21. Classification of Texts
Classification of Texts The careful reader of the Bible will have noticed that in a number of cases wine is simply mentioned, without anything in the context to determine its character. He will have noticed another class, which unmistakably denotes the bad character of the beverage. He will also have noticed a third class, whose character is as clearly designated as good.
It would extend this discussion too much to trace out all the different ways in which the generic word wine is used. It will suffice to direct attention to the two classes which designate their character.
Bad Wine One class of texts refers to wine:
1. As the cause of intoxication. This is not disputed.
2. As the cause of violence and woe. Proverbs 4:17 : “They drink the yayin, wine, of violence.” Proverbs 23:29-30 : “Who hath woe? Who hath sorrows? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the yayin, wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.”
3. As the cause of self-security and irreligion. Isaiah 56:12 : “Come ye, say they, I will fetch yayin, wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” Habakkuk 2:5 : “Yea also, because he transgresseth by yayin, wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied.” Isaiah 28:7 : “They also have erred through yayin, wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.”
4. As poisonous and destructive. Proverbs 23:31 : “Look not thou upon the yayin, wine, when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Chemists find in this passage an admirable description of the process of vinous fermentation by which alcohol is produced.
It is worthy of particular notice that it is this kind of wine that men are exhorted and warned not even to look upon, much less to drink; and that because its effects will be like the poisonous, deadly bite of a serpent and the equally fatal sting of the adder. Deuteronomy 32:33 : “Their yayin, wine, is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.” The Hebrew word khamah, here rendered poison, occurs eight times, and is six times translated poison, as in Deuteronomy 32:24 : “The poison of serpents;” Deuteronomy 32:23 : “Their wine is the poison of dragons;” Psalms 58:4 : “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent;” Psalms 140:3 : “Adders’ poison is under their lips;” Job 6:4 : “The poison whereof drinketh up my spirit.”
Hosea 7:5 : “Made him sick with bottles of wine” (khamath), poison; margin, “heat through wine.” Habakkuk 2:15 : “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink; that putteth thy bottle to him.” The word bottle is rendered khamah, which means poison, and is so rendered generally; by a figure, the bottle is put for the poison it contained.
Parkhurst defines this word “an inflammatory poison,” and refers to the rabbis, who have identified it with the poisoned cup of malediction. Archbishop Newcome, in his translation, says that “khamah is gall poison.” St. Jerome’s Version has gall in one text, and mad in another—Nott, London Ed., F.R. Lees, Appendix A, p. 197. Dr. Gill renders the word, “thy gall, thy poison.” The late Professor Nordheimer, of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, in his Critical Grammar, has “maddening wine.”
Notice the character given to this wine: gall, poison, poison of serpents, adders’ poison, poison of dragons, poison which drinketh up the spirits, maddening wine. How exact the agreement between the declarations of the Bible and the teachings of physical truth! Alcohol is certified by thousands of illustrations as poison to the human system. No wonder that against such wine the Scriptures lift up their earnest warnings, because wine (yayin) is a mocker; because it “biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”
5. As condemning those who are devoted to drink. Isaiah 5:22 : “Woe unto them that are mighty to drink (yayin) wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”
1 Corinthians 6:10 : “Nor drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
6. As the emblem of punishment and of eternal ruin. Psalms 60:3 : “Thou hast made us to drink the (yayin) wine of astonishment;” literally, “wine of reeling or trembling.” The Vulgate reads, “suffering.” Psalms 75:8 : “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the (yayin) wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.” Isaiah 51:17 : “O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out;” also, Isaiah 51:22. Jeremiah 25:15 : “Take the yayin, wine-cup, of this fury at my hand.” Revelation 16:19 : “To give unto her the cup of the (oinou) wine of the fierceness of his wrath.” Revelation 14:10 : “The same shall drink of the (oinou) wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.”
Good Wine From this terrible but very imperfect setting forth of the testimonies of the Bible in regard to the wine whose character is bad, I turn, with a sense of grateful pleasure, to another class of texts which speaks with approbation of a wine whose character is good, and which is commended as a real blessing.
1. This wine is to be presented at the altar as an offering to God. Numbers 18:12 : “All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the first-fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, them have I given thee.” In this passage, all the best of the wine (tirosh) is associated with the best of the oil and of the wheat, denoting the most valuable natural productions—the direct gift of God. That these terms denote the fruit of the soil in their natural state, seems probable from the next verse: “And whatsoever is first ripe in the land, which they shall bring unto the Lord, shall be thine.” This was a first fruit-offering. It is associated with oil, and flour, and the first-fruits; it is an “offering of wine for a sweet savor—an offering made by fire, for a sweet savor unto the Lord.” Nehemiah 10:37 : “Bring the first-fruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of (tirosh) wine, and of oil,” etc. Again, Nehemiah 10:39 : “Bring the offering of the corn, of the (tirosh) new wine, and the oil,” etc. From these passages, it is held by some that the solid produce of the vineyard was here presented. Nehemiah 13:5 : “The tithes of the corn, and (tirosh) new wine, and the oil,” etc.; and Nehemiah 13:13 : “The tithe of the corn, and the (tirosh) new wine, and the oil,” etc. It is hardly to be credited, when in the law (Leviticus 2:11) all leaven was forbidden as an offering, that God should require a fermented liquor which, of all others, is the most direct cause of wretchedness and woe in this life, and of eternal ruin in the future, as a religious offering; that against the use of which he had uttered His most solemn warnings and denunciations. Leaven was forbidden with all sacrifices, whether they were meat or peace offerings, Exodus 23:18; Exodus 34:25; Leviticus 6:17; Leviticus 7:12; Leviticus 10:12. As all the other articles offered in worship were in their nature pure and harmless—were essential to the comfort and well-being of man, it is passing strange that the wine should be the one exception.
2. This wine is classed among the blessings, the comforts, the necessaries of life. When the patriarch Isaac blessed his son Jacob (Genesis 27:28), he said: “Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn, and (tirosh) wine.” The blessing was on the actual growth of the field—that which “the dew and the fatness of the earth produced;” these were the direct gifts of God. Of this blessing, Isaac afterwards said to Esau (Genesis 27:37): “With corn and (tirosh) wine I have sustained him;” that is, I have pledged the divine blessing to secure to him and his posterity in plenty the things necessary for their best comfort and happiness. Therefore we read, Deuteronomy 7:13 : “And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land; thy corn, and thy (tirosh) wine, and thine oil; the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.” The grouping is very significant: the blessing was to rest upon “the fruit of the womb, upon the fruit of the land, which is specified; thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil; also, the increase of thy kine and flocks of sheep.” It is the direct and immediate product of the land. To secure this, God (Deuteronomy 11:14) promised: “I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy (tirosh) wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass into thy fields, that thou mayest eat and be full.” Proverbs 3:10 : “So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with (tirosh) new wine.”
Albert Barnes, on Isaiah 24:7, says: “New wine (tirosh) denotes properly must, or the wine that was newly expressed from the grape and that was not fermented, usually translated new wine or sweet wine.”
Isaiah 65:8 : “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it.” Albert Barnes says: “The Hebrew word (tirosh) here used means properly must, or new wine.” On the words “for a blessing is in it,” he says: “That which is regarded as a blessing, that is, wine.” He cites Judges 9:13 in proof: “Wine which cheereth God and man (tirosh).”
Joel 3:18 : “The mountains shall drop down new wine (tirosh), and the hills shall flow with milk;” i.e., abundance of blessings. These blessed things are the pure, and harmless, and direct products of the land, necessary for the comfort and happiness of man. Is intoxicating wine, which is the emblem of God’s wrath and of eternal ruin, among the things blessed? Still further (Psalms 104:14-15): “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine (yayin) that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.” Again, we read (Judges 9:13): “And the vine said, Should I leave my (tirosh) wine, which cheereth the heart of God and man?”
Obviously, God can only be cheered or pleased with the fruit of the vine as the product of his own power and the gift of his goodness, and man is cheered with it when he sees the ripening clusters, and when he partakes thereof.
There is a strange impression, very current in our day, that nothing can cheer and exhilarate but alcoholic drinks. Is it not written, Zechariah 9:7, “Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine (tirosh) the maids”? In referring to the nutritious qualities of the corn and wine, the prophet assigns the corn to the young men, and the new wine, tirosh, to the maidens. Here the new wine, the must, or unfermented juice, is approbated. Psalms 4:7 : “Thou hast put gladness” (the same word which is translated cheereth in Judges 9:13) “in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and (tirosh) wine increased.”
We all know that the weary, hungry man is cheered with meat. As soon as the nerves of the stomach are excited by food, a sensation of refreshment, of warmth, and of cheer is felt. The woman who, all day long, has bent over the wash-tub and exhausted her strength, sits down at the close of the day to her cup of tea—
“The cup that cheers, but not inebriates”— with her frugal meal of bread, and, peradventure, of meat, and rises up refreshed, cheerful, and strong. We all know that good news is cheering, animating, exhilarating. So, also, is cold water; for thus, saith the Proverbs 25:25 : “As cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” Water, with its cheering power, was the proper illustration.
3. This wine is the emblem of spiritual blessings. Isaiah 55:1 : “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine (yayin) and milk without money and without price.” Here the prophet, in the name of God, invites all, every one, to take this wine and milk freely and abundantly. How incongruous to say, Buy milk, and drink abundantly of it, for it is innocent and nutritious, and will do you good; and then to say, Come, buy wine (yayin), an intoxicating beverage, which, if you drink habitually and liberally, will beget the drunkard’s appetite, and shut you out of heaven! Can it be that God makes the intoxicating wine the emblem of those spiritual blessings which ensure peace and prosperity in this life, and prepares the recipient for blessedness hereafter? There is harmony between milk and unfermented wine as harmless and nutritious, and they properly stand as the symbols of spiritual mercies. With this view agree the other Scriptures cited: Psalms 104:15 : “Wine (yayin) that maketh glad the heart of man;” Judges 9:13 : “Wine (tirosh) which cheereth God and man;” Song of Solomon 7:9 : “Best wine for my beloved;” Proverbs 9:2 : “Wisdom hath mingled her wine (yaynah). Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine (yayin) I have mingled;” Song of Solomon 5:1 : “I have drunk my wine (yayin) with milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.”
Such is the invitation to drink abundantly, because spiritual blessings never injure, but always do good to the recipient.
4. This wine is the emblem of the blood of the atonement, by which is the forgiveness of sins and eternal blessedness. In the institution of the Lord’s Supper, as recorded by Matthew 26:26-28 and Mark 14:22-24, Christ “took the cup, and gave thanks,” saying, “This is my blood of the New Testament,” “shed for the remission of sins.” The bread and the wine are here united, as in other Scriptures, as blessings, but in this case as emblems of the most wonderful manifestation of the divine love to man. Paul, 1 Corinthians 10:16 : “The cup of blessings which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” At the close, Christ said, “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” Thus the cup is associated with the eternal blessedness of the heavenly world. See further comments on Matthew 26:26. In all the passages where good wine is named, there is no lisp of warning, no intimations of danger, no hint of disapprobation, but always of decided approval.
How bold and strongly marked is the contrast: The one the cause of intoxication, of violence, and of woes.
The other the occasion of comfort and of peace. The one the cause of irreligion and of self-destruction.
The other the devout offering of piety on the altar of God. The one the symbol of the divine wrath.
The other the symbol of spiritual blessings. The one the emblem of eternal damnation.
The other the emblem of eternal salvation.
“The distinction in quality between the good and the bad wine is as clear as that between good and bad men, or good and bad wives, or good and bad spirits; for one is the constant subject of warning, designated poison literally, analogically, and figuratively, while the other is commended as refreshing and innocent, which no alcoholic wine is”—Lees’ Appendix, p. 232 Can it be that these blessings and curses refer to the same beverage, and that an intoxicating liquor? Does the trumpet give a certain or an uncertain sound? Says Rev. Dr. Nott: “Can the same thing, in the same state, be good and bad; a symbol of wrath, and a symbol of mercy; a thing to be sought after, and a thing to be avoided? Certainly not. And is the Bible, then, inconsistent with itself? No, certainly”—Nott, London Ed. p. 48.
Professor M. Stuart, p. 49, says: “My final conclusion is this, viz., that whenever the Scriptures speak of wine as a comfort, a blessing, or a libation to God, and rank it with such articles as corn and oil, they mean, they can mean only such wine as contained no alcohol that could have a mischievous tendency; that wherever they denounce it, and connect it with drunkenness and reveling, they can mean only alcoholic or intoxicating wine.” But the position of the advocates of only one kind of wine is that “the juice of the grape, when called wine, was always fermented, and, being fermented, was always intoxicating;” “that fermentation is the essence of wine.” One exception will destroy the universality of this sweeping statement.