This one's rather technical, but maybe someone here can help me with this verse.
This is a curious verse. It's the only one in the Hebrew testament in which תִּירוֹשׁ "new wine" is mentioned in a negative connotation. It's also the only one in which it is used in conjunction with יַיִן "wine". ("Wine" is always used when intoxication is being discussed unfavorably, but it is also used in some neutral and positive contexts.)
My thought is that perhaps what is now "new wine" in the text was originally something which was a pun with "new wine" and it got miscopied early on as the word it was supposed to pun on, thus making the intended text something like:
However, I certainly don't know enough Hebrew to even consider what could be the intended pun, even assuming it was intended to be a pun. So, does anyone here know Hebrew well enough to even suggest what a possible pun might be? Or does anyone have any thoughts on why "new wine" would be mentioned in a bad context here?
