I Thessalonians 5:7
A plain-spoken deep dive on this verse. Read the chapter →
For those who sleep, sleep at night; and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
This verse is to be taken in the literal sense. Night is the time when sleepers sleep, and drinking men are drunk. To sleep by day would imply great indolence; to be drunken by day, great shamelessness. Now, in a spiritual sense, "we Christians profess to be day people, not night people; therefore our work ought to be day work, not night work; our conduct such as will bear the eye of day, and such has no need of the veil of night" [EDMUNDS], (Th1 5:8).
Open source ↗The apostle, having spoken in the end of the foregoing chapter concerning the resurrection, and the second coming of Christ, proceeds to speak concerning the uselessness of enquiring after the particular time of Christ's coming, which would be sudden and terrible to the wicked, but comfortable to the saints (Th1 5:1-5). He then exhorts them to the duties of watchfulness, sobriety, and the exercise of faith, love, and hope, as being suitable to their state (Th1 5:6-10). In the next words he exhorts them to several duties they owed to others, or to one another (Th1 5:11-15), afterwards to several other Christian duties of great importance (Th1 5:16-22), and then concludes this epistle (Th1 5:23-28).
Open source ↗5:7 Sleep refers to moral indifference (5:6), and drunk is a metaphor for those who do not exercise self-control; they will be surprised by the day of the Lord (5:4; Matt 24:48-51).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.
Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.
The harm they will suffer is the wages of their wickedness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deception as they feast with you.
These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It is only the third hour of the day!
So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
In a dream, in a vision in the night, when deep sleep falls upon men as they slumber on their beds,
In disquieting visions in the night, when deep sleep falls on men,