Hebrew word · H3342

יֶ֫קֶב

yakev

wine

The vat or trough of a winepress where the juice collects, often cut into bedrock below the treading floor (gat). Sometimes it stands for the whole press installation (Judg 7:25; Joel 3:13).

Appears 16 times in 16 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

wine vat, wine-press

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 Isaiah 5:2

Range of meaning

The vat or trough of a winepress where the juice collects, often cut into bedrock below the treading floor (gat). Sometimes it stands for the whole press installation (Judg 7:25; Joel 3:13).

Against the English

"Winepress" (KJV, BSB, WEB, YLT), "wine vat" (ESV, NASB). The difference is small: "winepress" names the whole facility, and "vat" is the more exact word.

Used elsewhere in the period

Rock-cut treading floors with collecting vats are among the most common rural installations found by archaeologists in the Iron Age hill country. Later Jewish interpretation read the vat allegorically: the Aramaic Targum of Isaiah and the Tosefta (t. Sukkah 3:15) take the tower as the Temple and the vat as the altar. A Dead Sea fragment (4Q500) seems to link a vineyard and winepress with the holy mountain.

From the study of Haggai 2:16

Range of meaning

A wine vat, specifically the lower basin that received the juice from the treading floor (gat) above. By extension it can mean the whole winepress installation (Joel 2:24; Isa 5:2; Prov 3:10).

Against the English

Versions vary between "winepress" (BSB), "wine vat" (WEB, ESV, NASB) and "pressfat" (KJV). "Vat" is more precise, because the vintner comes to the collecting basin to draw out finished juice, not to tread.

How it drifted

KJV "pressfat" and YLT "wine-fat" use "fat", an older English spelling of "vat". The word has nothing to do with fat.

Used elsewhere in the period

Rock-cut press installations, with an upper treading floor channelled into a lower collecting vat, are widely found in Iron Age and Persian-period Judah. Proverbs 3:10 and Joel 2:24 use "vats overflowing" as the picture of blessing, the reverse of this verse.

From the study of Proverbs 3:10

Range of meaning

Wine vat: the lower collecting basin of a winepress, usually cut into bedrock, into which juice flowed from the treading floor (gat) above. It sometimes refers to the whole press installation (Judg 7:25, 'the winepress of Zeeb').

Against the English

KJV 'presses' and YLT 'presses' can suggest a mechanical screw or beam press. Those belong mostly to later centuries, and for oil more than wine. In Israel grapes were trodden by foot. BSB, WEB, NASB and NIV 'vats' are exact.

How it drifted

In 1611, 'press' meant the whole winepress installation. Modern readers tend to picture machinery.

Used elsewhere in the period

Isa 5:2 describes the beloved who 'hewed out a vat (yeqev)' in his vineyard. Joel 2:24 and 3:13 [4:13] say 'the vats overflow.' Hundreds of rock-cut treading floors with collecting vats have been surveyed in the hill country of Israel.

Where it appears

Numbers · 2

  1. Numbers 18:27 הַיָּֽקֶב׃ the wine-press

    Your offering will be reckoned to you as grain from the threshing floor or juice from the winepress.

  2. Numbers 18:30 יָֽקֶב׃ a wine-press

    Therefore say to the Levites, ‘When you have presented the best part, it will be reckoned to you as the produce of the threshing floor or winepress.

Deuteronomy · 2

  1. Deuteronomy 15:14 וּמִיִּקְבֶ֑ךָ and from wine-press your

    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.

  2. Deuteronomy 16:13 וּמִיִּקְבֶֽךָ׃ and from wine-press your

    You are to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.

Judges · 1

  1. Judges 7:25 בְיֶֽקֶב־ at [the] winepress of

    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.

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 6:27 הַיָּֽקֶב׃ the wine-press

    He answered, “If the LORD does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or the winepress?”

Job · 1

  1. Job 24:11 יְקָבִ֥ים wine-presses

    They crush olives within their walls; they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 3:10 יְקָבֶ֥יךָ wine vats your

    then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.

    Here: The collecting basins, usually cut into rock, that sat below the treading floor of a winepress. The juice of trodden grapes ran down into them. These vats, not some machine, are what 'burst.' The supplied gloss 'wine' is loose; the word names the vat.

Isaiah · 2

  1. Isaiah 5:2 יֶ֖קֶב a wine-vat

    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!

    Here: The vat cut into the rock where the juice from the treading floor collected. Building one before the first harvest shows the owner's confidence that there would be wine.

  2. Isaiah 16:10 בַּיְקָבִ֛ים in the wine-presses

    Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards. No one tramples the grapes in the winepresses; I have put an end to the cheering.

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 48:33 מִיקָבִ֣ים from wine-presses

    Joy and gladness are removed from the orchard and from the fields of Moab. I have stopped the flow of wine from the presses; no one treads them with shouts of joy; their shouts are not for joy.

Hosea · 1

  1. Hosea 9:2 וָיֶ֖קֶב and wine-press

    The threshing floor and winepress will not feed them, and the new wine will fail them.

Joel · 2

  1. Joel 2:24 הַיְקָבִ֖ים the wine-vats

    The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

  2. Joel 3:13 הַיְקָבִ֔ים the wine-vats

    Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full; the wine vats overflow because their wickedness is great.

    Here: 'The vats': the lower basins into which the juice ran from the treading floor. They are so full they spill over.

Haggai · 1

  1. Haggai 2:16 הַיֶּ֗קֶב the wine vat

    from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.

    Here: The lower collecting basin, usually cut into rock, where grape juice ran down from the treading floor above. This is where the vintner comes to draw off the new wine.

Zechariah · 1

  1. Zechariah 14:10 יִקְבֵ֥י [the] wine-presses of

    All the land from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem will be turned into a plain, but Jerusalem will be raised up and will remain in her place, from the Benjamin Gate to the site of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the royal winepresses.

    Here: 'The wine vats of': the pressing troughs where grape juice collected. Wine production needed flat land and water, which suggests the low southern end of the city.

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