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Summary
- In the Bible, grapes stand for the good things God gives and the good fruit he looks for, and also for sin and judgment.
- The King James Bible mentions grapes 45 times, first in the dream of Pharaoh’s butler in Genesis 40.
- The spies carried a single cluster of grapes on a staff between two men, and the place was named Eshcol, “cluster” (Numbers 13:23–24).
- The law let an Israelite eat his fill in a neighbour’s vineyard but carry nothing away (Deuteronomy 23:24).
- Wild grapes and sour grapes picture sin, and Ezekiel 18 teaches that each person answers for their own.
- The phrase “grapes of wrath” comes from Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862), and its picture from Revelation 14, where the vine of the earth is cast into “the great winepress of the wrath of God”.
- Jesus made the fruit of the vine the cup of the new covenant, and Isaiah 65:8 promises mercy: “Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it”.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- The Holy Bible, King James Version (public domain), via BibleGateway: Genesis 9:20, 40:3, 40:8–11, 49:11; Numbers 6:2–4, 6:13, 13:23–27, 13:31, 14:4, 14:36–38; Deuteronomy 23:24, 32:14; Psalm 104:15; Proverbs 20:1; Isaiah 5:2, 5:7, 63:1–3, 65:8; Jeremiah 31:30; Ezekiel 18:2–4; Joel 3:13; Amos 9:13; Micah 7:1–2; Matthew 7:15–16, 26:27–29; John 2:9–11; Ephesians 5:18; Revelation 14:18–20, 19:13–15. Word counts made on the eBible.org King James text and checked against Project Gutenberg’s King James Bible.
- Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, entry 811, eshkol (“cluster”), Bible Hub.
- Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 62, to Caecilius, section 7, and Epistle 75, to Magnus, section 6, translated by Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (1886), New Advent.
- John Chapman, “St. Cyprian of Carthage”, Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 4 (1908), New Advent.
- The Didache, chapter 9, translated by M. B. Riddle, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 7 (1886), New Advent.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1333, Holy See.
- Martin Luther, The Small Catechism: The Sacrament of the Altar (1529), Triglot Concordia translation, BookOfConcord.org.
- Southern Baptist Convention, The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, Article VII, “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper”.
- Library of Congress, “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, Patriotic Melodies collection.
- Center for Steinbeck Studies, Stanford University, “The Grapes of Wrath: Historical Background”.
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