Hebrew word · H2561

חֶ֫מֶר

chamer

wine

Wine, in poetry. It comes from a root meaning to foam, boil up or ferment (Ps 46:3, waters 'foam'; Ps 75:8, wine that 'foams'). Its Aramaic relative ḥămar is the ordinary word for wine (Ezra 6:9; 7:22; Dan 5:1–4, 23). Ugaritic has ḥmr in the same sense.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

wine

Aramaic equivalent: cha.mar (חֲמַר "wine" H2562)

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Deuteronomy 32:14

Range of meaning

Wine, in poetry. It comes from a root meaning to foam, boil up or ferment (Ps 46:3, waters 'foam'; Ps 75:8, wine that 'foams'). Its Aramaic relative ḥămar is the ordinary word for wine (Ezra 6:9; 7:22; Dan 5:1–4, 23). Ugaritic has ḥmr in the same sense.

Against the English

KJV says 'pure blood of the grape', which treats the word as an adjective. ESV and NIV have 'foaming'. WEB, YLT and NASB simply say 'wine'. BSB has 'the wine' and moves 'finest' onto the grapes.

How it drifted

KJV's 'pure' follows the Latin tradition: the Vulgate says meracissimum, 'most undiluted'. In Latin that meant wine not cut with water, which is strong wine. A modern reader can take 'pure' to mean unspoiled or even unfermented, which is the opposite of the Latin sense.

Used elsewhere in the period

In Daniel 5, Belshazzar's feast drinks ḥămar. Isa 27:2 has 'vineyard of ḥemer' in many manuscripts. HALOT and BDB both give 'wine' and connect it with fermentation or foaming.

Where it appears

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 32:14 חָֽמֶר׃ wine

    with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine.

    Here: A poetic word for wine, from a root meaning to foam or ferment. It is the ordinary word for wine in Aramaic (Dan 5:1). It is the last word of the verse: the feast ends with a cup of strong, foaming wine.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.