Winepress

The Winepress in the Bible

A winepress is an installation for treading grapes to extract their juice. The Korean Revised Version (New Revised Edition) renders the same original-language terms in various ways depending on the passage: "술틀," "포도주 틀," "포도즙 틀," "즙틀," and "즙 짜는 틀." The principal passages are as follows.

• The Song of the Vineyard: In Isaiah 5:1–7, the owner of the vineyard builds a tower and hews out a winepress, yet the vineyard yields wild grapes.
• Gideon: In Judges 6:11, Gideon threshes wheat in a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
• Harvest and blessing: Deuteronomy 16:13 commands that the Feast of Tabernacles be kept after the produce of the threshing floor and the winepress has been gathered in. Proverbs 3:10 says that "thy presses shall burst out with new wine." Numbers 18:27 likens the tithe offered by the Levites to "the fulness of the winepress."
• Images of judgment: Lamentations 1:15, Joel 3:13, and Isaiah 63:1–6 compare God's judgment to the treading of a winepress.
• New Testament: In the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33), the householder digs a winepress in his vineyard. Revelation 14:19–20 and 19:15 speak of the winepress of the wrath of God.

Background

The principal Hebrew terms are gat and yeqev; the Greek term is lēnos. The winepresses of ancient Israel are generally understood to have been hewn out of rock. Grapes were trodden by foot on a broad upper floor, and the juice flowed through a channel into a lower vat, where it collected.

At harvest time the winepress was a place of joyful shouting. Accordingly, the statement that "the treaders shall tread out no wine in their presses" (Isaiah 16:10) signified calamity. Gideon's threshing in a winepress is commonly explained on the grounds that the press, being dug low into the ground, was less conspicuous. The name of the Philistine city of Gath also derives from the same word, gat.

Significance Across Scripture

The winepress carries meaning in two directions. A full winepress represents covenant blessing, while an empty one (Hosea 9:2; Haggai 2:16) represents chastisement. The image of grapes being trampled and their juice pouring out also becomes a symbol of judgment.

In Isaiah 63, the one who comes from Edom has trodden the winepress alone, and his garments are stained red. Revelation 19 takes up this image in the scene of one "clothed with a vesture dipped in blood" who treads the winepress of wrath. This scene depicts the Last Judgment carried out by the returning Christ.

Interpretation and Debates

• Isaiah 63: Since the patristic era there has been a tradition of reading the words "I have trodden the winepress alone" as referring to the Passion of Christ and the cross. Some medieval artworks depict Christ being pressed beneath a winepress. Many contemporary commentators, however, hold that in context the passage speaks of judgment upon enemies.
• Revelation 14:20: Interpretations differ over the description of blood reaching "unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." Some dispensationalists (dispensationalism) read it as a literal future battle. Other interpretive traditions read it as a symbol of the thoroughness of judgment.
• Gethsemane: The name Gethsemane is commonly explained as meaning "oil press." Sermons therefore sometimes link it with the winepress and interpret it as the place where Christ was crushed. Gethsemane, however, refers to an oil press rather than a winepress, and the Gospels do not directly assign it such a meaning.

In the Korean Church

"술틀" (sulteul) is an older Korean translation term. Because it contains the syllable sul ("liquor"), it is easily mistaken for a device for brewing alcohol, but it actually refers to a place where grape juice is pressed out. The question of wine and abstinence in the Bible is treated in the article Alcohol and Tobacco. In preaching, the winepress is mentioned in expositions of Isaiah 5 or the Parable of the Wicked Tenants to describe the vineyard God carefully prepared.