tirosh

The standard lexicons (HALOT, BDB, DCH) agree that this noun denotes must or new wine, the freshly pressed product of the grape harvest, and derive it from a root associated with taking possession or, on other accounts, from a non-Semitic source; the etymology is debated but does not affect the settled sense. A prominent feature of its distribution is the fixed triad grain (dagan), new wine (tirosh), and fresh oil (yitshar), which stands for the agricultural produce of the land in blessing, tithe, and firstfruit contexts (so TDOT and NIDOTTE, and the commentaries on Deuteronomy and Hosea). Against the popular claim that the word denotes strictly unfermented juice, most scholars note Hosea 4:11, where it stands among agents that take away the heart or understanding, as evidence that it can be an intoxicating beverage; the term thus covers fresh wine that may or may not have begun to ferment rather than juice defined by the absence of alcohol. Some have connected the word with the Ugaritic trt and with a Canaanite wine deity, but this remains a minority etymological proposal and is not required for the meaning.