The Rabbins have a curious tradition, that at the great feast which shall inaugurate the coming of the Messiah, he shall drink wine made frbm grapes which grew in Paradise during the six creative days, and presenred in Adam's cave for that great occasion (Othonis Lex., art. Vinum ;' Buxt. Syr, jud. 46o).
It appears to have been an ancient custom to give medicated or drugged wine to criminals con demned to death, to blunt their senses, and so lessen the pains of execution. To this custom there is supposed. to be an al/usion, Prov. xxxi. 6, Give strong drink unto him that is ready to per ish ;' and an illustration of the custom is furnilhed by the soldiers giving Jesus wine mingled with myrrh,' or, which. is the same, 'vinegar '=sour wine ; mingled with gall'= a bitter drug, without specifying the kind (Mark xv. 23 ; Matt. xxvii.
34)- Omnes systedrio ad mortem damnati potarnnt 4n 144, vivo (h. e. optimo, forti) ut diriperetur intellectus ejus, ad confirmanclum id. dicituri Prov. xxxi. 6, etc. De perituro dicetur, id fieri, nt obliviscatur mortis, gum est infortunium ipsins ' (Schoet. Hor. Heb. 236). To the same custom some. suppose there is a reference in Amos ii. 8, where the 'wine of the condemned' (A. V.) is spoken of. The margin reads, instead of con demned, 4 fined or mulcted ;' so Gesenius ; Hender son, amerced. The wicked here described, in addition to other evil practices, imposed unjust fines upon the innocent, and spent the money thus unjustly obtained upon wine, which they quaffed in the house of their gods. As Dathe renders : pecunias hominibus innocentibus extortas com potationibus absumunt in templis deorum suorum.' Mixed wine is often spoken of in Scripture. This was of different kinds. Sometimes it was mixed with water to take it down (Is. i. 22) ; some times with milk (Songs v, 1) ; and sometimes, by lovers of strong drink, with spices of various kinds, to give it a richer flavour and greater potency (Is. V. 22 ; Ps. lxxv. 8). The royal wine,' literally wine of the kingdom, ryori (Esther i. 7), denotes most probably the best wine, such as the king of Persia himself was accus tomed to drink. 4 Wine of Lebanon' is referred to in such a way. as to indicate its peculiar ex cellence—' the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon ' (Hos. xiv. 7). Hence it is thought to have been distinguished by its grateful smell. But 1n1 means, as the margin renders it, ntemorial, and includes odour, flavour, and refreshing influ ence. And modern travellers attest the excellence
of the wine of Lebanon. The 'wine of Helbon, or Chalybon,' is mentioned as one of the importa tions of l'yre (Ezra xxvii. IS), and was very fa mous.
The vine abounded in ancient, as it does in modern Palestine ; and wines of various degrees of excellence were made. The wines of modern Palestine are represented by modem travellers as being of excellent quality. The sweet wines are particularly esteemed in the East, because they are grateful to the taste, very exhilarating ; and some of them will keep `or a long time. They were therefore preferred by those who were addicted to drinking, and commonly selected for the tables of kings. Their inebriating quality is alluded to by the prophet Isaiah : I will feed them that oppress you with their own flesh, and they shall be drunken as with sweet wine' (Is. xlix. 26).
The testimony of travellers respecting the spi rituous nature of the wines of Palestine accords with that of the sacred writers. . . . It is observed by Thevenot, that the people of the Levant never mingle water with their wine at meals, but drink by itself what water they think proper for abating its strength. VVhile the Greeks and Romans by mixed wine understood wine united and lowered with water, the Hebrews, on the contrary, meant by it wine made stronger and more inebriating by the addition of powerful ingredients. . . .
The wines of Palestine are generally kept in bottles made of leather, or goat-skins, sewed or pitched together. In tbese the process of fermen tation took place, and the wine acquired its proper degree of strength.
In absence of anything like chemical analysis, these are the data from which we must draw our conclusions concerning the nature of the wines referred to by the sacred writers. Some of them are represented to have been sweet wines, which, if not the strongest, are known to have been very strong. The grapes from which they were pro duced were remarkable for their richness and excel knee ; the climate of the country being such as to favour the growth and development of those prin ciples which, during fermentation, were converted into alcohol. And as the grapes of that country are now known to furnish very rich and spirituous wines,,we may infer that the ancient were similar in their character ; since there is abundant evidence that the climate has not suffered any material change for three thousand years.