H8492 — תִּירוֹשׁ (tîyrôwsh)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H8492
Original: תִּירוֹשׁ
Transliteration: tîyrôwsh (tirosh)
Pronunciation: tee-roshe'
Part of Speech: Masculine noun
Root: From an unused root in the sense of expulsion (i.e. "pressed/squeezed out")
Occurrences: 38 unique verses (39 tokens) across 16 books
First Occurrence: Gen 27:28 — "Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine (tirosh)"
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

"From an unused root in the sense of expulsion; must or fresh grape-juice (as just squeezed out); by implication (rarely) fermented wine: — (new, sweet) wine."

The primary lexical sense is the freshly expressed juice of the grape (Latin mustum), the product as it comes from the press. Strong's notes that the fermented sense is only rare and by implication, not the core meaning. It is typically distinguished from יַיִן (yayin, H3196), which is the general word for wine (fermented) and derived from a root meaning "to effervesce."

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
wine (with article/conjunction variants)	22	58%
new wine	11	29%
sweet wine	1	3%
other (thy/my/their wine, etc.)	4	10%

KJV most frequently renders H8492 as "wine," but in every case it represents the produce-of-the-field term, not the wineskin/cup term. "New wine" is the second-most-common rendering and captures the lexical sense more precisely.

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Joel	3	4.1
Hosea	6	3.0
Haggai	1	2.6
Nehemiah	5	1.2
Micah	1	1.0
Deuteronomy	7	0.7
Zechariah	1	0.5
Isaiah	4	0.3
2 Chronicles	2	0.2
Judges	1	0.2
Genesis	2	0.1
2 Kings	1	0.1
Numbers	1	0.1
Jeremiah	1	0.1
Proverbs	1	0.1
Psalms	1	0.0

Pattern: Heavily concentrated in prophets addressing agricultural covenant blessings/curses (Joel, Hosea, Haggai, Micah, Zechariah) and in Deuteronomy's covenant-blessing formulae. Almost absent from narrative (Genesis/Judges/Kings) and wisdom literature (only Pro 3:10; Psa 4:7) — tirosh is a harvest vocabulary word, not a banquet/drinking vocabulary word.

Semantic Categories¶

1. The Triad: Corn (dagan) + Tirosh + Oil (yitshar) — Agricultural Produce¶

The dominant usage (appearing in over half of all occurrences). Tirosh stands in the second position of a fixed produce-triad representing the three staple yields of the land: grain, grape-product, olive-product. In every case the three are listed as agricultural commodities — not drinks served at tables.

Deut 7:13 — "thy corn, and thy wine (tirosh), and thine oil"
Deut 11:14 — "thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine (tirosh), and thine oil"
Hos 2:8 — "I gave her corn, and wine (tirosh), and oil"
Joel 2:19 — "I will send you corn, and wine (tirosh), and oil"
Hag 1:11 — "drought... upon the corn, and upon the new wine (tirosh), and upon the oil"

2. Firstfruits and Tithe Offerings¶

Tirosh is repeatedly the object of offerings brought to the LORD — part of the produce tithed, not the cup poured. The parallel with raw grain and raw oil (both pre-processed) strongly suggests the product is in its unprocessed state.

Num 18:12 — "the best of the wine (tirosh)... the firstfruits of them which they shall offer"
Deut 18:4 — "The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine (tirosh), and of thine oil"
Neh 10:37, 39 — tirosh brought to the storehouse chambers of the sanctuary
Neh 13:12 — "the tithe of the corn and the new wine (tirosh) and the oil unto the treasuries"
2 Chr 31:5 — "firstfruits of corn, wine (tirosh), and oil, and honey"

3. Harvest / Vintage-Press Product¶

Tirosh is what fills presses and vats, what is dried up by drought, what "fails" when the harvest fails — i.e. the product-in-production, grape juice as it comes from the treading.

Pro 3:10 — "thy presses shall burst out with new wine (tirosh)"
Joel 2:24 — "the fats shall overflow with wine (tirosh) and oil"
Isa 65:8 — "As the new wine (tirosh) is found in the cluster" (still inside the grape!)
Joel 1:10 — "the corn is wasted: the new wine (tirosh) is dried up"
Hos 9:2 — "the floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine (tirosh) shall fail"

4. Covenant Blessing (abundance of the land)¶

As part of the rhetoric of covenantal prosperity — what the land yields under God's favor.

Gen 27:28 — "plenty of corn and wine (tirosh)" (Isaac's blessing)
Deut 33:28 — "a land of corn and wine (tirosh)"
2 Ki 18:32 / Isa 36:17 — "a land of corn and wine (tirosh)" (Rabshakeh's parody of the covenant formula)
Zech 9:17 — "corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine (tirosh) the maids"
Jer 31:12 — "for wheat, and for wine (tirosh), and for oil"

5. Drinkable / Heart-Affecting Uses (rare)¶

A small set of verses use tirosh where the product is clearly drunk or has an effect on the drinker. These are the texts appealed to for the "fermented" sense.

Judg 9:13 — "Should I leave my wine (tirosh), which cheereth God and man" (Jotham's parable; in parallel with Judg 9:9-11 oil/fig/vine personifications — the vine's product, not necessarily the vine's fermented juice)
Hos 4:11 — "Whoredom and wine (yayin) and new wine (tirosh) take away the heart" — paired here with yayin; the juxtaposition suggests either (a) intensifying synonymy in a condemnation of drunkenness, or (b) that the harvest itself (agricultural abundance → complacency) takes away the heart, paralleling the broader Hosea theme (Hos 2:8) that Israel confused God's agricultural gifts with Baal's blessing
Mic 6:15 — "thou shalt tread the olives... and sweet wine (tirosh), but shalt not drink wine (yayin)" — here tirosh is what is trodden/produced, and yayin is what is drunk; the verse distinguishes them
Hos 7:14 — "they assemble themselves for corn and wine (tirosh)" (context: agricultural provision, not carousing)

Within the Hebrew-only corpus, only Hos 4:11 unambiguously implies an intoxicating effect, and even there the parallelism with yayin is what carries the fermentation sense. No verse clearly requires tirosh alone, apart from yayin, to mean intoxicating drink.

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
יִצְהָר yitshar (fresh oil)	H3323	22× (58%)	Triad: corn + tirosh + yitshar as agricultural produce
כֹּל kol (all)	H3605	11× (29%)	"all the increase/best of..." — totality of harvest
נָתַן nathan (give)	H5414	11× (29%)	"I gave... / I will give..." — YHWH as giver of produce
לֹא loʼ (not)	H3808	10× (26%)	Curse/withholding: "shall not eat/drink your tirosh"
אֶרֶץ erets (land)	H776	7× (18%)	"land of corn and tirosh"
יְהֹוָה YHWH	H3068	7× (18%)	YHWH as source of tirosh
מַעֲשֵׂר maʻasêr (tithe)	H4643	6× (16%)	Tithing formula
צֹאן tsoʼn (flock)	H6629	6× (16%)	Paired with livestock as produce
רֵאשִׁית reʼshiyth (firstfruit/first)	H7225	4× (11%)	"firstfruits of tirosh" — pre-fermentation offering
תְּרוּמָה terumah (heave-offering)	H8641	4× (11%)	Sanctuary offering context
לֵב lêb (heart)	H3820	4× (11%)	Includes Hos 4:11 "take away the heart"
אֲדָמָה adamah (ground)	H127	5× (13%)	Product of the ground

Telling pattern: The dominant collocation (58%) is with yitshar (fresh/new oil, H3323) — not with wine-cups, banquets, or drunkenness vocabulary. The second-tier collocations (tithes, firstfruits, terumah, reʼshiyth) locate tirosh firmly in the produce-offering domain, where offerings of anything fermented would violate the "no leaven" rubric of sanctuary grain offerings (Lev 2:11). That tirosh is freely offered at the sanctuary is internal evidence that it is normally understood as unfermented.

Word Family / Cognates¶

H8492 has no surviving cognate verb in BH; the lexicon posits an unused root meaning "to expel/press out." Its closest cognates are conceptual: - H3196 יַיִן (yayin) — general/fermented wine (from root meaning "to effervesce") - H3342 יֶקֶב (yeqeb) — wine-vat / press (the vessel tirosh is pressed into) - H6071 עָסִיס (asis) — sweet/pressed juice - H2561 חֶמֶר (chemer) — fermented/foaming wine - H2562 חֲמַר (chamar, Aramaic) — wine

Synonyms¶

search_relationships.py groups tîyrôwsh with the broader agricultural-produce cluster more than with strict one-word synonyms:

H1715 דָּגָן (dagan) — grain/corn; the staple triad partner most often paired with tîyrôwsh in covenant-blessing formulas
H3323 יִצְהָר (yitshar) — fresh oil; the other fixed member of the grain-wine-oil produce triad
H1706 דְּבַשׁ (debash) — honey/sweet produce; another land-yield term in abundance lists
H6593 פֵּשֶׁת (pesheth) — flax; included by the relationship tool in the wider crops/produce field
H6785 צֶמֶר (tsemer) — wool; another agrarian-product neighbor in the same lexical field

Antonyms¶

No antonyms returned by search_relationships.py for H8492.

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
יַיִן yayin	H3196	"wine" (140× for yayin vs 38× for tirosh)	yayin = wine as drink, from root "effervesce"; named in drunkenness, cup, and banquet contexts. Tirosh = produce-of-the-press, named in harvest, tithe, and triad contexts.
חֲמַר chamar	H2562	"wine" (Aramaic, 6×)	Aramaic cognate of yayin; used in Daniel's banquet scenes
יֶקֶב yeqeb	H3342	"wine" (once, via vessel→content)	Actually denotes the vat into which grapes are trodden
οἶνος oinos	G3631	"wine" (NT)	Generic Greek term; in LXX translates both yayin and tirosh

The yayin / tirosh contrast is the central question for the "alcoholic wine?" debate. The two words are not synonyms in classical Hebrew usage: - yayin is what Noah was drunk on (Gen 9:21), what Lot's daughters used (Gen 19), what Nazirites forbid (Num 6:3 — where they abstain from both, showing they are distinct), what Nabal drank (1 Sam 25:37), what priests must not drink on duty (Lev 10:9). - tirosh is what the presses burst with (Pro 3:10), what is "in the cluster" (Isa 65:8), what fills the vats at harvest (Joel 2:24), what is offered as firstfruits (Deut 18:4). It is never the object of a drinking verb without qualification; it is never forbidden to priests or Nazirites.

Numbers 6:3 is decisive: the Nazirite is to "separate himself from yayin and shekar (strong drink)" — tirosh is not mentioned, because tirosh as such is not the category of intoxicating drink the vow addresses.

Semantic Domains¶

UBS / Relationship Domains¶

[001002010007] Liquids — places tîyrôwsh in the broader liquid-substances field alongside blood, milk, vinegar, and other pourable substances.
[001002008003005] Wine — identifies the narrower wine/beverage domain, clustering tîyrôwsh with yayin, chemer, and related wine terms.
[001002008003002] Crops — explains why the relationship data also pulls tîyrôwsh into the produce field with grain and other land-yield vocabulary.

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Co-occurrences	PMI	Notes
σῖτος (sitos, grain/wheat) G4621	31	7.97	Collocation — the triad partner, not the translation
οἶνος (oinos, wine) G3631	37	7.01	Primary translation equivalent
ἔλαιον (elaion, oil) G1637	23	6.32	Collocation — the triad partner
ἀπαρχή (aparchē, firstfruit) G536	7	6.20	Offering contexts
ληνός (lēnos, wine-vat) G3025	3	6.41	Press contexts

The LXX uniformly flattens the yayin/tirosh distinction by using οἶνος for both — one reason the nuance is lost in NT Greek readers unfamiliar with the Hebrew distribution. A handful of occurrences render tirosh with specific juice-terms (e.g. γένημα τῆς ἀμπέλου, μέθυσμα in varying contexts), but οἶνος is dominant. This LXX levelling underlies much of the interpretive difficulty: NT readers who approach "wine" through Greek do not see the Hebrew produce/drink split.