the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Wine
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or יין , Genesis 19:32 , οινος , Matthew 9:17 , a liquor expressed from grapes. The art of refining wine upon the lees was known to the Jews. The particular process, as it is now practised in the island of Cyprus, is described in Mariti's Travels. The wine is put immediately from the vat into large vases of potters' ware, pointed at the bottom, till they are nearly full, when they are covered tight and buried. At the end of a year what is designed for sale is drawn into wooden casks. The dregs in the vases are put into wooden casks destined to receive wine, with as much of the liquor as is necessary to prevent them from becoming dry before use. Casks thus prepared are very valuable. When the wine a year old is put in, the dregs rise, and make it appear muddy, but afterward they subside and carry down all the other feculences. The dregs are so much valued that they are not sold with the wine in the vase, unless particularly mentioned.
The "new wine," or "must," is mentioned, Isaiah 49:26; Joel 1:5; Joel 3:18; and Amos 9:13 , under the name עסיס . The "mixed wine," ממסד , Proverbs 23:30; and in Isaiah 65:11; rendered "drink- offering," may mean wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of higher and more powerful ingredients, such as honey, spices, defrutum, or wine inspissated by boiling it down, myrrh, mandragora, and other strong drugs. Thus the drunkard is properly described as one that seeketh "mixed wine," Proverbs 23:30 , and is mighty to "mingle strong drink," Isaiah 5:22; and hence the psalmist took that highly poetical and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called by Isaiah 51:17 , "the cup of trembling," containing: as St. John expresses it, Revelation 14:10 , pure wine made yet stronger by a mixture of powerful ingredients: "In the hand of Jehovah is a cup, and the wine is turbid; it is full of a mixed liquor, and he poureth out of it," or rather, "he poureth it out of one vessel into another," to mix it perfectly; "verily the dregs thereof," the thickest sediment of the strong ingredients mingled with it, "all the ungodly of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." "Spiced wine," Song of Solomon 8:2 , was wine rendered more palatable and fragrant with aromatics. This was considered as a great delicacy. Spiced wines were not peculiar to the Jews. Hafiz speaks of wines "richly bitter, richly sweet."
The Romans lined their vessels, amphorae, with odorous gums, to give the wine a warm bitter flavour: and the orientals now use the admixture of spices to give their wines a favourite relish. The "wine of Helbon,"
Ezekiel 27:18 , was an excellent kind of wine, known to the ancients by the name of chalibonium vinum. It was made at Damascus; the Persians had planted vineyards there on purpose, says Posidosius, quoted, by Athenaeus. This author says that the kings of Persia used no other wine.
Hosea 14:7 , mentions the wine of Lebanon. The wines from the vineyards on that mount are even to this day in repute; but some think that this may mean a sweet-scented wine, or wine flavoured with fragrant gums.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Wine'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/w/wine.html. 1831-2.
