Numbers 6:3

6:3 he must separate ¹  himself from wine and strong drink, he must drink neither vinegar ²  made from wine nor vinegar made from strong drink, nor may he drink any juice ³  of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or raisins. ⁴ 

Numbers 6:20

6:20 then the priest must wave them as a wave offering ⁵  before the Lord; it is a holy portion for the priest, together with the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the raised offering. ⁶  After this the Nazirite may drink ⁷  wine.’

Proverbs 31:4-5

31:4 It is not for kings, ⁸  O Lemuel,

it is not for kings to drink wine, ⁹ 

or for rulers to crave strong drink, ¹⁰ 

31:5 lest they drink and forget what is decreed,

and remove ¹¹  from all the poor ¹²  their legal rights. ¹³ 

Isaiah 28:7

28:7 Even these men ¹⁴  stagger because of wine,

they stumble around because of beer –

priests and prophets stagger because of beer,

they are confused ¹⁵  because of wine,

they stumble around because of beer;

they stagger while seeing prophetic visions, ¹⁶ 

they totter while making legal decisions. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 35:5-6

35:5 Then I set cups and pitchers full of wine in front of the members of the Rechabite community and said to them, “Have some wine.” ¹⁸  35:6 But they answered, “We do not drink wine because our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us not to. He told us, ‘You and your children must never drink wine.

Ezekiel 44:21

44:21 No priest may drink wine when he enters the inner court.

Luke 1:15

1:15 for he will be great in the sight of ¹⁹  the Lord. He ²⁰  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ²¹ 

Ephesians 5:18

5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, which ²²  is debauchery, ²³  but be filled by the Spirit, ²⁴ 

Ephesians 5:1

Live in Love

5:1 Therefore, be ²⁵  imitators of God as dearly loved children

Ephesians 3:3

3:3 that ²⁶  by revelation the divine secret ²⁷  was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly. ²⁸ 

Ephesians 3:8

3:8 To me – less than the least of all the saints ²⁹  – this grace was given, ³⁰  to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ

Ephesians 5:23

5:23 because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church – he himself being the savior of the body.

Titus 1:7

1:7 For the overseer ³¹  must be blameless as one entrusted with God’s work, ³²  not arrogant, not prone to anger, not a drunkard, not violent, not greedy for gain.

[6:3]  ¹ tn The operative verb now will be the Hiphil of נָזַר (nazar); the consecration to the Lord meant separation from certain things in the world. The first will be wine and strong drink – barley beer (from Akkadian sikaru, a fermented beer). But the second word may be somewhat wider in its application than beer. The Nazirite, then, was to avoid all intoxicants as a sign of his commitment to the Lord. The restriction may have proved a hardship in the daily diet of the one taking the vow, but it spoke a protest to the corrupt religious and social world that used alcohol to excess.

[6:3]  ² tn The “vinegar” (חֹמֶץ, homets) is some kind of drink preparation that has been allowed to go sour.

[6:3]  ³ tn This word occurs only here. It may come from the word “to water, to be moist,” and so refer to juice.

[6:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “dried” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[6:20]  ⁵ sn The ritual of lifting the hands filled with the offering and waving them in the presence of the Lord was designed to symbolize the transfer of the offering to God in the sight of all. This concludes the worshiper’s part; the offering now becomes the property of the priest – his priest’s due (or “raised/heave offering”).

[6:20]  ⁶ sn The “wave offering” may be interpreted as a “special gift” to be transferred to the Lord, and the “heave offering” as a “special contribution” to God – the priest’s due. These two offerings have also inspired a good deal of study.

[6:20]  ⁷ tn The imperfect tense here would then have the nuance of permission. It is not an instruction at this point; rather, the prohibition has been lifted and the person is free to drink wine.

[31:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “[It is] not for kings.”

[31:4]  ⁹ sn This second warning for kings concerns the use of alcohol. If this passage is meant to prohibit any use of alcohol by kings, it would be unheard of in any ancient royal court. What is probably meant is an excessive and unwarranted use of alcohol, or a troubling need for it, so that the meaning is “to drink wine in excess” (cf. NLT “to guzzle wine”; CEV “should not get drunk”). The danger, of course, would be that excessive use of alcohol would cloud the mind and deprive a king of true administrative ability and justice.

[31:4]  ¹⁰ tn The MT has אֵו (’ev), a Kethib/Qere reading. The Kethib is אוֹ (’o) but the Qere is אֵי (’ey). Some follow the Qere and take the word as a shortened form of וַֹיֵּה, “where?” This would mean the ruler would be always asking for drink (cf. ASV). Others reconstruct to אַוֵּה (’avveh, “to desire; to crave”). In either case, the verse would be saying that a king is not to be wanting/seeking alcohol.

[31:5]  ¹¹ tn The verb means “change,” perhaps expressed in reversing decisions or removing rights.

[31:5]  ¹² tn Heb “all the children of poverty.” This expression refers to the poor by nature. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the afflicted”; NIV “oppressed.”

[31:5]  ¹³ sn The word is דִּין (din, “judgment”; so KJV). In this passage it refers to the cause or the plea for justice, i.e., the “legal rights.”

[28:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “these.” The demonstrative pronoun anticipates “priests and prophets” two lines later.

[28:7]  ¹⁵ tn According to HALOT 135 s.v. III בלע, the verb form is derived from בָּלַע (bala’, “confuse”), not the more common בָּלַע (“swallow”). See earlier notes at 3:12 and 9:16.

[28:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in the seeing.”

[28:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[in] giving a decision.”

[35:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Drink wine.”

[1:15]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “before.”

[1:15]  ²⁰ tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.

[1:15]  ²¹ tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.

[5:18]  ²² tn Grk “in which.”

[5:18]  ²³ tn Or “dissipation.” See BDAG 148 s.v. ἀσωτία.

[5:18]  ²⁴ tn Many have taken ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati) as indicating content, i.e., one is to be filled with the Spirit. ExSyn 375 states, “There are no other examples in biblical Greek in which ἐν + the dative after πληρόω indicates content. Further, the parallel with οἴνῳ as well as the common grammatical category of means suggest that the idea intended is that believers are to be filled by means of the [Holy] Spirit. If so there seems to be an unnamed agent. The meaning of this text can only be fully appreciated in light of the πληρόω language in Ephesians. Always the term is used in connection with a member of the Trinity. Three considerations seem to be key: (1) In Eph 3:19 the ‘hinge’ prayer introducing the last half of the letter makes a request that the believers ‘be filled with all the fullness of God’ (πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ). The explicit content of πληρόω is thus God’s fullness (probably a reference to his moral attributes). (2) In 4:10 Christ is said to be the agent of filling (with v. 11 adding the specifics of his giving spiritual gifts). (3) The author then brings his argument to a crescendo in 5:18: Believers are to be filled by Christ by means of the Spirit with the content of the fullness of God.”

[5:1]  ²⁵ tn Or “become.”

[3:3]  ²⁶ tn Or “namely, that is.”

[3:3]  ²⁷ tn Or “mystery.”

[3:3]  ²⁸ tn Or “as I wrote above briefly.”

[3:8]  ²⁹ sn In Pauline writings saints means any true believer. Thus for Paul to view himself as less than the least of all the saints is to view himself as the most unworthy object of Christ’s redemption.

[3:8]  ³⁰ sn The parallel phrases to proclaim and to enlighten which follow indicate why God’s grace was manifested to Paul. Grace was not something just to be received, but to be shared with others (cf. Acts 13:47).

[1:7]  ³¹ sn The overseer is another term for the same official position of leadership as the “elder.” This is seen in the interchange of the two terms in this passage and in Acts 20:17, 28, as well as in the parallels between these verses and 1 Tim 3:1-7.

[1:7]  ³² tn Grk “as God’s steward.”