Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 9:17
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
17. new wine into old bottles ] The Oriental bottles are skins of sheep or goats. Old bottles would crack and leak. This may be regarded as a further illustration of the doctrine taught in the preceding verse. But it is better to give it an individual application. The new wine is the new law, the freedom of Christianity. The new bottles are those fitted to live under that law. The old wine is Judaism, the old bottles those, who trained in Judaism, cannot receive the new law, who say “the old is better” (or “good”), Luk 5:39.
Our Lord’s answer then is threefold, (1) specially as to fasting, (2) as to Christianity in regard to Judaism, (3) as to individuals trained in Judaism.
(1) This is a joyous time, not a season for fasting, which is a sign of sorrow.
(2) Christianity is not a sect of Judaism, or to be judged according to rules of Judaism.
(3) It is not every soul that is capable of receiving the new and spiritual law. The new wine of Christianity requires new vessels to contain it.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mat 9:17
New wine into old bottles.
Garments and wine skins
By these illustrations our Lord conveyed a lesson on the charm of naturalness and the law of congruity in religion,
1. As old cloth and new cloth are one in being cloth, old wine and new are one in being wine; so the religion before Christ and that which He introduced are essentially one in kind, if not in quality.
2. The effect of the forced junction of the old and new would be injurious to both. (D. Fraser, D. D.)
What is meant by old bottles?
Why is the carnal heart compared to an old bottle
1. Because a bottle is a proper receptacle of liquor, so is the heart of man a proper receptacle of Divine knowledge, grace, joy, etc.
2. Because a bottle of itself is an empty thing, and must be filled; so the heart of man is naturally empty of good.
3. Because a broken bottle cannot hold new wine, nor can an unrenewed heart hold saving peace, joy, etc. (B. Keach.)
Making skin bottles
As soon as the animal (goat) is killed, an opening is made in the skin large enough to introduce the lips, and a man begins to blow between the skin and the flesh until the two are completely separated from each other throughout. The head and feet are then cut off, and the entire body of the animal is drawn out of its skin through the opening at the neck. The hair is sometimes partially removed and the skin tanned. In Persia the skins are saturated with pitch. The opening at the neck is used for filling and emptying the vessel, while the four feet are tied or sewed up. The grape-juice which is to undergo the process of fermentation is put into skins, which are either entirely new or which have been carefully examined and found able to withstand the pressure.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. New wine into old bottles] It is still the custom, in the eastern countries, to make their bottles of goat skins: if these happened to be old, and new wine were put into them, the violence of the fermentation must necessarily burst them; and therefore newly made bottles were employed for the purpose of putting that wine in which had not yet gone through its state of fermentation. The institutes of Christ, and those of the Pharisees, could never be brought to accord: an attempt to combine the two systems would be as absurd as it would be destructive. The old covenant made way for the new, which was its completion and its end; but with that old covenant the new cannot be incorporated.
Christian prudence requires that the weak, and newly converted, should be managed with care and tenderness. To impose such duties and mortifications as are not absolutely necessary to salvation, before God has properly prepared the heart by his grace for them, is a conduct as absurd and ruinous as putting a piece of raw, unscoured cloth on an old garment; it is, in a word, requiring the person to do the work of a man, while as yet he is but a little child. Preachers of the Gospel, and especially those who are instruments in God’s hand of many conversions, have need of much heavenly wisdom, that they may know to watch over, guide, and advise those who are brought to a sense of their sin and danger. How many auspicious beginnings have been ruined by men’s proceeding too hastily, endeavouring to make their own designs take place, and to have the honour of that success themselves which is due only to God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles,…. As in the former parable, our Lord exposes the folly of the Scribes and Pharisees, in their zealous attachment to the traditions of the elders; so in this, he gives a reason why he did not call these persons by his Gospel, who were settled upon the old principle of self-righteousness, but sinners, whom he renews by his Spirit and grace: for by “old bottles” are meant, the Scribes and Pharisees. The allusion is to bottles, made of the skins of beasts, which in time decayed, waxed old, and became unfit for use: such were the wine bottles, old and rent, the Gibeonites brought with them, and showed to Joshua, Jos 9:4 and to which the Psalmist compares himself, Ps 119:83 and which the Misnic doctors call , and their commentators o say, were , “bottles made of skin”, or “leather”, and so might be rent. Of the use of new and old bottles, take the following hint out of the “Talmud” p.
“The bottles of the Gentiles, if scraped and , “new”, they are free for use; if , “old”, they are forbidden.”
Now the Scribes and Pharisees may be signified by these old bottles, being natural men, no other than as they were born; having never been regenerated, and renewed in the spirit of their minds; in whom the old man was predominant, were mere formal professors of religion, and self-righteous persons: and by “new wine” is meant, either the love and favour of God compared to wine, that is neat and clean, because free from hypocrisy in him, or motives in the creature; to generous wine, for its cheering and reviving effects; and to new wine, not but that it is very ancient, even from everlasting, but, because newly manifested, in the effectual calling and conversion: or the Gospel is signified by wine, for its purity, good flavour, and pleasant taste; for its generous effects, in reviving drooping spirits, refreshing weary persons, and comforting distressed minds; and by new wine, not that it is a new doctrine, an upstart notion, for it is an ancient Gospel, but because newly and more clearly revealed by Christ and his apostles: or the blessings of grace which spring from the love of God, and are manifested in the Gospel, such as pardon of sin, reconciliation and atonement, justifying and sanctifying grace, spiritual joy and peace, and the like. Now as the new wine is not put into old bottles,
else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: so the love of God, the Gospel of the grace of God, and the blessings of it, are not received and retained, nor can they be, by natural men, by self-righteous persons: they do not suit and agree with their old carnal hearts and principles; they slight and reject them, and let them run out, which proves their greater condemnation.
But they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved. By “new bottles” are meant sinners, whom Christ calls by his grace, and the Spirit regenerates and renews, who are made new creatures in Christ; who have new hearts, and new spirits, and new principles of light, life, love, faith, and holiness, implanted in them; who have new eyes to see with, new ears to hear with, new feet to walk with, to and in Christ, new hands to work and handle with, and who live a new life and conversation. Now to such as these, the love of God is manifested and shed abroad in their hearts; by these, the Gospel of Christ is truly received and valued, and these enjoy the spiritual blessings of it; and so both the doctrine of the Gospel, and the grace of God, are preserved entire, and these persons saved in the day of Christ.
o Jarchi & Bartenora in Misn. Celim, c. 24. sect. 11. & Negaim, c. 11. sect. 11. p T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 33. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Old wineskins ( ). Not glass “bottles” but wineskins used as bottles as is true in Palestine yet, goatskins with the rough part inside. “Our word bottle originally carried the true meaning, being a bottle of leather. In Spanish bota means a leather bottle, a boot, and a butt. In Spain wine is still brought to market in pig-skins ” (Vincent). The new wine will ferment and crack the dried-up old skins.
The wine is spilled (), poured out.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Bottles [] . Rev., rightly, wine – skins, though our word bottle originally carried the true meaning, being a bottle of leather. In Spanish, bota means leather bottle, a boot, and a butt. In Spain wine is still brought to market in pig – skins. In the East, goat – skins are commonly used, with the rough side inward. When old, they break under the fermentation of the wine.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Neither do men put new wine in old bottles:” (oude ballousin oinon neon eis askous palaious) “Neither do they put new wine into old wineskins:” Wine that is still fermenting, that causes the old skins, no longer elastic, to split, leak. The “new” refers to both “time” and “quality.” Keep the old, to the old, and the new, to the new is the idea.
2) “Else the bottles break and the wine runneth out,” (ei de me ge hregnuntai hoi askoi ksi ho oinos ekcheitai) “If they do, on the other hand, the wineskins are burst and the wine is poured out,” wasted. The law of Moses simply could not contain or hold what Jesus had brought to men, the new order of worship and service.
3) “And the bottles perish:” (kai hoi askoi apolluntai) “And the wineskins are destroyed,” rendered useless, unusable, together with the wine.
4) “But they put new wine into new bottles,” (alla ballousin oinon eis askous kainous) “But they put new wine, yet fermenting wine, into fresh wineskins,” that will not split or crack, into new wineskins, that are still elastic and stretch, to avoid splitting because of fermentation.
5) “And both are preserved.” (kai amphoteroi sunterountai) “And both are preserved,” both the new wine and the new wines in bottles are preserved, or safe from loss. The idea is that the old ideas of feasting and fasting in connection with the Jewish religious and civil law were not to be patched into the church of Jesus Christ.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(17) Neither do men put new wine into old bottles.The bottles are those made of hides partly tanned, and retaining, to a great extent, the form of the living animals. These, as they grew dry with age, became very liable to crack, and were unable to resist the pressure of the fermenting liquor. If the mistake were made, the bottles were marred, and the wine spilt. When we interpret the parable, we see at once that the new wine represents the inner, as the garment did the outer, aspect of Christian life, the new energies and gifts of the Spirit, which, as on the day of Pentecost, were likened to new wine (Act. 2:13). In dealing with men, our Lord did not bestow these gifts suddenly, even on His own disciples, any more than He imposed rules of life for which men were not ready. As the action of organised churches has too often reproduced the mistake of sewing the patch of new cloth on the old garment, so in the action of enthusiastic or mystic sects, in the history of Montanism, Quakerism in its earlier stages, the growth of the so-called Catholic and Apostolic Church, which had its origin in the history of Edward Irving, we have that of pouring new wine into old bottles. The teaching of our Lord points in both instances to gradual training, speaking the truth as men are able to bear it; reserving many truths because they cannot bear them now.
St. Luke adds, as before, a new aspect of the illustration: No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better. See Note on Luk. 5:39.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
17. New wine Which has yet to ferment. Old bottles These bottles or flasks were made of leather skins. When old and rigid, they were liable to burst from the fermentation of the newly made wine. As here again the new wine is the symbol of the new dispensation of joy, and the old bottles are the symbol of the old dispensation of shadows; so the truth is again illustrated that new Christianity, with its living spirit, cannot afford to remain enveloped in the old skin of ascetic Judaism. And this is the answer to the disciples of John, who wonder at the new fashion of Christ’s disciples, who do not disfigure their faces, according to the old custom with much fasting.
Luke (Luk 5:39) adds a sort of apology by our Lord for the prejudices expressed in the query of John’s disciples. “No man also having drunk the old wine straightway desireth the new; for he saith, The old is better.” So it takes a while for the disciple of the old dispensation to accommodate his feelings to the new order of things. His attachments to the institutions so mellowed, like wine, by time, induce him to prefer them from their very antiquity. He saith the old is better. There is, indeed, an excellence about the old, there is something exciting and fermenting about the new; but the old must be worn out and disappear. The new is truly an advance in excellence, and it is a mere customary taste that induces the man to repeat the constant saw “The old is better.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Neither do men put new wine into old wineskins, or else the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish. But they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
The point is emphasised again, this time using the idea of putting new wine into old wineskins. To do so would be to cause the dried out old skins to burst. They are no loner elastic enough to cope with the fermentation of new wine. Then all would be lost, the new wine and the wineskins, for the skins would perish.
Here there is included the idea also found in John 2, that the new wine of the Kingly Rule of God has come. But it is being emphasised that it must not be put into old wineskins. The wineskins that had been built up by Judaism must be thrust aside, as He had Himself done in the Sermon on the Mount.
But the above illustrations carry also another warning, although it may well not have been in Jesus’ mind. For the point lying behind the illustrations is that the introduction of the new into the old will cause rending and perishing. And that is precisely what would happen. The old wineskins of Judaism would be unable to take the arrival of the new wine of Jesus so that it would cause His death. Jesus had come to a country which was like dried out, old wineskins, so that His coming could only result in His death, and then for them the new wine would be lost because they had clung to the old) and would result in the destruction of the place to which He had come (the old wineskins, Jerusalem, would perish). For there was a sense in which it was unavoidable that the new would clash with the old.
“But they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Here is the solution, to keep the new wine to new wineskins, and not try to mix it with the old. Everything must be seen anew. Thus must they rejoice in the bridegroom, and not fast over Him, and thus must they receive His new message, putting the old (Judaism) aside. Their righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat 5:20). Then they will not destroy themselves by mixing the new with the old (as in fact part of the later church did).
The idea is carried further in Joh 2:1-11 where the new wine symbolises the glories of the Messianic age indicating that the time has come for the fulfilment of Isa 25:6. We should note in all this that it is not what is recorded in the Scriptures that brings about the clash, it is the way in which it has been interpreted and used by its interpreters. The Scriptures contain the same message throughout, salvation by the grace of God through repentance and the offering of blood, and His continual gracious working in their lives.
‘Both are preserved.’ That is, the new wine and the new wineskins. There is no thought that the old is to be preserved. The tragedy would be if the disciples began to incorporate the wrong ideas that had grown up in Judaism into the new community that Jesus was founding. There is no thought that the old was to survive alongside.
(There was, of course, a sense in which the old way in the best senses was still necessary until the new message had reached out into the world, and it would therefore be necessary for it to be maintained for a while. There were godly people around the world who had never heard the Good News. They still came to God on the basis of the old ideas. And Jesus was wise enough not to want to tear that situation apart. For it would be many decades, and even longer, before all had had the chance of hearing and responding to the new. But the old that Jesus was casting off was not these genuine Scriptural foundations. What He was rejecting was the misinterpreting of it by Judaism in the same way as they had misinterpreted the Law (Mat 5:20). What Jesus abhorred was the thought of something which was a continual mixture of both the old misinterpreted religion and the new purified religion. In the end the old had to be shed, a process greatly helped by the destruction of Jerusalem. But none of that is in mind in His statement that ‘both are preserved’).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
17 Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.
Ver. 17. Neither do men put new wine ] In the year of grace 340 arose certain heretics called Ascitae or Utricularii, bottle bearers, because they bare a bottle on their backs, affirming that they were no true Christians that did not so; and alleging this text for themselves, as if they were the only new bottles filled with new wine. So those districtissimi monachi, Puritan monks (as one translateth it), who made themselves wooden crosses, and carried them on their backs, continually pleaded Mat 16:24 ; to make for them. This was, as Mr Tyndale saith in another case, to think to quench their thirst by sucking the ale bowl.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17. ] This parable is not a repetition of the previous one, but a stronger and more exact setting forth of the truth in hand. As is frequently our Lord’s practice in His parables, He advances from the immediate subject to something more spiritual and higher, and takes occasion from answering a cavil, to preach the sublimest truths. The garment was something outward; this wine is poured in , is something inward , the spirit of the system. The former parable respected the outward freedom and simple truthfulness of the New Covenant; this regards its inner spirit, its pervading principle. And admirably does the parable describe the vanity of the attempt to keep the new wine in the , the old ceremonial man, unrenewed in the spirit of his mind: : the new wine is something too living and strong for so weak a moral frame; it shatters the fair outside of ceremonial seeming; and , the spirit is lost, the man is neither a blameless Jew nor a faithful Christian; both are spoiled. And then the result: not merely the damaging, but the utter destruction of the vessel, .
According to some expositors, the new patch and new wine denote the fasting; the old garment and old bottles , the disciples . , , . . Chrysostom, Hom. in Matt. xxx. 4, p. 353. This view is stated and defended at some length by Neander, Leben Jesu, p. 346, note; but I own seems to me, as to De Wette, far-fetched. For how can fasting be called , or how compared to new wine? And Neander himself, when he comes to explain the important addition in Luke (on which see Luk 5:39 , and note), is obliged to change the meaning, and understand the new wine of the spirit of the Gospel. It was and is the custom in the East to carry their wine on a journey in leather bottles , generally of goats’ skin, sometimes of asses’ or camels’ skin. (Winer, Realwrterbuch, ‘Schlauch.’)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 9:17 . The new parable of the wine and wine-skins is introduced, not merely because the Speaker is full of matter, but because it enables Him aptly to show both sides of the question, the twofold application of the principle. : nobody puts new wine into old skins; applied to wine, to skins ( ). is new in time, in quality. That which is new in time does not necessarily deteriorate with age; it may even improve. That which is new in quality always deteriorates with age, like skins or cloth, vide Trench’s Synonyms , lx. ( vide ad Mat 6:1 ): two disastrous consequences ensue: skins burst, wine spilt. The reason not stated, assumed to be known. New wine ferments, old skins have lost their toughness and stretchableness. “They have become hard leather and give no more” (Koetsveld, De Gelijkenissen , p. 99). That is the one side keep the old to the old. : this is the other the new to the new; new wine in fresh skins, and both are preserved as suiting one another. With reference to the two parables, Schanz remarks that, in the first, the point of comparison is the distinction between part and whole, in the second form and contents are opposed to each other. So after him, Holtzmann in H.C. Weiss takes both parables as explaining the practice of John’s disciples, Holtzmann as giving reasons why Christ’s disciples differed from all others. The truth as above indicated lies between.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
new = freshly made: i.e. young. Greek. neos = new as to time.
old bottles = old or dried skins.
bottles = wine skins.
else = otherwise.
break = burst.
perish = are ruined.
new bottles = fresh wineskins of newer quality or character. Greek. kainos.
preserved = preserved together.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17.] This parable is not a repetition of the previous one, but a stronger and more exact setting forth of the truth in hand. As is frequently our Lords practice in His parables, He advances from the immediate subject to something more spiritual and higher, and takes occasion from answering a cavil, to preach the sublimest truths. The garment was something outward; this wine is poured in, is something inward, the spirit of the system. The former parable respected the outward freedom and simple truthfulness of the New Covenant; this regards its inner spirit, its pervading principle. And admirably does the parable describe the vanity of the attempt to keep the new wine in the , the old ceremonial man, unrenewed in the spirit of his mind: : the new wine is something too living and strong for so weak a moral frame; it shatters the fair outside of ceremonial seeming; and , the spirit is lost, the man is neither a blameless Jew nor a faithful Christian; both are spoiled. And then the result: not merely the damaging, but the utter destruction of the vessel,- .
According to some expositors, the new patch and new wine denote the fasting; the old garment and old bottles, the disciples. , , . . Chrysostom, Hom. in Matt. xxx. 4, p. 353. This view is stated and defended at some length by Neander, Leben Jesu, p. 346, note; but I own seems to me, as to De Wette, far-fetched. For how can fasting be called , or how compared to new wine? And Neander himself, when he comes to explain the important addition in Luke (on which see Luk 5:39, and note), is obliged to change the meaning, and understand the new wine of the spirit of the Gospel. It was and is the custom in the East to carry their wine on a journey in leather bottles, generally of goats skin, sometimes of asses or camels skin. (Winer, Realwrterbuch, Schlauch.)
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 9:17. , leather bottles) which were used instead of casks. The old bottles are the Pharisees; the new, the disciples; the wine, the Gospel.-, will perish) So that they can neither hold that, nor any other wine henceforward.-, both) masculine, as . in ch. Mat 23:17.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
old: Jos 9:4, Job 32:19, Psa 119:83
Reciprocal: Lev 19:19 – mingled 2Ki 5:19 – he said Mar 2:22 – bottles Luk 5:36 – No man 2Co 5:17 – old
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Mat 9:17. Neither do men put new wine into old skins, etc. The skin-bottles common in the East Old ones would burst from the fermenting of the new wine, which would distend new ones without injury. This figure, representing an internal operation, is stronger than the previous one. The living principle of the new covenant, if we attempt to enclose it in the old ceremonial man, is lost, the wine runneth out, and the skim perish; even the form is destroyed.
But they put new wine into fresh skins. The second adjective is not the same as the first. New emergencies require new means. In this case, God had appointed the new means. The former figure seems most applicable to the mistake of Johns disciples; the latter to the subsequent dangers besetting the Apostles. Judaistic Christianity died, form and spirit were destroyed; but the freedom of the gospel for which Paul contended remained. The new life assumes an outward form, differing from the antiquated form, and we must seek to preserve both life and form: both are preserved together.