Skip to content
Sign In
All KJV Words

Archaic KJV Word

Wine

Modern equivalent: alcoholic beverage

What Was Lost

The eschatological joy. Wine was the symbol of the age to come -- the great banquet, the wedding feast of the Lamb, the day when God would 'destroy the covering cast over all peoples' (Isaiah 25:6-8). 'New wine in new wineskins' was about the bursting, uncontainable joy of God's kingdom arriving.

Closest Survivor in Modern English

wine (still used in communion traditions but freighted with moral anxiety absent from scripture)

Peak Usage (1611)

KJV Psalm 104:15 -- 'Wine that maketh glad the heart of man'; Matthew 26:29 -- 'I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine'

Died still used but moralized (~1850)

Hebrew yayin ('wine/the blood of the grape/symbol of joy and covenant celebration') was moralized by temperance movements into a symbol of vice. The biblical celebration of wine as God's gift of joy was suppressed by prohibition theology.

What Replaced It

alcohol

Chemical category with negative connotations; yayin was the gift of God that 'gladdens the heart'

grape juice

Temperance substitution that removes the fermentation, the gladness, and the covenant symbolism

vice

Moral category; wine in scripture was a sign of God's blessing and future hope

Related KJV Words