Hebrew word · H6071

עָסִיס

'asis

sweet

Fresh-pressed grape juice or new wine, juice just trodden out. It is related to the verb ʿasas, 'to tread down' (Mal 4:3, Heb 3:21). It could be intoxicating (Joel 1:5) and is also used of other fruit juices (pomegranate, Song 8:2).

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

sweet wine, wine, pressed out juice

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 49:26

Range of meaning

Fresh-pressed grape juice or new wine, juice just trodden out. It is related to the verb ʿasas, 'to tread down' (Mal 4:3, Heb 3:21). It could be intoxicating (Joel 1:5) and is also used of other fruit juices (pomegranate, Song 8:2).

Against the English

KJV/WEB 'sweet wine,' BSB/ESV/NIV 'wine.' 'Sweet wine' may suggest a dessert wine to modern ears. Plain 'wine' loses the picture of juice gushing from the winepress.

How it drifted

'Sweet' in older English meant fresh and unfermented-tasting ('sweet' milk, 'sweet' water), not sugary.

Used elsewhere in the period

Joel 1:5; 3:18 (Heb 4:18); Amos 9:13 ('the mountains shall drip ʿasis'); Song 8:2; Isa 49:26. Elsewhere, blood is called 'the blood of grapes' (Gen 49:11; Deut 32:14), and judgment is pictured as treading a winepress until garments are stained red (Isa 63:1–6).

From the study of Amos 9:13

Range of meaning

Fresh-pressed grape juice, 'must', new wine straight from treading. It comes from עָסַס 'to tread down'. It was sweet and could ferment and make people drunk (Joel 1:5; Isa 49:26). In Song 8:2 it is used of pomegranate juice.

Against the English

KJV, BSB, ESV and NASB: 'sweet wine'. NIV: 'new wine'. YLT: 'juice'. Modern readers may picture a sweet dessert wine or a finished bottled product. The Hebrew pictures juice streaming from the press at the moment of treading.

How it drifted

'Sweet wine' was a fair 17th-century rendering of the taste, but today it suggests a category of wine rather than fresh juice from the press.

Used elsewhere in the period

The same phrase 'the mountains will drip ʿāsîs' appears in Joel 3:18 (Hebrew 4:18), paired there with hills 'flowing with milk'. In the Ugaritic Baal myth (KTU 1.6 III), the return of the storm-god Baal is signalled by 'the heavens rain oil, the wadis run with honey'. That is the same kind of image of a land overflowing with liquid plenty.

From the study of Joel 3:18

Range of meaning

Freshly pressed grape juice and young, newly fermenting wine. The noun comes from ʿasas, 'to tread down' (Malachi 4:3 [Hebrew 3:21]), the action of treading grapes in the winepress. It appears only five times: Joel 1:5; 3:18; Amos 9:13; Isaiah 49:26; Song of Songs 8:2 ('juice of my pomegranates').

Against the English

KJV has 'new wine.' BSB, ESV, NASB and WEB have 'sweet wine.' Both are fair. 'New wine' can be confused with tirosh, the usual word for the new vintage (Joel 1:10; 2:19, 24), which KJV also translates 'new wine.' 'Sweet wine' can make a modern reader think of a dessert wine.

How it drifted

In the 19th century some temperance writers argued that biblical 'new' or 'sweet' wine was unfermented juice. Isaiah 49:26 says the oppressors 'will be drunk with their own blood as with ʿasis,' and Joel 1:5 addresses drunkards mourning its loss. So ʿasis could intoxicate, even though it was young and sweet.

Used elsewhere in the period

Joel 1:5: 'Wake up, you drunkards, and weep… because of the ʿasis, for it is cut off from your mouth.' Amos 9:13 uses almost the same line: 'the mountains will drip ʿasis.' The Septuagint translates it here as glykasmos, 'sweetness,' and the Vulgate as dulcedo, 'sweetness.'

Where it appears

Song of Songs · 1

  1. Song of Songs 8:2 מֵעֲסִ֖יס some of [the] juice of

    I would lead you and bring you to the house of my mother who taught me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 49:26 וְכֶעָסִ֖יס and like <the> sweet wine

    I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

    Here: 'And as with new wine.' The word comes from a root meaning 'to tread,' so it is juice just trodden out in the winepress. It pairs naturally with red blood and with the winepress picture of judgment.

Joel · 2

  1. Joel 1:5 עָסִ֕יס sweet wine

    Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.

    Here: Juice fresh from the winepress, sweet and still fermenting. Its loss means this season's vintage is gone before it could even be made.

  2. Joel 3:18 עָסִ֗יס sweet wine

    And in that day the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with milk. All the streams of Judah will run with water, and a spring will flow from the house of the LORD to water the Valley of Acacias.

    Here: Freshly trodden grape juice or young wine, from a root meaning 'to tread.' In Joel 1:5 drunkards weep because this very ʿasis has been 'cut off from your mouth.' Here it comes back in floods.

Amos · 1

  1. Amos 9:13 עָסִ֔יס sweet wine

    “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow.

    Here: The fresh juice that runs from the press as grapes are trodden. It comes from a root meaning 'to tread'. It was sweet and could ferment (Joel 1:5; Isa 49:26). It is not a dessert wine.

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