StrongerBible

oinos

οἶνος

GreekG3631“wine, new wine”

Appears 34 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 9:17 (3×)Mat 27:34Mrk 2:22 (4×)Mrk 15:23Luk 1:15Luk 5:37 (2×)Luk 5:38Luk 7:33Luk 10:34Jhn 2:3 (2×)Eph 5:181Ti 3:81Ti 5:23Tit 2:3Rev 14:8Rev 14:10Rev 16:19Rev 17:2Rev 18:3Rev 19:15
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradeOY-nossnoun

What oinos means

wine: the fermented drink pressed from grapes

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

Throughout the New Testament world this is one word for one thing: the alcoholic drink made from grapes. There was no second, juice-only kind of wine hiding behind the same word. In a time before refrigeration or pasteurization, crushed grapes began to ferment within hours, and there was no reliable way to stop it, so wine was simply what grape juice became. The word covers wine at every stage and quality, from young wine still working in the skins, through ordinary table wine, to wine gone sour toward vinegar.

The everyday use is the heart of the word, and almost every passage carries it: the wine poured at a wedding, kept in skins, used to clean a wound, prescribed in small amounts for a weak stomach, or warned against when it leads to drunkenness. Wine was a normal part of daily life and a fixed image of celebration and abundance.

From that ordinary drink the New Testament also draws two stretched uses. In the visions of Revelation, wine becomes a picture of something poured out to be drunk down: the cup of God's anger, or the heady drink of a corrupt city's seductions. And once the word stands not for the drink itself but for the source that yields it, the vine and its produce alongside grain and oil. These are not different meanings of the word so much as the same wine seen through image and figure.

Nuances

1awine as an ordinary drink, the fermented juice of grapes used in daily life
Mat 9:17 (3×)Mat 27:34Mrk 2:22 (4×)Mrk 15:23Luk 1:15Luk 5:37 (2×)Luk 5:38Luk 7:33Jhn 2:3 (2×)Jhn 2:9Jhn 2:10Jhn 4:46
1bwine as a figure for what is poured out to be drunk down: the cup of God's anger or of a corrupt power's seductions
Rev 14:8Rev 14:10Rev 16:19Rev 17:2Rev 18:3Rev 19:15
1cwine standing for the vine and its produce, named beside grain and oil as the harvest of the land
Rev 6:6

What scholars say about oinos

The lexicons and the classical, papyrological, rabbinic, and exegetical evidence converge with unusual unanimity: οἶνος is fermented grape wine, covering young wine in fermentation, ordinary table wine, aged wine, and soured wine. BDAG gives the literal beverage as the primary sense, with figurative apocalyptic ("wine of wrath") and metonymic ("vine") extensions; Louw-Nida and LSJ define it as the fermented juice of the grape and reserve separate words for must, non-grape strong drink, and beer. The Greek Old Testament collapsed the Hebrew terms for wine and new wine alike into οἶνος, recognizing no category of unfermented wine. The genuine scholarly questions concern not whether the wine was fermented but how heavily it was diluted with water in actual use, commonly two or three parts water to one of wine, where commentators across the spectrum read the wineskins parable, the Cana steward's remark about guests having drunk freely, and Paul's prohibition of drunkenness as decisive that the referent is alcoholic.

Where scholars disagree about oinos

Whether biblical οἶνος sometimes meant unfermented grape juice (the nineteenth-century "two-wine theory") rather than always fermented wine.

  • majorityThe word always denotes fermented grape wine; there was no practical way to store unfermented juice in the pre-pasteurization ancient world, and passages such as the bursting wineskins and the Cana steward's remark require active fermentation.; BDAG, s.v. οἶνος, 701; Kenneth L. Gentry, God Gave Wine; Robert H. Stein, 'Wine-Drinking in New Testament Times', Christianity Today (20 June 1975): 9-11
  • minorityThe word could mean either fermented wine or unfermented juice depending on context, so Scripture commends only the unfermented kind.; Robert P. Teachout, 'The Use of Wine in the Old Testament' (Th.D. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1979); Samuele Bacchiocchi, Wine in the Bible: A Biblical Study on the Use of Alcoholic Beverages
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. οἶνος, 701lexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. οἶνοςlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, §6.197lexicon
  • Heinrich Seesemann, 'οἶνος', TDNT 5:162-166dictionary
  • EDNT 2:502-503dictionary
  • Moulton-Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. οἶνος, 444lexicon
  • Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, AB 29, 100-104commentary
  • Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John, 1:493-511commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NICNT, 142-143commentary
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC, 626-628commentary
  • Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42, 343-345commentary
  • Carey Ellen Walsh, The Fruit of the Vine: Viticulture in Ancient Israel, Harvard Semitic Monographs 60monograph
  • Patrick E. McGovern, Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculturemonograph
  • John L. Merrill, 'The Bible and the American Temperance Movement', HTR 81 (1988): 145-170article

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

All attested forms of οἶνος

accusative m s

οἶνον

Mat 9:17, Mat 9:17, Mat 27:34, Mrk 2:22, Mrk 2:22, Mrk 15:23, Luk 1:15, Luk 5:37

genitive m s

οἴνου

Jhn 2:3, Rev 14:8, Rev 14:10, Rev 16:19, Rev 17:2, Rev 18:3, Rev 19:15

dative m s

οἴνῳ

Eph 5:18, 1Ti 3:8, 1Ti 5:23, Tit 2:3

nominative m s

οἶνος

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