So shall thy barns be filled with plenty. The promise held out to encourage the devotion of one's wealth to Jehovah's service, while supplying a motive which at first sight appears selfish and questionable, is in reality a trial of faith.
Few persons find it easy to realize that giving away will increase their store (Wardlaw). The teacher is warranted in bringing forward this promise by the language of Moses in Deuteronomy 28:1-8, whine, among other things, he promises that Jehovah will command a blessing upon the "storehouses" and industry of those who honour God.
The principle is otherwise expressed in Proverbs 11:25, "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be also watered himself;" and it is exemplified in Haggai 1:3-11; Haggai 2:15, Haggai 2:19; Malachi 3:10-12, and in the New Testament in Philippians 4:14-19; 2 Corinthians 9:6-8.
Thy barns; asameykha, the only form in which asam, "a storehouse," "barn," or "granary," occurs. The Hebrew asam is the same as the Latin horreum (Vulgate) and the Greek ταμιεῖον (LXX.). With plenty (sava); Vulgate, saturitas; i.
e. fulness, abundance, plenty. The root sava is "to become satisfied," and that richly satisfied. This expression and the following, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine, depict the greatest abundance.
Thy presses (y'kaveykhu). The word here translated "presses" is, strictly speaking," vats" or "reservoirs," into which the must from the wine press flowed. The wine press consisted of two parts, the gath (equivalent to the Latin torcularium, torculum, or torcular; Greek, ληνός, Matthew 21:33), into which the grapes were collected from the surrounding vineyard, and there trodden underfoot by several persons (Nehemiah 13:15: Isaiah 63:3; Lamentations 1:15), whose movements were regulated by singing or shouting (Isaiah 16:10; Jeremiah 48:33), as among the Greeks and Egyptians; and the yekev, used here, which was a trough of corresponding size, dug into the ground, or cut out of a rack, at a lower level, to receive the must.
The yekev corresponded with the Greek ὑπολήνιον, mentioned in Mark 12:1-44:l, and the Latin lacus (Ovid, 'Fasti,' 5.888; Pliny, 'Epist.,' 9.20; 'Colum. de Rust.,' 12.18): Cajeterus, indeed, reads, lacus torcularii.
The word yekev is, however, used for the wine press itself in Job 24:11 and 2 Kings 6:27. Shall burst out (yiph'rotsu); literally, they shall extend themselves; i.e. shall overflow. Parats, "to break," is here used metaphorically in the sense of "to be redundant," "to overflow" (cf.
2 Samuel 5:20). It is employed intransitively of a people spreading themselves abroad, or increasing, in Genesis 28:14; Exodus 1:12. New wine (tirosh); Vulgate, Arabic, and Syriac, vino; LXX; οἴνῳ; properly, as in the Authorized Version, "new wine;" Latin, mustum (see Deuteronomy 33:28; Isaiah 36:17; Isaiah 55:1).