H3196 — יַיִן (yayin)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H3196
Original: יַיִן
Transliteration: yayin
Pronunciation: yah'-yin
Part of Speech: Masculine noun
Root: From an unused root meaning "to effervesce" (to ferment, bubble up)
Occurrences: 151 tokens in 134 unique verses, across 31 books
First Occurrence: Gen 9:21 — "And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent."
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

From an unused root meaning "to effervesce"; wine (as fermented); by implication, intoxication:—banqueting, wine, wine(-bibber).

The morphology itself is load-bearing: yayin is formed from a root denoting effervescence/fermentation. The lexicon explicitly qualifies the word as "fermented" and notes "intoxication" as a secondary metonymic extension. Every canonical lexicon (BDB, HALOT, TWOT, Strong's) treats yayin as the fermented product of the grape — it is not a term for fresh juice.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
wine (bare)	47	35.1%
of wine	23	17.2%
the wine	12	9.0%
and wine	10	7.5%
with wine	7	5.2%
and the wine	5	3.7%
than wine / more than wine	3	2.2%
banqueting (Est 7:8)	1	0.7%
winebibber (Prov 23:20)	1	0.7%
other prepositional forms	25	18.7%

Every substantive KJV rendering is "wine" or "winebibber/banqueting" — there is no neutral "juice" translation in the KJV for yayin.

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Esther	6	3.6
Amos	5	3.4
Joel	2	2.7
Haggai	1	2.6
Hosea	4	2.0
Micah	2	1.9
Zephaniah	1	1.9
Habakkuk	1	1.8
Ecclesiastes	3	1.4
Proverbs	10	1.1
Daniel	4	1.1
Nehemiah	4	1.0
Isaiah	13	1.0
1 Samuel	7	0.9
Jeremiah	12	0.9
Zechariah	2	0.9
Genesis	10	0.7
Judges	4	0.6
Lamentations	1	0.6
Deuteronomy	5	0.5
Numbers	7	0.5
2 Chronicles	3	0.4
2 Samuel	3	0.4
1 Chronicles	3	0.3
Joshua	2	0.3
Job	3	0.3
Psalms	4	0.2
Leviticus	2	0.2
Ezekiel	2	0.2
Exodus	1	0.1

Patterns: Highest density in Esther (royal banquet setting) and the Minor Prophets (judgment/drunkenness oracles). Broad coverage — Torah, Historical, Wisdom, and Prophets all use it. Dominant in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Proverbs, and Genesis. Present in cultic texts (Lev, Num, Deu) for drink offerings and Nazirite prohibitions.

Semantic Categories¶

1. Cultic Drink Offering (Nesek)¶

The regulated libation accompanying sacrifices. Explicitly fermented wine is poured out to the LORD as a "sweet savour." - Exod 29:40 — "the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering" - Num 15:5, 15:7, 15:10, 28:14 — graded hin-measures of wine for lamb, ram, bull offerings - Deut 32:38 — "drank the wine of their drink offerings"

2. Priestly / Nazirite Prohibition¶

Wine is banned for those in sacred duty — presupposing that ordinary yayin is intoxicating enough to impair judgment. - Lev 10:9 — "Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle" - Num 6:3–4, 6:20 — Nazirite separated from wine, strong drink, vinegar of wine, grapes, raisins - Judg 13:4, 13:7, 13:14 — Samson's mother forbidden wine during pregnancy - Ezek 44:21 — "Neither shall any priest drink wine, when they enter into the inner court" - Jer 35:6, 35:8, 35:14 — Rechabites' vow: "We will drink no wine" - Dan 1:8, 1:16, 10:3 — Daniel declines the king's wine

3. Intoxication / Drunkenness (Explicit)¶

Yayin directly produces drunkenness in the narrative — the first occurrence sets the paradigm. - Gen 9:21, 9:24 — Noah "drank of the wine, and was drunken… awoke from his wine" - Gen 19:32–35 — Lot's daughters make their father drink wine to incapacitate him - 1 Sam 1:14 — Eli thinks Hannah is drunk: "put away thy wine from thee" - 1 Sam 25:37 — "when the wine was gone out of Nabal" (sobering up the morning after) - Prov 20:1 — "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise" - Prov 23:30–31 — "they that tarry long at the wine… look not thou upon the wine when it is red… it moveth itself aright" - Isa 28:7 — "they also have erred through wine… the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink" - Isa 5:11, 5:22 — woes on those "mighty to drink wine" - Hos 4:11 — "Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart" - Hab 2:5 — "he transgresseth by wine"

4. Blessing / Covenant Provision / Joy¶

Yayin is gift, abundance, covenant blessing, and source of gladness — the same fermented substance. - Gen 14:18 — Melchizedek brings forth "bread and wine" to Abram - Gen 27:25 — Isaac eats and drinks wine before blessing Jacob - Gen 49:11–12 — Judah's blessing: "he washed his garments in wine… his eyes shall be red with wine" - Deut 14:26 — tithe feast: "wine, or for strong drink… thou shalt rejoice" - Psa 104:15 — "wine that maketh glad the heart of man" (indexed but text not in KJV extract) - Eccl 9:7 — "drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works" - Eccl 10:19 — "wine maketh merry" - Isa 55:1 — "come, buy wine and milk without money" - Zech 10:7 — "their heart shall rejoice as through wine"

5. Royal / Banquet Setting¶

Wine defines the formal feast (mishteh). Esther's six uses cluster here. - Est 1:7, 1:10, 5:6, 7:2, 7:7, 7:8 — "banquet of wine" (mishteh ha-yayin); "when the heart of the king was merry with wine" - 2 Sam 13:28 — "when Amnon's heart is merry with wine" - Dan 1:5, 5 (implied) — Babylonian court provision of wine - Neh 2:1, 5:18 — Persian court wine service

6. Economic / Agricultural Commodity¶

Wine as stored produce, tithe, tribute, trade good. - 1 Chr 27:27 — "wine cellars" - 2 Chr 2:10, 2:15, 11:11 — wine in royal stores and tribute - Neh 5:15, 5:18, 13:15 — Persian-era provisioning; treading winepresses on Sabbath - Hag 2:12 — wine as transferable food commodity - Ezek 27:18 — Damascus trades "wine of Helbon"

7. Judgment / Wrath Imagery¶

Wine as metaphor for divine wrath — the cup poured out on nations. Draws on intoxication's disorienting, overthrowing power. - Psa 60:3, 75:8 — "wine of astonishment"; "in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red" - Jer 25:15 — "Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations… to drink it" - Jer 51:7 — "Babylon hath been a golden cup… the nations have drunken of her wine" - Deut 32:33 — "Their wine is the poison of dragons" - Prov 4:17 — "the wine of violence"

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
שָׁתָה (shathah) "drink"	H8354	39x (29%)	"drink wine" — the default verb; present in every prohibition and every blessing
שֵׁכָר (shekar) "strong drink"	H7941	18x (13%)	fixed word-pair "yayin we-shekar" in prohibitions (Lev 10:9; Num 6:3; Deut 29:6; Judg 13:4; Isa 5:11, 22; 28:7; 56:12)
לֶחֶם (lechem) "bread"	H3899	19x (14%)	"bread and wine" — table provision (Gen 14:18; Judg 19:19; 1 Sam 16:20; Lam 2:12)
שֶׁמֶן (shemen) "oil"	H8081	15x (11%)	wine-oil-grain triad; covenant produce
אָכַל (akal) "eat"	H398	21x (16%)	"eat bread / drink wine" — full meal
לֹא (lo) "not"	H3808	37x (28%)	frequent negation — reflects density of prohibition contexts
יְהוָה (YHWH)	H3068	18x (13%)	cultic / covenantal framing
מֶלֶךְ (melek) "king"	H4428	14x (10%)	royal banquet setting
בַּיִת (bayith) "house"	H1004	14x (10%)	"house of wine" (banquet hall)
נָתַן (nathan) "give"	H5414	11x (8%)	wine as gift/offering

Signal finding: yayin co-occurs with shekar ("strong drink") in 18 of 134 verses (13.4%). The formulaic pair "wine and strong drink" is the Torah's standard way to name intoxicants jointly — it is never coupled with an unfermented-juice term. yayin co-occurs with the verb shathah ("drink") in 29% of its occurrences; the canonical action associated with yayin is drinking it.

Word Family / Cognates¶

יַיִן itself derives from a root meaning "to effervesce / ferment" — the morphology encodes the fermentation process.

Synonyms¶

H8492 תִּירוֹשׁ (tirosh) — fresh/new wine vocabulary; the closest parallel within the grape-wine field, though typically earlier in the vintage cycle than yayin.
H7941 שֵׁכָר (shekar) — strong drink; broader intoxicant term frequently paired with yayin in legal and narrative settings.
H6071 עָסִיס (asis) — sweet/new wine; overlaps with yayin within the broader fermented grape-product field.
H6025 עֵנָב (enab) — grapes; not a direct synonym, but search_relationships.py surfaced it inside the same grape/wine cluster.
H2558 חֹמֶץ (chomets) — vinegar / sour wine; a fermented derivative adjacent to yayin rather than a straight equivalent.

Antonyms¶

No antonyms returned by search_relationships.py for H3196.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
תִּירוֹשׁ (tirosh)	H8492	"wine" / "new wine"	Tirosh is often paired with yayin as a distinct item (grain-wine-oil triad); typically refers to the fresh vintage or must, but even tirosh takes away the heart (Hos 4:11) and makes drunk (Isa 24:7). Not a synonym for non-alcoholic juice.
שֵׁכָר (shekar)	H7941	"strong drink"	Fermented beverage from grain, dates, honey — stronger than typical wine. Paired with yayin in prohibitions.
חֲמַר (chamar)	H2562	"wine"	Aramaic cognate; used in Dan 5 for Belshazzar's feast wine and in Ezra for temple-service wine.
סֹבֶא (sobe)	H5435	"drink" / "wine"	Rare; implies heavy drinking, potation (Isa 1:22; Hos 4:18; Nah 1:10).
עֵנָב (enab)	H6025	"grape" / "of wine"	The grape itself, the raw fruit. Distinct from the fermented product.
עָסִיס (asis)	H6071	"new wine" / "sweet wine"	Fresh-pressed, but even asis is intoxicating (Joel 1:5; Isa 49:26).

KJV overlap: yayin, tirosh, chamar, shekar, sobe all translate "wine" in various KJV verses. LXX overlap: all of these cluster onto Greek οἶνος (G3631) and σίκερα (G4608), which is why the NT vocabulary for wine inherits the whole Hebrew semantic field.

UBS Semantic Domains¶

Code	Domain Label	Notes
001002010007	Liquids	`search_relationships.py` places yayin in the broader liquid/beverage field alongside milk, vinegar, and related terms.
001002008003005	Wine	Direct lexical match for the fermented-wine semantic field documented throughout this study.
001002008003002	Crops	Secondary agricultural placement reflecting wine as vineyard produce, stored provision, and covenant produce.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI	Notes
οἶνος (oinos)	G3631	115	6.95	Primary — yayin maps to oinos in ~86% of LXX renderings. This is the single strongest Hebrew-Greek lexical bridge in the wine vocabulary.
πίνω (pino) "drink"	G4095	40	5.13	collocational carry-over (Heb. shathah)
σίκερα (sikera) "strong drink"	G4608	12	7.41	word-pair with oinos = yayin we-shekar
μεθύω (methyo) "be drunk"	G3184	9	5.34	intoxication verb — direct semantic carry-over
μέθη (methe) "drunkenness"	G3178	4	6.53	abstract noun for drunkenness
ποτήριον (poterion) "cup"	G4221	6	5.30	cup-of-wine imagery (wrath, blessing)
ἀσκός (askos) "wineskin"	G779	5	6.15	fermentation vessel

Critical bridge for NT study: With 115 LXX co-occurrences at PMI 6.95, yayin → oinos is one of the tightest cross-testament lexical equivalences in the whole Hebrew-Greek bridge. This means: when a first-century Greek-speaking Jew or Christian heard οἶνος, the semantic content they imported was exactly the range catalogued above — fermented, capable of intoxication, covenant blessing, cultic drink offering, royal banquet, joy-producing, prohibition-worthy in priestly service. The NT οἶνος in John 2, Eph 5:18, 1 Tim 3:8, etc., inherits the yayin field wholesale. There is no evidence in the LXX translators' choices that οἶνος was ever understood to mean unfermented grape juice.