14:19a
swung his sickle over the earth: The angel probably swung his sickle close to the ground. He swung it over the whole earth. He did not swing it to hit the earth.
14:19b
the great winepress of God’s wrath: There are two ways to interpret the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as great :
(1) The word great describes the size of the winepress. For example:
a huge winepress, the winepress of God’s anger (New Jerusalem Bible)
(2) The word great describes the size of God’s anger. For example:
the wine press of God’s furious anger (Good News Translation)
It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
winepress of God’s wrath: In the Old Testament the winepress represents God judging evildoers (for example Isaiah 63:3–4 and Lamentations 1:15). Grapes are crushed in a winepress. Likewise God will punish evildoers. Another way to translate this is:
winepress that represents God’s great anger
winepress: At that time, a winepress was a hole dug in soft stone. People stomped or stood on the grapes to squeeze the juice out. The winepress had an outlet from which people collected the grape juice. The juice was made into wine.
In some languages people are not familiar with winepresses. If that is true in your language, you may want to:
• Describe the winepress. For example:
place to make grape juice/wine
-or-
place to crush grapes in order to get the juice
• Use the major language word. If people are not familiar with this word, explain it in a footnote. Some example footnotes are:
At that time, a winepress was a hole dug into soft stone. People crushed grapes in it and collected the juice.
-or-
At that time, a winepress was a hole dug in soft stone. Grapes were crushed in it. The winepress had an outlet to let people collect the grape juice. The grape juice was made into wine. Here it is a picture of God’s judgment against evildoers (Isaiah 63:3, Lamentations 1:15, Joel 3:13).
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