Hebrew word · H6333

פּוּרָה

purah

winepress

A trough or vat, especially the winepress basin where grapes were trodden. Outside this verse it occurs only in Haggai 2:16, probably as a winepress measure (“fifty measures from the press”).

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

winepress

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 63:3

Range of meaning

A trough or vat, especially the winepress basin where grapes were trodden. Outside this verse it occurs only in Haggai 2:16, probably as a winepress measure (“fifty measures from the press”).

Against the English

Every major version says “winepress,” which is accurate. What English cannot show is that the poet switches from the common word gat in v. 2 to this rare word, and possibly picks it for its sound.

Used elsewhere in the period

Haggai 2:16. The ordinary words are gat (treading floor) and yeqev (collecting vat). Treading grapes as a picture of judgment appears in Lamentations 1:15 (“The Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah”) and Joel 3:13 (Hebrew 4:13), and it is taken up in Revelation 14:19–20 and 19:15.

From the study of Haggai 2:16

Range of meaning

A winepress or the treading of a press (Isa 63:3, "I have trodden the winepress alone"). Here possibly a unit of liquid measure, "a press-load". It occurs only twice in the Bible.

Against the English

YLT keeps it as a unit, "fifty purahs". BSB supplies "baths" (a standard liquid measure of roughly 20–22 litres). KJV paraphrases "fifty [vessels] out of the press". Most others say simply "fifty measures".

Used elsewhere in the period

Isaiah 63:3 is the only other occurrence. The Septuagint translates the wine figure with μετρητάς, a standard Greek liquid measure. HALOT and BDB both mark the sense here as uncertain, and some scholars treat the word as a scribe's explanatory note.

Where it appears

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 63:3 פּוּרָ֣ה׀ [the] winepress

    “I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained.

    Here: A rare word for the treading trough of a winepress, different from the ordinary gat of v. 2. It comes first in the sentence for emphasis: “A winepress, that is what I trod.” Its sound may also echo Bozrah (botsrah), the Edomite city of v. 1.

Haggai · 1

  1. Haggai 2:16 פּוּרָ֔ה a winepress

    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: Elsewhere "winepress" (Isaiah 63:3). Here it may be a unit, "fifty press-loads" or "fifty purahs", or it may mean "from the press". Its exact sense is uncertain.

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