthetize suffering but redeems it. At every Mass, when we receive the Precious Blood, we receive the ultimate fulfillment of this ancient royal counsel: the cup freely given to those who were perishing.