"Wine" (literally or figuratively)
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Οἶνος means wine, the fermented drink common to meals, celebrations, medicine, trade, and biblical imagery. Jesus' new-wine saying uses fermentation to show the incompatibility of His kingdom presence with unchanged containers.
Reader summary
Full entry for οἶνος (G3631) · Open the biblical lexicon
Οἶνος means wine, the fermented drink common to meals, celebrations, medicine, trade, and biblical imagery. Jesus' new-wine saying uses fermentation to show the incompatibility of His kingdom presence with unchanged containers.
The BSB source-word alignment has 34 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include wine (28), . . . (1), [the] wine (1), {into} wine (1), of wine (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 9:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (8), John (6), Luke (6), Mark (5).
Οἶνος means wine, the fermented drink common to meals, celebrations, medicine, trade, and biblical imagery. Jesus' new-wine saying uses fermentation to show the incompatibility of His kingdom presence with unchanged containers. Paul says love may require abstaining from wine when its use would trip another believer's conscience. Revelation turns wine into images of Babylon's intoxicating immorality and God's wrath pressed out in judgment.
The noun itself does not declare every use sinful or safe. Quantity, mastery, bodily effect, vulnerable neighbors, worship context, and figurative genre determine the claim. Scripture can receive wine as a created good, condemn drunkenness and exploitation, commend voluntary restraint, and use its power as an image of corrupting desire or judgment.
Οἶνος names wine as drink and image. Fresh fermentation, loving abstinence, corrupt intoxication, and divine judgment require contextual rather than automatic moral conclusions.
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
New wine requires appropriate skins, illustrating how Jesus' presence cannot be contained as a minor addition to unchanged religious expectations.
Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.
Luke's concise command preserves both wine and container, keeping the image on fitting reception rather than praising novelty by itself.
It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything to cause your brother to stumble.
Paul prefers abstinence when exercising freedom would cause another believer to stumble, making neighbor love more important than asserting a right.
Then a second angel followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her immorality.”
Babylon's wine intoxicates nations with imperial immorality, portraying seductive participation rather than giving instructions about ordinary beverage use.
And from His mouth proceeds a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
The conquering Christ treads God's wrath like a winepress, drawing on prophetic judgment imagery rather than depicting divine loss of control.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Fermented grape beverage; figuratively represents God's wrath or judgment in apocalyptic contexts.
Fermented grape beverage; figuratively represents God's wrath or judgment in apocalyptic contexts.
wine; Mat.9:17, Luk.1:15, Jhn.2:3, al.; οἴνῳ προσέχειν, 1Ti.3:8; δουλοῦσθαι, Tit.2:3. Metaphorical, Rev.14:8, 10 16:19 17:2 18:3 19:15. By meton. for ἄμπελος, Rev.6:6
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 33 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 34 lexical occurrence verses.
οἶνος is a primary word - no further derivation.
Hebrew roots and equivalents that share conceptual or etymological ground with this Greek word.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Wine carries created potential and serious risk, which is why context matters. Jesus uses active new wine to illustrate kingdom newness that old containers cannot simply absorb. Paul places personal liberty under love, willingly refusing wine where use would damage another believer. Revelation employs wine's intoxicating and pressed qualities to expose Babylon's seductive corruption and portray God's just wrath.
These texts do not collapse into a beverage rule. Churches should condemn drunkenness, addiction, coercion, and exploitation; protect children and those in recovery; honor abstinence without pride; and practice any claimed freedom with sobriety, legality, health awareness, and neighbor love. The image ultimately directs attention beyond the drink to allegiance, self-control, and Christ's kingdom.
Matt.9.17
Οἶνος is the standard noun for wine and normally denotes fermented grape drink; figurative genitives and apocalyptic settings can make it an image of influence or wrath.
Wine appears as agricultural blessing, priestly restriction, wisdom's feast, drunken folly, and prophetic judgment. The New Testament governs created use by holiness and love.
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Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain