Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
The line stands in Moses' poetic song that rehearses God's dealings with his people. There it functions as part of an ongoing sermon intended to instruct, caution, hold back, correct, and strengthen Israel. Its wine from Sodom's vine portrays the corrupt and idolatrous fruit, influence, choices and worship of a rebellious people as bitter, poisonous and deadly as dragon poison and asp venom.
It declares God's abhorrence of sin and foretells swift judgment upon persistent rebellion, with the consequences held in reserve by God. In that character it warned Josiah of the peril in Judah's continued apostasy. The song that contains it also reaches forward to coming events, even to the final triumph of the faithful when Christ returns in power and glory.
The line stands in Moses' poetic song that rehearses God's dealings with his people. There it functions as part of an ongoing sermon intended to instruct, caution, hold back, correct, and strengthen Israel. Its wine from Sodom's vine portrays the corrupt and idolatrous fruit, influence, choices and worship of a rebellious people as bitter, poisonous and deadly as dragon poison and asp venom.
It declares God's abhorrence of sin and foretells swift judgment upon persistent rebellion, with the consequences held in reserve by God. In that character it warned Josiah of the peril in Judah's continued apostasy. The song that contains it also reaches forward to coming events, even to the final triumph of the faithful when Christ returns in power and glory.