Philologos
Bible Prophecy Research
Title: Winepress
Submitted by: research-bpr@philologos.org
Date: March 23, 1998
Update: April 06, 2001
URL: http://philologos.org/bpr/files/w001.htm
Winepress
"And the winepress was trodden without the city, and the blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs."
Revelation 14:20
I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment...I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth. -- Isaiah 63:3,6
Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen around about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. -- Joel 3:11-14
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. -- Revelation 14:19
And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. -- Revelation 19:15
"Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table. So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel." -- 1 Kings 18:19-20
"Kerem-El, the ancient Canaanites named it: 'The Vineyard of [the god] El.' It was an ancient high and holy place, long associated with the worship and religious rites of the Canaanites. The grandeur of Carmel filled the inhabitants of the land with awe."
(A Beacon in the Darkness, David Roper)
"The structure of Carmel is in the main the Jura formation (upper oolite), which is prevalent in the centre of Western Palestine--a soft white limestone, with nodules and veins of flint. As usual in limestone formations it abounds in caves ('more than 2000,' Mislin), often of great length and extremely tortuous. (Rev 6:15-17)
"There is good reason to believe that a later incident in the life of the same great prophet [Elijah] took place on Carmel. This was when he 'caused fire to come down from heaven' and consume the two 'fifties' of the guard which Ahaziah had despatched to take him prisoner, for having stopped his messengers to Baal-zebub the god of Ekron. In this narrative our Version, as is too frequently the case, conceals the force of the original by imperfect translation. 'A hill' (v 9) should be 'the mount,' the word always used for Carmel, and, in connection with Elijah, for Carmel only, with the exception of Sinai, which of course cannot be intended here."
(Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 1872)
"And Elijah said to them, Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape. And they took them: and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew them there."--1 Kings 18:40
"At the prayer of Elijah, fire falls from heaven, devouring the wood, stone, and water as well as the victim. The people are convinced, and shout, 'Jehovah, he is God; Jehovah, he is God.' That evening Kishon's flood, as of old (Judges 5:21), is red with the blood of Jehovah's enemies."
(Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible)
Kishon, the river, a torrent or winter stream of central Palestine, the scene of two of the grandest achievements of Israelite history--the defeat of Sisera, and the destruction of the prophets of Baal by Elijah.
The Nahr Mukutta [the river of slaughter], the modern representative of the Kishon, is the drain by which the waters of the plain of Esdraelon, and of the mountains which inclose that plain, namely, Carmel and the Samaria range on the south, the mountains of Galilee on the north, and Gilboa, 'Little Hermon' (so called), and Tabor on the east, find their way to the Mediterranean. Its course is in a direction nearly due N.W. along the lower part of the plain nearest the foot of the Samarian hills, and close beneath the very cliffs of Carmel, breaking through the hills which separate the plain of Esdraelon from the maritime plain of Acre,...It is also fed by the copious spring of Lejjun, the stream from which is probably the 'waters of Megiddo.' During the winter and spring, and after sudden storms of rain, the upper part of the Kishon flows with a very strong torrent; so strong, that in the battle of Mount Tabor, April 16, 1799, some of the circumstances of the defeat of Sisera were reproduced, many of the fugitive Turks being drowned in the wady [sic] from Deburieh, which then inundated a part of the plain. At the same seasons the ground about Lejjun (Megiddo) where the principal encounter with Sisera would seem to have taken place, becomes a morass, impassable for even single travellers, and truly destruction for a huge horde like his army.
But like most of the so-called 'rivers' of Palestine, the perennial stream forms but a small part of the Kishon. During the greater part of the year its upper portion is dry, and the stream confined to a few miles next the sea. The sources of this perennial portion proceed from the roots of Carmel--the 'vast fountains called Sa'adiyeh, about three miles east of Chaifa' (Thomson), and those, apparently still more copious, described by Shaw, as bursting forth from beneath the eastern brow of Carmel, and discharging of themselves 'a river half as big as the Isis.' It enters the sea at the lower part of the bay of Akka, about two miles east of Chaifa, 'in a deep tortuous bed between banks of loamy soil some 15 feet high, and 15 to 20 yards apart' (Porter). Between the mouth and the town the shore is lined by an extensive grove of date-palms, one of the finest in Palestine.
The part of the Kishon at which the prophets of Baal were slaughtered by Elijah was doubtless close below the spot on Carmel where the sacrifice had taken place. This spot is now fixed with all but certainty, as at the extreme east end of the mountain, to which the name is still attached of el-Mahrakah, 'the burning.' Nowhere does the Kishon run so close to the mountain as just beneath this spot (Van de Velde). It is about 1000 feet above the river, and a precipitous ravine leads directly down, by which the victims were perhaps hurried from the sacred precincts of the altar of Jehovah to their doom in the torrent bed below, at the foot of the mound, which from this circumstance may be called Tell Kusis, the hill of the priests.
(Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 1872)