If you’re American, you’re probably familiar with the following first line from a famous patriotic song, the Battle Hymn of the Republic:
My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He rejects the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
The fatal sword of lightning destroyed the terrible Swift;
His truth is walking.
This poem was written by Julia Howe in 1861 after reviewing the American Union soldiers at the beginning of the Civil War.
You’ve probably also heard, if not necessarily read, the famous classic “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck.
What you probably don’t know, unless you are a biblical scholar, is what the word “grapes of wrath” means in biblical terms and in the history of this graphic image in the Bible.
If you search for biblical concordance, you will not find the exact phrase “grapes of wrath” in your Bible. In order to understand where this sentence comes from and to understand its real meaning, you need to look up the word for “torch” and then look to the verses that describe God’s judgment and wrath.
Biblical Report on the Grapes of Wrath #1: Isaiah 63:2-3
Why are your clothes red, like the soles of your feet?
I trod the press alone, the nations were not with me. I trampled them in my anger and I trampled them in my fury, my clothes were sprinkled and I stained all my clothes.”
Biblical Reference to the Grapes of Wrath #2: Joel 3:12-13
Let the nations arise, let them go to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for I will sit there to judge all the nations around.
bring forth the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread the grapes, for the press is full and the presses overflow: such is their wickedness!
Biblical Reference to the Grapes of Wrath #3: Revelation 14:17-20
Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he had a sharp sickle.
And another angel, who was on fire, came from the altar and cried with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle: “Take up your sharp sickle and gather the cluster grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.
The angel smashed his sickle into the ground, gathered his grapes, and sent it into the great press of God’s wrath. .
They were crushed in a press outside the city, and blood came out of the lake up to the bridles of the horses for a thousand furlongs.
In all these examples of grapes, people or nations are destroyed or judged by God because of their wickedness. In our Apocalypse we see the final future harvest of “grapes” (scoundrels). The author of the Battle Hymn for the Republic saw in the inevitable bloodshed and deaths of America a forerunner or Civil War a foreshadowing of this coming divine event when Jesus returns and he judges all the peoples and nations of the earth.
Blessings!
Sources
Mother of the Holy Bible. New International Version
Compton’s Holy Bible Vulgate Edition
