Armageddon: “The great wine-press” of Rev. 14:19

A KEY

TO THE

SYMBOLICAL LANGUAGE

OF

SCRIPTURE,

BY WHICH NUMEROUS PASSAGES ARE

EXPLAINED AND ILLUSTRATED.

FOUNDED ON

THE SYMBOLICAL DICTIONARY OF DAUBUZ,

WITH ADDITIONS FROM

VITRINGA, EWALDUS, AND OTHERS.

BY

THOMAS WEMYSS,

AUTHOR OF “BIBLICAL GLEANINGS,” &c.

EDINBURGH:

THOMAS CLARK, 38. GEORGE STREET;

LONDON, HAMILTON AND ADAMS.

MDCCCXXXV.

[1835]

'WINE-PRESS, among the Israelites, was like a threshing-floor; and therefore we read that Gideon was threshing in one of them, Judges vi. 11. . . .

'The form of it seems to have been this: suppose a bank of earth raised in a convenient circumference, or else a floor sunk below the surface of the ground about it, that the grapes and juice may be kept in: then on one side a pit was sunk much lower than the floor, to place the vats to receive the new pressed juice falling into them. This floor was the wine-press. Hence we may easily understand why our Saviour expresses the making of a wine-press by digging; as also Isaiah in ch. v.

'The meaning of the symbol is very easy. The Indian Oneirocritic, in ch. 196, explains it of great conquest, and, by consequence, much slaughter. It is so used in Isa. lxiii. 3,

“I have trodden the wine-press alone,

And of the people there was none with me.

And I trod them in mine anger,

And I trampled them in mine indignation,

And their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments,

And I have stained all mine apparel.”

'And in Lam. i. 15, the destruction of Judah is represented under this type:

“Jehovah hath trodden down all my valiant ones in the midst of me;

He hath called an assembly against me, to crush my young men;

Jehovah hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a wine-press.”

'And the symbol is extremely proper. The pressure of the grapes till their blood comes out, as their juice is called in Deut. xxxii. 14, aptly representing great pressure or affliction, and effusion of blood

Rev. xiv. 19, “The great wine-press of the wrath of God.”

'To tread a wine-press, as before remarked, is a prophetic description of destruction. The images in this vision are very strong and expressive. The largest wine-presses were used to be in some places out of the city. So in ver. 20, “The wine-press was trodden without the city,” and seems to intimate the great numbers that shall be involved in this general destruction. This judgment seems still to be future. No past period or event appears exactly applicable to it. It must be therefore left to time more fully to explain it.'

(pp. 487-488)