drunkenness

זוֹלֵל וְסֹבֵֽא (Devarim 21:20), a glutton and a drunkard, and בְּזֹֽלְלֵי בָשָׂר לָֽמוֹ (Mishlei 23:20), among those who eat much meat for themselves: one who eats much meat is called זולל, a glutton, as one who drinks much wine is called סובא, a drunkard.

וְאִם־תּוֹצִיא יָקָר מִזּוֹלֵל (Yirmiyahu 15:19), if you bring out the precious from the vile, and כִּי הָיִיתִי זוֹלֵלָֽה (Eichah 1:11), for I have become despised. The noun is כְּרֻם זֻלֻּת לִבְנֵי אָדָֽם (Tehillim 12:9), which he reads as: when the wicked are lifted high, there is contempt for the sons of men. Rabbi Yonah put הָרִים נָזֹֽלּוּ (Yeshayahu 64:2), the mountains flowed down, under this root; Radak holds that the right root is נזל, flowing.

וְנִסְבְּאָה שֵׁכָר (Yeshayahu 56:12), let us fill ourselves with strong drink; זוֹלֵל וְסֹבֵֽא (Devarim 21:20), a glutton and a drunkard; אַל־תְּהִי בְסֹֽבְאֵי ־יָיִן (Mishlei 23:20), be not among the drinkers of wine; וּכְסָבְאָם סְבוּאִים (Nachum 1:10), and drunken as with their drink. The adjective is מֽוּבָאִים סָבָאִים מִמִּדְבָּר (Yechezkel 23:42), drunkards brought from the wilderness, that is, men who have drunk and are drunk.

Wine itself is named for it: סָבְאֵךְ מָהוּל בַּמָּֽיִם (Yeshayahu 1:22), your wine is mixed with water. And so the wine-seller was called סובא, as the poet has it, and so Chazal (Avodah Zarah 70b) speak of a woman who sells wine: ההיא מסוביתא דמסרה מפתחא לגויה, that wine-seller who handed the key to a gentile.

כּוּשׁ וּסְבָאִים אַנְשֵׁי מִדָּה (Yeshayahu 45:14), Kush and the Sevaim, men of stature, where it is the name of a nation of the sons of Kush; and מֽוּבָאִים סָבָאִים מִמִּדְבָּר (Yechezkel 23:42) can be read that way too, Sevaim brought from the wilderness.

כִּי שָׂכֹר שְׂכַרְתִּיךָ (Bereishis 30:16), for I have surely hired you, and בְּיוֹמוֹ תִתֵּן שְׂכָרוֹ (Devarim 24:15), on his day you shall give him his wage. A hired man is שָׂכִיר: אִם שָׂכִיר הוּא (Shemos 22:14), if he is a hired man; the nouns are שָׂכָר and שֶׂכֶר, a wage, and מַשְׂכֻּרְתֶּךָ, your wages. שְׂבֵעִים בַּלֶּחֶם נִשְׂכָּרוּ (Shmuel I 2:5), those who were sated hired themselves out for bread. From this too, though written with a samech, is וְסֹכְרִים עֲלֵיהֶם יוֹעֲצִים (Ezra 4:5), and hiring counsellors against them.

וְשֹׂכֵר כְּסִיל וְשֹׂכֵר עֹבְרִים (Mishlei 26:10), and one who hires a fool and hires עֹבְרִים. Rabbi Yonah explains: the רב of the pasuk, the great man of the people, is מחולל to all and rules them; he pays the fool and forces him into his service, and likewise hires the עוברים, who are the refusers. Of the same kind is מַדּוּעַ אַתָּה עוֹבֵר אֵת מִצְוַת הַמֶּלֶךְ (Esther 3:3), why do you transgress the king's command. Radak's brother Rabbi Moshe joins it to the pasuk above it, חוֹחַ עָלָה בְיַד שִׁכּוֹר וּמָשָׁל בְּפִי כְסִילִים (Mishlei 26:9), a thorn goes up into a drunkard's hand, and a proverb in the mouth of fools, and takes רב as many: the fool who tells many proverbs is מחולל to everyone, like a thorn in a drunkard's hand; and one who hires the fool for his proverbs and pays the עוברים, the refusers who transgress the commandments and whom he has no power to compel, are one, this like that. Radak has written another explanation besides these under the root חול. Rav Saadiah Gaon also joins it to the pasuk before: when a word of wisdom comes into the fool's hand he is מתחולל with it and turns it over and does not understand it, like the drunkard with a thorn in his hand who drives it into his nails and between his fingers and does not feel it; and for all that he begrudges that word to one who does not know it, and pains everyone with it, which is רב מחולל כל, since he angers people's hearts with it, and he shuts his mouth from teaching it to the fool and to the wayfarers who ask him. Rav Saadiah takes שוכר from כִּי יִסָּכֵר פִּי דוֹבְרֵי שָׁקֶר (Tehillim 63:12), for the mouth of those who speak falsehood will be stopped.

גַּם שְׂכִרֶיהָ בְקִרְבָּהּ (Yirmiyahu 46:21), her hired men too in her midst: even the troops hired to fight for them were like fatted calves that cannot fight, for they too turned and fled together; the navi likens them to fatted calves because one who is fat and pampered with food and pleasures cannot fight. Some explain שכיריה as גמליה ונכבדיה, her camels and her honoured ones, and so the Targum renders it, אַף רַבְרְבָהָא בְגַוָהּ, even her great ones in her midst.

בְּתַעַר הַשְּׂכִירָה (Yeshayahu 7:20), with the hired razor, because the razor a man hires is the good and sharpened one. On the other reading, the one that takes שכיריה as her honoured ones and her great ones, בתער השכירה is likewise explained as the great razor.

Another sense: כָּל עֹשֵׂי שֶׂכֶר (Yeshayahu 19:10), all who make שֶׂכֶר. Radak has explained it already under the letter samech, with וַיִּסָּכְרוּ מַעְיְנֹת תְּהוֹם (Bereishis 8:2), the fountains of the deep were stopped up. It may also be read as a net, עושי שכר being men who make nets to catch fish. In the words of Chazal (Sanhedrin 95a), יומא חד נפק לשכר בזאי, one day he went out לשכר בזאי; Radak explains: שכר is a net, and בזאי is the name of a bird with which nobles hunt other birds, a hawk or the like, so that he went out to hunt with a net. And so the Baal HaAruch explains it.

וַיֵּשְׁתְּ מִן־הַיַּיִן וַיִּשְׁכָּר (Bereishis 9:21), he drank of the wine and became drunk. But שָׁכְרוּ וְלֹא־יַיִן (Yeshayahu 29:9) is that they are drunk and not from wine, and וּשְׁכֻרַת וְלֹא מִיָּיִן (Yeshayahu 51:21) is one drunk with troubles and not with wine. Where the verb takes an object it is to make drunk: וְהִשְׁכַּרְתִּים לְמַעַן יַעֲלֹזוּ (Yirmiyahu 51:39), I will make them drunk that they may exult, and אַשְׁכִּיר חִצַּי מִדָּם (Devarim 32:42), I will make My arrows drunk with blood.

Being drunk with wine, he says, is to drink what being sated is to food; but a man may drink until he neither feels nor understands. וְהוּא שִׁכֹּר עַד־מְאֹד (Shmuel I 25:36), he was very drunk, and וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ עֵלִי לְשִׁכֹּרָה (Shmuel I 1:13), Eli took her for a drunken woman.

Wine is called שֵׁכָר because it makes drunk: שֵׁכָר יִרְדֹּפוּ (Yeshayahu 5:11), they run after intoxicating drink. A drink made from fruit that makes drunk carries the name as well. In יַיִן וְשֵׁכָר אַל־תֵּשְׁתְּ (Vayikra 10:9), drink no wine or intoxicating drink, the word takes in everything that intoxicates, even what is not wine, as Chazal say (Nazir 4a): one who ate pressed figs of Keilah, or drank milk or honey, and entered the Mikdash is liable.

בַּקֹּדֶשׁ הַסֵּךְ נֶסֶךְ שֵׁכָר (Bamidbar 28:7), in the holy place pour a libation of intoxicating drink: a libation of wine that makes drunk, and it is חי, undiluted, as the Sifri says on Pinchas: the quarter of a hin, undiluted you pour it and not the mixed. So too Midrash Rabbah (Naso) on מִיַּיִן וְשֵׁכָר יַזִּיר, from wine and intoxicating drink he shall abstain: Rabbi Elazar HaKappar says יַיִן is the mixed and שֵׁכָר the undiluted; the reverse is raised, and the pasuk of the quarter of a hin, poured undiluted, settles it the first way and not the other.

אֶשְׁכָּר יַקְרִיבוּ (Tehillim 72:10), they shall bring a gift, and הֵשִׁיבוּ אֶשְׁכָּרֵךְ (Yechezkel 27:15), they brought back your gift. He glosses it a מנחה, an offering, and says the word may have four root letters.