The Woman of Valor
Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more. Proverbs 31:7 · Berean Standard Bible
If someone is drowning in poverty and despair, letting them drink and temporarily forget their misery is actually an act of kindness, not cruelty.
In a world without modern mental health treatment, sometimes temporary numbness was the only relief available to people in unbearable situations. She's acknowledging that reality with compassion rather than judgment. This isn't promoting escape; it's recognizing human limitation and suffering.
Lemuel's mother, continuing her thought about strong drink
Ecclesiastes has similar moments where the writer acknowledges that sometimes pleasure and forgetfulness have their place in a hard world. The Bible isn't naive about suffering; it meets people where they are.
The mother describes the merciful purpose of giving alcohol to the suffering: temporary relief from memory of pain, offering a kind of escape that the destitute deserve.
The construction 'forget his poverty' (יִשׁׁכַח עׁנְיׁוֹ, yishkach onyoν) employs the same root as verse 5, creating an intentional contrast: the king must never forget his responsibility toward the poor, yet paradoxically, the poor themselves may be mercifully allowed temporary forgetting. This reveals wisdom's paradoxes—different rules apply based on social position and circumstances. The ancient world recognized that unrelenting consciousness of misery could drive people toward despair that destroyed their will to survive.
Lemuel's mother, continuing her rationale for contextual ethics.
This extends biblical compassion theology—the recognition that mercy sometimes means providing temporary relief rather than demanding endurance. It anticipates Jesus's refusal of the narcotic wine on the cross (a different context entirely) but affirms that sometimes merciful people offer palliatives to suffering.
5lest they drink and forget what is decreed, depriving all the oppressed of justice.
6Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to the bitter in soul.
7Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.
8Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed.
9Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the poor and needy.
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