Winepress

The vat in which grapes were trodden to produce juice for making wine. Scripture sometimes uses the image of treading grapes at the winepress to depict scenes of divine wrath and punishment.

Winepresses were widely used

Deuteronomy 15:12–14 See also Numbers 18:25–27, Numbers 18:30; Judges 6:11; 2 Kings 6:24–27

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you must set him free. And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. You are to furnish him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress. You shall give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you.

Treading grapes at winepresses

Literal references

Nehemiah 13:15 See also Job 24:11; Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 48:33

In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, along with wine, grapes, and figs. All kinds of goods were being brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I warned them against selling food on that day.

Metaphorical references

Lamentations 1:15 See also Isaiah 63:1–6; Joel 3:13; Revelation 14:17–20, Revelation 19:11–16

The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young warriors. Like grapes in a winepress, the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.

The association of winepresses with harvest

Revelation 14:18–19 See also Deuteronomy 16:13–15

Still another angel, with authority over the fire, came from the altar and called out in a loud voice to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes of the earth, and he threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath.

Winepresses in vineyards

Isaiah 5:1–2 See also Matthew 21:33–34 parallel Mark 12:1

I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour!

Winepresses in place-names

Judges 7:25 See also Zechariah 14:10

They also captured Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian; and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. So they pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side of the Jordan.