"Every year millions upon millions of gallons of intoxicating liquors are consumed. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent in buying wretchedness, poverty, disease, degradation, lust, crime, and death. For the sake of gain, the liquor seller deals out to his victims that which corrupts and destroys mind and body. He entails on the drunkard's family poverty and wretchedness. MH 338.1"
"Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again."
The Proverbs passage vividly describes the negative consequences of excessive drinking, including woe, sorrow, contentions, wounds, and altered perception. The EGW passage echoes these consequences, listing wretchedness, poverty, disease, degradation, lust, crime, and death as results of alcohol consumption. The connection is strong and thematic.
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Galatians 5:19-21 lists works of the flesh, including drunkenness, and warns that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. The EGW passage describes the negative consequences of alcohol consumption, including degradation, lust, crime, and death. Both passages connect indulgence in such behaviors with negative spiritual and moral outcomes. The connection is thematic and meaningful.
"When his victim is dead, the rum seller's exactions do not cease. He robs the widow and brings children to beggary. He does not hesitate to take the very necessaries of life from the destitute family, to pay the drink bill of the husband and father. The cries of the suffering children, the tears of the agonized mother, serve only to exasperate him. What is it to him if these suffering ones starve? What is it to him if they, too, are driven to degradation and ruin? He grows rich on the pittances of those whom he is leading to perdition. MH 338.2"
"To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!"
Both passages describe the exploitation of the vulnerable, specifically widows and the fatherless, for financial gain. The EGW passage applies this principle to the rum seller, while Isaiah 10:2 is a more general condemnation of injustice.
"Houses of prostitution, dens of vice, criminal courts, prisons, almshouses, insane asylums, hospitals, all are, to a great degree, filled as a result of the liquor seller's work. Like the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse, he is dealing in “slaves, and souls of men.” Behind the liquor seller stands the mighty destroyer of souls, and every art which earth or hell can devise is employed to draw human beings under his power. In the city and the country, on the railway trains, on the great steamers, in places of business, in the halls of pleasure, in the medical dispensary, even in the church, on the sacred Communion table, his traps are set. Nothing is left undone to create and to foster the desire for intoxicants. On almost every corner stands the public house, with its brilliant lights, its welcome and good cheer, inviting the working man, the wealthy idler, and the unsuspecting youth. MH 338.3"
"And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men."
EGW directly references the "mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse" and the phrase "slaves, and souls of men," which is a direct quote from Revelation 18:13. The context in both passages involves commerce and the exploitation of people.
"In private lunchrooms and fashionable resorts, ladies are supplied with popular drinks, under some pleasing name, that are really intoxicants. For the sick and the exhausted, there are the widely advertised bitters, consisting largely of alcohol. MH 338.4"
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."
Both passages warn against the deceptive nature of alcohol. Proverbs 20:1 states that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging, while EGW describes how drinks are disguised under pleasing names but are still intoxicants.