Verses 7-8 continue the theme of the drunkenness of the Israelite leaders in verses 1-4. Here the focus is on the priests and the prophets, who are the religious leaders.

These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink: The demonstrative pronoun These refers to the priest and the prophet in the next line. Since this pronoun points forward, some languages may prefer to reverse the first two lines of this verse for naturalness. The Hebrew particle rendered also is used for emphasis. It may be translated “even” (so Good News Translation) or “moreover.” The Hebrew verbs rendered reel and stagger are synonyms that mean “to stumble out of control” in this context. For the near synonyms wine and strong drink, see the comments on 5.11.

The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink: For priest see 8.2, and for prophet see 3.2. These two singular nouns have a collective sense, so they may be rendered “the prophets and the priests” (Good News Translation, Bible en français courant; similarly New International Version).

They are confused with wine is literally “they are swallowed/devoured by wine.” This is an ironic picture—instead of them swallowing wine, the wine has swallowed them. In English we can say “they have been consumed by wine” or “wine consumes them.” Bible en français courant has “[they are] disoriented under the influence of wine,” while New International Version and Revised English Bible say “and are befuddled with wine.”

They stagger with strong drink is parallel with the second line.

They err in vision: This line refers to the prophets since they were the people who received visions from God. The Hebrew verb rendered err is the same one translated reel earlier in the verse. Some languages may be able to use the same verb here by rendering this line as “They reel when they have their visions.” For vision see 1.1. This line could imply that God is giving visions but the prophets cannot interpret them. Good News Translation expresses this with “The prophets are too drunk to understand the visions that God sends.” It is also possible that they do not even see the visions, or what they see is as blurred as they are, so alternative models are “they fail to see any visions” and “their visions are blurred.”

They stumble in giving judgment describes the priests, who were responsible to decide judicial cases. Because they are drunk, their judgments are unreliable and not based on what is just. Stumble is another verb that describes someone about to fall over, but here it is applied to the rendering of justice. The priests fail to judge correctly. This is in direct contrast to verse 6, which says Yahweh will ensure that justice is done.

Repetition is a dominant feature of this verse. This is quite evident in the formal rendering of Revised Standard Version. Translators may choose to retain this repetition, or they may allow for stylistic variation, as in Good News Translation. For the translation of this verse consider the following examples:

• Moreover, the priests and the prophets stagger about from wine and stumble from beer;
they stagger because of beer,
they are consumed by wine.
The prophets fail to see any visions,
and the priests pass unreliable judgments.

• Even these stagger about because of wine
and are unsteady because of beer;
that is, the priests and the prophets stagger about from beer,
wine consumes them.
The prophets’ visions are blurred,
and the priests’ judgments are unreliable.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .