Wine-press

The wine-press (Hebrew gath for the upper trough; Greek lenos) consisted of two connected receptacles cut from rock or built of stone: an upper vat where grapes were trodden by foot, and a lower vat (yeqeb) into which the juice flowed through a channel. Grape-treading was communal, seasonal labor performed with singing and shouting (Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 25:30). Jesus's parable of the tenants describes a landowner who "digged a wine-press" in his vineyard (Matthew 21:33; Mark 12:1). The wine-press becomes in Scripture a powerful image of divine judgment: in Isaiah 63:2–3, God describes treading the wine-press of his wrath alone; in Revelation 14:19–20 and 19:15, the great wine-press of God's wrath is trodden outside the city, producing a flood of blood. Joel 3:13 calls for the nations to be sent to the wine-press as the great judgment approaches. The treading of grapes, with its images of crushing and flowing blood-red liquid, made the wine-press a natural figure for the execution of divine judgment.