Appendix A: Word Study

The Hebrew and Greek vocabulary field for wine is complex. This appendix collects the principal terms with their Strong’s numbers, occurrence counts, and semantic ranges. It is intended as reference for readers who want to pursue the lexical questions in more detail than the chapters allow.

Hebrew

yayin (יַיִן) — Strong’s 3196

Yayin is the ordinary Hebrew word for wine, occurring approximately 140 times in the Hebrew Bible. It denotes fermented grape wine as its default substance. Usages of yayin that specify the substance’s effect treat it as intoxicating (Gen 9:21, Noah’s drunkenness; 1 Sam 25:36-37, Nabal; Prov 20:1; 23:29-35), and usages that specify its production or storage name the fermented product (1 Chr 27:27, the royal “wine cellars”). Isaiah 25:6’s eschatological “wines on the lees well refined” — often cited alongside the yayin texts — in fact uses a different word, shemarim, “lees”: wine named by its own fermentation sediment, a term that presupposes fermentation by definition.

The word appears in every canonical function: creation gift (Ps 104:15), covenant meal (Gen 27:25; Exod 24:11 by implication), priestly libation (Num 15:5-10; the parallel libation of Num 28:7 is shekar), festal joy (Deut 14:26), prophetic warning (Isa 5:11; the drunkenness-word of Hab 2:15 is the cognate verb shakar), Wisdom instruction (Prov 20:1), and eschatological blessing (Isa 55:1; Isa 25:6’s feast-wine is shemarim, wine on its lees). All lexeme attributions in this appendix were machine-verified against the Strong’s-tagged Westminster Leningrad Codex on 2026-08-01.

The LXX renders yayin as oinos in the overwhelming majority of occurrences, with occasional lexical variants in specific idioms.

tirosh (תִּירוֹשׁ) — Strong’s 8492

Tirosh occurs approximately 38 times, usually rendered “new wine” or “must” in English translations. It names the fresh vintage yield — the pressed grape at or near the start of fermentation. It is a substance regularly mentioned in tithe and blessing contexts (Deut 7:13; 11:14; 28:51; Prov 3:10), which the two-wine theory reads as evidence that tirosh is an unfermented category.

The reading does not survive the counter-testimony. Hosea 4:11 pairs yayin and tirosh in the same warning: “harlotry, wine [yayin] and new wine [tirosh] take away the heart”. Tirosh here is clearly intoxicating; the passage’s whole force depends on both substances producing the same effect. Similarly, Judges 9:13 has the vine speak of “my wine, which cheereth God and man” — the Hebrew is tirosh (verified against the Masoretic text), so it is tirosh that Jotham’s fable names as the gladdening drink, its “cheering” of God traditionally referred to the wine libation of the sanctuary (Num 15:7, 10). And later poetry uses tirosh in ordinary-blessing parallel with the harvest staples: “corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine [tirosh] the maids” (Zech 9:17).

The LXX renders tirosh as oinos in most occurrences, as methysma (intoxicant) at Hosea 4:11, and as rhōx (the grape in the cluster) at Isaiah 65:8. The LXX translators did not distinguish “grape juice” from “wine” through their choice of Greek equivalents; they used the ordinary vocabulary of Greek wine.

shekar (שֵׁכָר) — Strong’s 7941

Shekar — “strong drink” — occurs approximately 23 times. It is regularly paired with yayin (“wine and strong drink”, Lev 10:9; Num 6:3; Judg 13:4; Prov 20:1). Etymologically related to Akkadian šikaru (barley beer), shekar almost certainly names fermented beverages made from grains, dates, honey, or fruit other than grapes — the ancient world’s “strong drink” beyond ordinary wine. It was fermented but not distilled; distillation was not developed until the medieval period. The archaeological case for the beer identification is set out by Michael M. Homan, “Beer and Its Drinkers: An Ancient Near Eastern Love Story,” Near Eastern Archaeology 67.2 (2004): 84-95, which surveys beer production, storage, and consumption in the material record of Syria-Palestine, and, in a companion study, treats shekar and šikaru in the Hebrew Bible directly (“Beer, Barley, and šēkār in the Hebrew Bible,” in Le-David Maskil: A Birthday Tribute for David Noel Freedman, ed. R. E. Friedman and W. H. C. Propp; Eisenbrauns, 2004).

Carey Ellen Walsh’s Harvard Semitic Monograph reaches the same identification from a different direction — the chemistry: “Since there is so little natural sugar present in grain, the resulting alcohol content of the beer is low, approximately 2-6 percent. Ancient beer, then, was much weaker in alcohol than wine; it had 2-6 percent compared to the 14 percent of wine. Beer, in other words, was not strong, and so if shekar does denote beer in the Bible, ‘strong drink’ is inaccurate” (Walsh, The Fruit of the Vine, 215). She identifies shekar more specifically as date-wine (207). Irving Woodworth Raymond’s 1927 Columbia dissertation gave the broader form of the same category: shekar is generic for “intoxicating drinks made from dates, apples, pomegranates, grain, etc., or drinks made intoxicating through the presence of drugs” (Raymond, The Teaching of the Early Church on the Use of Wine and Strong Drink, 21). The KJV’s “strong drink” is a translational choice made under the assumption that shekar named something categorically more potent than yayin; the scholarly consensus that has slowly emerged since is that shekar names other alcoholic beverages — in most cases weaker than wine — and that the KJV rendering, born of the same seventeenth-century English distinction between wine and “spirits”, quietly misdirects the modern reader.

Shekar appears in prohibition contexts (Nazirite vow, Num 6:3; priestly-on-duty ban, Lev 10:9) and — strikingly — in permission contexts. Deuteronomy 14:26 authorizes the Israelite to purchase shekar with tithe money for the covenant feast before the LORD. Numbers 28:7 requires shekar to be poured out to the LORD as a drink offering with the daily continual burnt offering:

And the drink offering thereof shall be the fourth part of an hin for the one lamb: in the holy place shalt thou cause the strong wine [shekar] to be poured unto the LORD for a drink offering. — Numbers 28:7 KJV

The libation to God is the same substance that priests must abstain from while officiating. This is one of the study’s clearest single data points against categorical prohibition of fermented substances.

The LXX transliterates shekar as sikera.

asis (עָסִיס) — Strong’s 6071

Asis — “sweet wine” or “juice pressed out” — is rare, occurring five times. Its most decisive occurrence is Joel 1:5:

Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine [asis]; for it is cut off from your mouth. — Joel 1:5 KJV

Drunkards mourn the loss of asis. This is a substance intoxicating enough to matter to those who abuse it. Similarly Isaiah 49:26 uses asis in a metaphor of intoxication. Asis is not an unfermented category; it is fresh-pressed wine, still sweet, capable of intoxicating.

The LXX renders asis variously — glykasmos, “sweetness” (Joel 3:18; Amos 9:13), oinos neos, “new wine” (Isa 49:26), nama, “juice” (Song 8:2), and a paraphrase at Joel 1:5 (all verified against the Greek text) — again without any lexical implication of non-fermentation.

chemer / chamar (חֶמֶר / חֲמַר) — Strong’s 2561 / 2562

Chemer — “foaming wine” — appears in Deuteronomy 32:14 (“the pure blood of the grape”); at Isaiah 27:2 the KJV’s “vineyard of red wine” follows the chemer reading, where the Leningrad Codex reads chemed, “delight” — a known textual variant. The Aramaic cognate chamar appears in Ezra 6:9; 7:22; and prominently in Daniel 5:1-4, where Belshazzar drinks chamar at his fatal feast. The word denotes fermented wine with active or aged fermentation notes; the “foaming” register may indicate the state of maturing wine.

Greek

oinos (οἶνος) — Strong’s 3631

Oinos is the ordinary Greek word for wine, occurring 34 times in the New Testament and more than 200 times in the LXX. It denotes fermented grape wine by definition in classical Greek; no ancient Greek reader would have understood oinos as unfermented juice by default.

New Testament occurrences: at Cana (John 2:9-10), at the Good Samaritan’s medicine (Luke 10:34), in Paul’s counsel to Timothy (1 Tim 5:23), at the Ephesians warning (“be not drunk with wine” — μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ, Eph 5:18), at the bishops-and-deacons qualifications (1 Tim 3:3 μὴ πάροινον; 1 Tim 3:8 μὴ οἴνῳ πολλῷ), and at the elder women’s instruction (Titus 2:3 μὴ οἴνῳ πολλῷ δεδουλωμένας).

The LXX uses oinos to render both yayin and tirosh.

gleukos (γλεῦκος) — Strong’s 1098

Gleukos — “sweet new wine, must” — occurs once in the New Testament, at Acts 2:13 (“these men are full of new wine”). Classical usage treats gleukos as the pressed juice at the beginning of fermentation, still sweet, but distinctly capable of intoxicating. Aristotle discusses gleukos in the Meteorologica 384a as a substance in the process of concentration and fermentation. Nicander uses it similarly.

Chrysostom’s Homily 4 on Acts, discussed in Chapter 3, treats the Acts 2:13 accusation as internally coherent because gleukos intoxicates. Peter’s response (Acts 2:15) does not correct the vocabulary; it corrects the timing. The two-wine theory’s reading of gleukos as “grape juice” was contradicted by every ancient Greek reader who addressed the question.

The LXX uses gleukos once — at Job 32:19 (γλεύκους, verified against the Greek text), in a metaphor of fermenting pressure.

sikera (σίκερα) — Strong’s 4608

Sikera is the LXX loan of Hebrew shekar, unchanged into Greek. In the New Testament it occurs only at Luke 1:15 in the announcement of John the Baptist: “he shall drink neither wine [oinos] nor strong drink [sikera]”. Luke uses the Nazirite formula from Numbers 6:3; John’s abstention is his personal prophetic vocation, not a universal Christian rule.

oinopotēs (οἰνοπότης) — Strong’s 3630

Oinopotēs — “wine-drinker” — occurs in the New Testament only at Matthew 11:19 / Luke 7:34, applied to Jesus by his opponents (“Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners”). The word carries a pejorative charge in classical usage (see Proverbs 23:20 LXX, where oinopotēs names a drunkard). If Jesus had abstained, the accusation would have had no purchase; it presupposes actual, observable wine-drinking (the slander-reading and its answer: Chapter 4.5 §1; Chapter 5, response 1d).

methē / methyō / methysma (μέθη / μεθύω / μέθυσμα)

The drunkenness word family. Methē is the noun for intoxication; methyō the verb for being drunk; methyskō the verb for becoming drunk; methysos the noun for a drunkard; methysma an abstract noun for the intoxicant substance.

The complete New Testament verb-family occurrence list, with KJV renderings: Matt 24:49 (“drink with the drunken”); Luke 12:45 (“to eat and drink, and to be drunken”); John 2:10 (“when men have well drunk”); Acts 2:15 (“these are not drunken, as ye suppose”); 1 Cor 11:21 (“one is hungry, and another is drunken”); Eph 5:18 (μὴ μεθύσκεσθε οἴνῳ, “be not drunk with wine”); 1 Thess 5:7 (“they that be drunken are drunken in the night”); Rev 17:2 (“made drunk with the wine of her fornication”); Rev 17:6 (“drunken with the blood of the saints”). The noun methysos: 1 Cor 5:11 (“a drunkard”); 1 Cor 6:10 (“nor drunkards”). The noun methē: Luke 21:34 (“surfeiting, and drunkenness”); Rom 13:13 (“rioting and drunkenness”); Gal 5:21 (“drunkenness, revellings”).

John 2:10 is the only occurrence in the entire family that the KJV softens — every other instance is “drunk”, “drunken”, “drunkard”, or “drunkenness”. Revelation 17:2 uses the same verb in the same tense and voice as John 2:10 — aorist passive, indicative emethysthēsan at Revelation 17:2, subjunctive methysthōsin at John 2:10 — and the KJV renders it “made drunk”. The word family is the study’s cross-referencing anchor for the Cana argument (Chapter 2 §1) and for the response to the prohibitionist “drink freely” rendering (Chapter 5 §2).

The family in Greek literature. Liddell-Scott-Jones defines methyō as “to be drunken with wine” (Homer, Od. 18.240; Xenophon, Symp. 2.26), with Theognis twice opposing μεθύων to νήφων, “sober” (478, 627); extended senses are saturation metaphors — “drenched, steeped” (the ox-hide soaked in oil, Il. 17.390; a lamp “drunk with oil”, Babrius 114.1), “intoxicated with passion, pride”, “stupefied, stunned”. For the passive of methyskō LSJ gives “drink freely, get drunk” (Herodotus 1.133 — the Persians deliberating drunk; Heraclitus fr. 117; Euripides, Cyclops 167; Plato, Symp. 203b — Poros “drunk with nectar”) and a weakened extension “to be filled with food” (LXX Hos 14:8, of grain; Hesychius glosses μεθύει as πεπλήρωται, “is filled”). The counter-case that fixes the verb’s meaning is the exchange at Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.3.11, where Astyages asks of Cyrus’s father, πίνων οὐ μεθύσκεται; — “when he drinks, does he not get drunk?” — and the boy answers that Cambyses merely quenches his thirst. The question is only askable, and the answer only meaningful, because the verb names the resulting state, not the act of ample drinking. Philo of Alexandria, the New Testament century’s own Jewish witness, knows two senses — “being overcome with wine” and “behaving foolishly in one’s cups” — and states that both “intimate a taking of too much wine” (De Plantatione 142, 155, Yonge). Note also that Parkhurst’s two LXX proof-texts for a non-intoxicating sense (Gen 43:34; Song 5:1) both translate Hebrew שכר (shakar), the drunkenness root. Full verified apparatus: Primary-Sources/Modern-Scholarship/LSJ-Philo-methyo-word-study.md. The paroinos battery cited in Chapter 5 response 12 was re-verified against the lexica on 2026-08-01: LSJ s.v. πάροινος reads ”= παροινικός (drunk, inebriated), Pratin.Lyr.1.8, Lys.4.8, Antiph. 146, etc.; μάχαι πάροινοι Anacreont. 40.12; … Adv. παροίνως = drunkenly Poll.6.21”; the Lucian Timon 55 pairing with μέθυσος is attested in Pape s.v. πάροινος.

The Ephesians 5:18 construction is diagnostic. The imperative is not “do not drink wine” but “do not be drunk with wine”. The moral operator is methē, not oinos. This is the semantic hinge on which the study’s whole reading of the New Testament turns.

krama / kerannymi (κρᾶμα / κεράννυμι)

Krama — “mixture” — and its cognate verb kerannymi (“to mix”). These name the standard Greco-Roman practice of diluting wine with water at ratios varying from 1:1 to 1:5 for ordinary consumption. In classical culture, “unmixed wine” (akratos) was regarded as barbaric excess; a civilized person drank krama. Justin Martyr uses the perfect participle kekramenon to describe the eucharistic cup at 1 Apol. 65 — “a cup of wine mixed with water”.

oinophlugia (οἰνοφλυγία) — Strong’s 3632

Oinophlugia — “drunkenness, excess of wine” — occurs at 1 Peter 4:3 in the list of “the will of the Gentiles” that Christians have left behind. The word is distinct from oinos; it names the excess rather than the substance.

LXX bridging

The Septuagint translators, working in Alexandria in the third and second centuries BC, developed a stable equivalence set:

• yayin → oinos (near-uniform)
• tirosh → oinos usually; methysma (Hos 4:11); rhōx (Isa 65:8)
• shekar → sikera (transliterated) or methē
• asis → glykasmos (Joel 3:18; Amos 9:13), oinos neos (Isa 49:26), or nama (Song 8:2)

The takeaway: the LXX translators did not distinguish “grape juice” from “wine” through their choice of Greek equivalents. They knew that Greek oinos could cover any grape product, and they used it for the whole Hebrew wine field. The 1st-century Greek Bible reader — including Paul, Luke, John, and every early Christian writer — had no lexical way to distinguish “grape juice” from “wine” at the level of vocabulary. Paul’s oinos in Ephesians 5:18 is the same word the LXX uses for Melchizedek’s wine at Genesis 14:18 in the Greek Old Testament. The vocabulary is not the axis on which the biblical judgment turns.

Summary point for the study

Hebrew has no lexical distinction between “grape juice” and “wine”. Asis and tirosh are pressed, new, or sweet, but Joel 1:5 and Hosea 4:11 show they intoxicate. Shekar is explicitly stronger. The only ordinary non-alcoholic drink category recognized in the ancient Hebrew world was water.

Greek does not draw the distinction either. Oinos is the default; gleukos is a stage-of-fermentation term (young, sweet, but capable of intoxicating); sikera is the LXX transliteration of the Semitic term.

The two-wine theory’s central lexical claim — that biblical vocabulary already draws the fermented-versus-unfermented moral line — is not supported by the lexicography of either language.