John Calvin Commentary Isaiah 51:21

"Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but now with wine:" — Isaiah 51:21 (ASV)

Therefore now hear this. He now shows more plainly the reason why he spoke of the calamities of the Church. It was so 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 happier 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.
(Psalms 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. 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 stupefied. But, although stupefied, 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 them consolation. Finally, by this word he soothes the grief of the Church, and shows 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.