StrongerBible

askos

ἀσκός

GreekG0779“wineskin, bottle”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 9:17 (4×)Mrk 2:22 (4×)Luk 5:37 (3×)Luk 5:38
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeas-KOSSnoun

What askos means

a wineskin: a whole animal hide, usually a goat's, sewn shut and sealed to hold liquids, especially wine

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

A wineskin was made from the entire hide of an animal, most often a goat. The hide was drawn off in one piece, tanned, tied shut at the leg and tail openings, and frequently lined with pitch, leaving the neck as a spout. The result was a light, portable bag that shepherds and traders used to carry wine, water, or oil. It was the ordinary container of the countryside, as opposed to the heavy clay jars of the cities.

The heart of the word is a physical fact any winemaker knew. As fresh wine keeps fermenting, it gives off gas and builds pressure. A new skin is still soft and stretches to take that pressure, but an old skin has dried out, hardened, and cracked from earlier use, so it can no longer give, and it splits, spilling the wine and ruining the bag. That is why Jesus says no one pours new wine into old skins.

The word itself carries no special religious meaning. All twelve times it appears in the New Testament fall inside a single saying of Jesus about pouring new wine into fresh skins (Matthew 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37 and 38). The point rides entirely on the contrast between what is new and what is worn out, not on the bag as such. The Old Testament told the same story with its own word for a wineskin (נֹאד), from the worn-out, split skins the Gibeonites showed off to the psalmist who feels dried and cracked "like a wineskin in the smoke."

Mat 9:17 (4×)Mrk 2:22 (4×)Luk 5:37 (3×)Luk 5:38

What scholars say about askos

The major lexicons are unanimous: BDAG, Louw-Nida (semantic domain 6.145), EDNT, and LSJ all define ἀσκός as a leather liquid-bag, usually a goatskin, and BDAG lists every one of the twelve New Testament occurrences under this single sense. TDNT gave the word no article, and Spicq omits it, on the judgment that the vessel carries no theological weight of its own and that the freight lies in the νέος, καινός, and παλαιός contrast. Moulton-Milligan document the everyday commercial background from the papyri and from the Palmyra Tariff (goatskins as the standard bulk-liquid container of first-century caravan trade). In the Septuagint ἀσκός chiefly renders Hebrew נֹאד, and three texts stand close to the parable: Job 32:19 (Elihu's belly like new wine about to burst its skins), Psalm 119:83 (the psalmist as a wineskin dried in the smoke), and Joshua 9:4, 13 (the Gibeonites' worn-out, split skins, using the same adjective παλαιός and the same verb for bursting, ῥήγνυμι, that appears in the Gospels). Commentators explain the vessel in physical terms and then divide over the parable's theology: Marcus, Yarbro Collins, France, and Fitzmyer read an apocalyptic incompatibility between Jesus' mission and older forms of piety while resisting a supersessionist inference; Davies-Allison stress Matthew's added καὶ ἀμφότεροι συντηροῦνται ("and both are preserved") and cite Sirach 9:10 to show that "old" was not simply pejorative in early Judaism; and Luke's added line that "the old is good" (5:39) is variously read as ironic (Marshall, Bock), sociological (Nolland), an endorsement of genuine Israelite piety (Flusser, Good), or a late gloss (Bovon). Recent work by Edsall (NTS 2025) and Henderson (HBT 2012) argues the text supports occasional rather than intrinsic incongruity between old and new.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. ἀσκός, p. 143lexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, §6.145lexicon
  • H. Balz and G. Schneider, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), 1:174theological-dictionary
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἀσκόςlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἀσκόςlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. נֹאדlexicon
  • J. Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Yale Bible 27 (2000), 232-239commentary
  • W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew, ICC, vol. 2 (1991), 106-115commentary
  • J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, Anchor Bible 28 (1981), 596-603commentary
  • B. A. Edsall, "From Unfulled Rag to New Cloak: Lukan Clarifications on a Markan Theme," NTS 71 (2025): 19-28article

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ἀσκός

accusative m p

ἀσκοὺς, ἀσκούς

Mat 9:17, Mat 9:17, Mrk 2:22, Mrk 2:22, Luk 5:37, Luk 5:37, Luk 5:38, Mrk 2:22

nominative m p

ἀσκοί, ἀσκοὶ

Mat 9:17, Mrk 2:22, Mat 9:17, Luk 5:37