H2561 — חֶמֶר (chemer)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H2561
Original: חֶמֶר
Transliteration: chemer (kheh'-mer)
Pronunciation: kheh'-mer
Part of Speech: Masculine noun (rare, poetic)
Root: חָמַר (chamar, H2560) — primitive root: "to boil up, ferment (with scum/foam), glow (with redness), daub with pitch"
Aramaic cognate: חֲמַר (chamar, H2562) — 6x in Ezra/Daniel, the standard Aramaic word for "wine" (always clearly inebriating)
Occurrences: 1 occurrence in OT Hebrew (Deut 32:14); Isaiah 27:2 listed by some lexicons is the Qere reading of a word BHSA lemmatizes as חֶמֶד (chemed, "splendour/desire")
First (and only) Occurrence: Deut 32:14 — "and thou didst drink the pure [chemer] blood of the grape"
Hapax Legomenon: YES in pure Hebrew form — chemer as a noun occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible (Deut 32:14). The cognate verb H2560 chamar and the Aramaic noun H2562 chamar supply the wider attestation.

Lexicon Definition¶

Strong's: "From [chamar, H2560]; wine (as fermenting):—pure, red wine."

BDB / Gesenius: חֶמֶר noun masculine — "wine" (in poetry and late), from the root חמר I "to boil up, ferment, foam." The noun names wine from the visible action of its fermenting: the bubbling, foaming, reddening must. The Aramaic cognate חֲמַר is the ordinary prose word for wine in Ezra 6:9; 7:22 and throughout the Belshazzar's-feast narrative (Dan 5:1, 2, 4, 23), where it is unambiguously the intoxicating beverage that renders the king and his court drunk.

Key semantic note: The lexical core of chemer is fermentation itself. The word is built on the verb that describes wine's active working — boiling up, throwing off foam/scum, glowing red. Unlike yayin (H3196), which is a generic noun for "wine," and unlike tirosh (H8492), which can denote the fresh must of the vintage, chemer is named for the fermenting process. The Strong's definition ("wine as fermenting") and Gesenius ("in poetry and late") converge: chemer is the poetic word that foregrounds wine's alcoholic working.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Count	%
pure [blood of the grape]	1	100%

One occurrence, one rendering. The KJV translators took חָמֶר adverbially/adjectivally in Deut 32:14 to modify "blood of the grape," yielding "pure blood of the grape." Most modern translations render it as the standalone noun "wine" in apposition — e.g., NASB "wine, the blood of grapes"; ESV "the blood of the grape you drank"; JPS "foaming grape-blood." The Hebrew consonantal text gives a noun (ms. abs.) that most lexicographers treat as wine named from its ferment.

For comparison, the Aramaic cognate H2562 chamar (6 occ.):

Translation	Count
wine / the wine / of wine	6 (100%)

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Deuteronomy	1	0.1

Plus H2562 chamar (Aramaic):

Book	Count
Daniel	4 (all in ch. 5 — Belshazzar's feast)
Ezra	2 (cultic provisioning for temple)

Pattern: Chemer is exclusively a high-poetic Song-of-Moses term (Deut 32 is Hebrew poetry, not prose). Its Aramaic twin chamar is concentrated in exactly two settings: the royal drunken feast (Dan 5) and the temple wine-ration (Ezra 6–7) — both unmistakably fermented wine.

Semantic Categories¶

Only one Hebrew occurrence, so "categories" here are really the one semantic cluster plus the illuminating Aramaic parallels and the cognate-verb field.

1. Fermented Grape-Wine in Covenant Blessing (Deut 32:14)¶

In the Song of Moses, chemer stands at the climax of a catalog of the richest products of the land that YHWH fed to Jeshurun — butter, milk, fat of lambs and rams, kidney-fat of wheat, and finally "the blood of the grape, chemer." The poetic parallelism is dam-enav ("blood of the grape") || chemer — identifying chemer with the red fermented juice of the vine. The preceding verse names honey and olive oil; the whole list is festal plenty, matured agricultural produce. Grape juice would not be a poetic climax beside cultivated dairy fats and matured grain; the covenant blessing is the full-strength fermented wine of the harvest. - Deut 32:14 — "Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape [dam-enav tishteh chamer]"

2. Aramaic Royal/Cultic Wine (H2562 chamar — cognate reference field)¶

Every Aramaic occurrence names wine that is unambiguously alcoholic: - Dan 5:1 — "Belshazzar the king made a great feast... and drank wine [chamar] before the thousand" - Dan 5:2 — "Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine [chamar], commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels" - Dan 5:4 — "They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver" (drunken idolatry) - Dan 5:23 — "thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine [chamar] in them" - Ezra 6:9 — daily priestly provision: "wheat, salt, wine [chamar], and oil" - Ezra 7:22 — Artaxerxes' decree of temple stores: "wine [chamar] to an hundred baths"

3. The Verb-Field of חמר (H2560 chamar) — "Boiling, Foaming, Reddening"¶

The cognate verb is the conceptual home of chemer and illuminates what the noun names. It occurs 6x with these glosses (KJV): - "are troubled" (Ps 46:3 — waters roaring/foaming; Lam 1:20; 2:11 — bowels in turmoil) - "is foul" (Job 16:16 — face reddened/inflamed with weeping) - "is red" (Ps 75:8 — see below) - "and daubed it" (Ex 2:3 — Moses' ark daubed with chemar-bitumen/pitch)

The verb's core image is a boiling-up, foaming, reddening action — whether of stormy water, a face swollen with tears, bowels churning in grief, bitumen bubbling in pitch-pots, or wine fermenting in the vat. A noun built on this root and applied to wine straightforwardly names wine in its active, fermenting, foaming condition.

The "Foameth" / Ps 75:8 Context¶

Psalm 75:8 (English v. 8 = Hebrew v. 9) is not a chemer-noun verse but is its strongest cognate witness:

"For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine [yayin H3196] is red [chamar H2560 — Qal perf. 3ms]; it is full of mixture [mesek H4538]; and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs [shemarim] thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." (Ps 75:8 KJV)

The parsed Hebrew (Psalm 75:9 MT): - יין (yayin) — wine - חָמַר (chamar, H2560, Qal perfect 3ms) — the verb is the exact root of chemer

KJV renders chamar here as "is red," but the verb's full field is "boil up / foam / ferment / glow red." Many commentators and modern translations (LXX ἄκρατος "unmixed"; JPS "foams"; NET "foams up"; HCSB "foaming") render it "foameth" / "foams up." The same root that produces the noun chemer (Deut 32:14) here describes the cup of YHWH's wrath as a churning, foaming, full-strength fermented wine mixed with spices, whose dregs the wicked must drain. The image requires an actively fermented, inebriating wine — the judgment figure trades on wine's power to intoxicate and disable, then on the bitterness of the lees that remain.

Implication for the water-into-wine question: Where Scripture wishes to name wine as fermented — as actively alcoholic, foaming, full-strength — it has a ready word family (the חמר root) that points straight at fermentation. The poetic tradition (Deut 32; Ps 75; Isa 27 textual variant) uses this root for wine at its fullest richness and potency, whether in covenant blessing (Deut 32:14) or in judgment (Ps 75:8).

Common Collocations¶

Because chemer has only one Hebrew occurrence, "collocations" are drawn from Deut 32:14 itself, from the Aramaic cognate, and from the verb root.

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrence	Context
דָּם dam (blood)	H1818	1x (Deut 32:14)	"blood of the grape" — poetic kenning for red wine; the only Hebrew collocation
עֵנָב enav (grape)	H6025	1x (Deut 32:14)	grape — source of the chemer
שָׁתָה shathah (drink)	H8354	1x (Deut 32:14)	"thou didst drink" — chemer is consumed as a beverage, not used ritually/externally
יַיִן yayin (wine)	H3196	cognate-root pairing (Ps 75:8)	the generic noun that the chamar-verb qualifies as "foaming/red"
מֶסֶךְ mesek (mixture)	H4538	cognate-root pairing (Ps 75:8)	spiced/mixed wine — the wrath-cup is chamar-wine mixed with spices
שְׁמָרִים shemarim (dregs/lees)	H8105	cognate-root pairing (Ps 75:8)	the settled residue of fermented wine; only full-wine has shemarim
שְׁתָה / אֲכַל / שִׁיר (drink/eat/sing)	—	Aramaic pairings Dan 5; Ezra 6	festal and cultic drinking contexts

Word Family / Cognates¶

H2560 חָמַר (chamar) — verb, primitive root: boil up, ferment, foam, be red, daub (6x)
H2562 חֲמַר (chamar) — Aramaic noun, the ordinary prose word for wine in the Aramaic portions (6x: Dan 5; Ezra 6–7)
H2564 חֵמָר (chemar) — noun, "slime, bitumen, pitch" (3x: Gen 11:3; 14:10; Ex 2:3) — same root, applied to the bubbling/foaming asphalt product
H2563 חֹמֶר (chomer) — noun, "heap, mound; mortar; homer (dry measure)" — from the root sense of piled/ churned material

Synonyms¶

No discrete synonym list was returned by search_relationships.py for H2561.

Antonyms¶

No antonyms returned by search_relationships.py for H2561.

Easily Confused Words — The Hebrew "Wine" Constellation¶

Word	Strong's	Translation	Semantic Focus	Fermentation?
יַיִן yayin	H3196	wine (151x)	the generic noun for wine	almost always fermented; occasional festive/neutral use
שֵׁכָר shekar	H7941	strong drink (23x)	intoxicant broader than grape wine	always unambiguously inebriating
תִּירוֹשׁ tirosh	H8492	new wine / wine (39x)	must, new/fresh wine of the vintage	already fermenting or fermented (Hos 4:11 "taketh away the heart")
עָסִיס asis	H6071	sweet/new wine (5x)	pressed juice, often of the year's first vintage	fermenting; Isa 49:26 of drunkenness
מֶסֶךְ mesek	H4538	mixture/spiced wine (1x Ps 75:8)	wine mixed with spices/water	fermented, mixed for potency or dilution
חֶמֶר chemer	H2561	pure/red wine (1x)	wine as fermenting, foaming, red	definitionally fermented — the root means "to ferment"
חֲמַר chamar (Aram.)	H2562	wine (6x)	ordinary Aramaic word for wine	always fermented (Dan 5; Ezra 6–7)
חֶמֶד chemed	H2531	desire/splendour	visually similar lemma; BHSA reads חֶמֶד in Isa 27:2 where Strong's lists חֶמֶר	— (different word; easy textual confusion)

UBS Semantic Domains¶

Code	Domain Label	Notes
001002010007	Liquids	`search_relationships.py` places chemer among liquid terms, fitting the Deut 32:14 "blood of the grape" setting and the broader cognate field.
001002008003005	Wine	Direct match for the study's core claim: chemer belongs to the wine domain, specifically the fermented/foaming side of that vocabulary.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Frequency	Notes
— (no dedicated alignment found in the lxx-map tool for H2561)		The LXX of Deut 32:14 renders dam-enav as "αἷμα σταφυλῆς" ("blood of the grape") and treats chamer/chemer within the phrase. For Aramaic H2562, the LXX uses οἶνος (oinos, G3631). For the verb H2560 chamar in Ps 75:8 the LXX uses ἄκρατος ("unmixed, neat"), a term for strong/undiluted wine.

Bridge to NT: The LXX rendering of Ps 75:8 chamar-wine as ἄκρατος (unmixed, full-strength wine) is significant — it is the same word used of God's wrath poured "unmixed" in Rev 14:10 ("the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture [ἄκρατος] into the cup of his indignation"). The Johannine apocalyptic "cup of wrath" imagery is built directly on the Ps 75:8 chamar/ἄκρατος tradition.