Therefore now hear this. He now shews more plainly the reason why he spoke of the calamities of the Church. It was, that believers might be fully persuaded that they would obtain consolation from God, though they were reduced to the extremity of distress. But why does he call the Church wretched, since nothing is more happy than to be God's people, and that happiness cannot be taken away by any tribulations?; Not without cause is it said, "Blessed is the people whose God is Jehovah." (Psalm 144:15.) I reply, she is apparently "wretched," and not in vain does the Lord address her by that name; for, as we have already said, he helps the wretched, and succors the destitute. And drunken, not with wine. [1] When he calls her "drunken," it ought to be observed that believers never endure so patiently the chastisements which are inflicted on them as not to be sometimes stupified; but, although stupified, they ought to remember that the Lord punishes them justly, and ought to believe that the Lord will assist them. He does not speak to robust or healthy men, but to those who are feeble, wretched, prostrate, and who resemble drunken persons, and says that he brings to them consolation. Finally, by this word he soothes the grief of the Church, and shews that he preserves a limit, by which he restrains the violence even of the greatest afflictions, and restores her when ruined, as if he were raising from the dead a rotten corpse.

Footnotes

1 - skrt dvr 'hd sl' myyn (shekurath dabar ehad shello miyain). Drunken with something which is not wine." -- Jarchi.

And drunken, but not with wine - Overcome and prostrate, but not under the influence of intoxicating drink. They were prostrate by the wrath of God.

Drunken, but not with wine - Aeschylus has the same expression: -
Αοινοις εμμανεις θυμωμασι·
Eumen. 863.
Intoxicated with passion, not with wine.
Schultens thinks that this circumlocution, as he calls it, gradum adfert incomparabiliter majorem; and that it means, not simply without wine, but much more than with wine. Gram. Hebrews p. 182. See his note on Job 30:38.
The bold image of the cup of God's wrath, often employed by the sacred writers, (see note on Isaiah 1:22), is nowhere handled with greater force and sublimity than in this passage of Isaiah, Isaiah 51:17-23. Jerusalem is represented in person as staggering under the effects of it, destitute of that assistance which she might expect from her children; not one of them being able to support or to lead her. They, abject and amazed, lie at the head of every street, overwhelmed with the greatness of their distress; like the oryx entangled in a net, in vain struggling to rend it, and extricate himself. This is poetry of the first order, sublimity of the highest character.
Plato had an idea something like this: "Suppose," says he, "God had given to men a medicating potion inducing fear, so that the more any one should drink of it, so much the more miserable he should find himself at every draught, and become fearful of every thing both present and future; and at last, though the most courageous of men, should be totally possessed by fear: and afterwards, having slept off the effects of it, should become himself again." De Leg. i., near the end. He pursues at large this hypothesis, applying it to his own purpose, which has no relation to the present subject. Homer places two vessels at the disposal of Jupiter, one of good, the other of evil. He gives to some a potion mixed of both; to others from the evil vessel only: these are completely miserable. Iliad 24:527-533.
Δοιοι γαρ τε πιθοι κατακειαται εν Διος ουδει
Δωρων, οἱα διδωσι, κακων, ἑτερος δε εαων,
Ὡ μεν καμμιξας δῳη Ζευς τερπικεραυνος,
Αλλοτε μεν τε κακῳ ὁγε κυρεται, αλλοτε δ' εσθλῳ·
Ὡ δε κε των λυγρων δῳη, λωβητον εθηκε.
Και ἑ κακη βουβρωστις επι χθονα διαν ελαυνει·
Φοιτᾳ δ' ουτε θεοισι τετιμενος, ουτι βροτοισιν.
"Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,
The source of evil one, and one of good;
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,
Blessings to these, to those distributes ills;
To most he mingles both: the wretch decreed
To taste the bad unmixed, is cursed indeed:
Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,
He wanders outcast both of earth and heaven."
Pope

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunk, but (r) not with wine:
(r) But with trouble and fear.

Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted,.... By Babylon, by antichrist and his followers; hear, for thy comfort, the following prophecy:
and drunken, but not with wine; not with wine in a literal sense; nor with the wine of the fornication of the whore of Rome; nor with idolatry, as the kings of the earth are said to be, Revelation 17:2 but, as the Targum expresses it, with tribulation; with afflictions at the hand of God, and persecutions from men.

drunken . . . not with wine-- (Isaiah 29:9; compare Isaiah 51:17, Isaiah 51:20, here; Lamentations 3:15).

Not with wine - But with the cup of God's fury.