Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
Parallel translations
- KJV Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
- BSB Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has needless wounds? Who has bloodshot eyes?
- NKJV Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
- NASB ¶Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has contentions? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has red eyes?
- NLT Who has anguish? Who has sorrow? Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining? Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A series of questions exposes the woes, sorrows, and wounds that drunkenness brings.
Overview
This begins a vivid extended warning against drunkenness, listing its bitter fruits through pointed rhetorical questions. Woe, strife, needless injury, and bloodshot eyes are the harvest of overindulgence. The passage unmasks the false promise of wine, contrasting its misery with the true joy and clarity found in walking soberly before God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Eph 5:18Don’t be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
- 1 Sam 25:36–37Abigail came to Nabal; and behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing, until the morning light.
- Prov 23:21for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags.
- Isa 5:22Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;
- Isa 28:7–8They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine. They stagger with strong drink. They err in vision. They stumble in judgment.
- 2 Sam 13:28Absalom commanded his servants, saying, “Mark now, when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine; and when I tell you, ‘Strike Amnon,’ then kill him. Don’t be afraid. Haven’t I commanded you? Be courageous, and be valiant!”
- Isa 5:11Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!
- Luke 12:45–46But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My lord delays his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken,
- Nah 1:10For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
- Matt 24:49–50and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards,
- 1 Kgs 20:16–22They went out at noon. But Ben Hadad was drinking himself drunk in the pavilions, he and the kings, the thirty-two kings who helped him.
- Prov 20:1Wine is a mocker, and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
- Gen 49:12His eyes will be red with wine, his teeth white with milk.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 23:29 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.