The last instruction to Timothy to keep himself pure is of a very personal nature, and this leads to another admonition that is also personal, namely, about the mixing of wine and water for the sake of Timothy’s health. The motivation for this interesting instruction is Timothy’s frequent ailments that seem to be related to a stomach problem. This relationship is possible especially if one interprets the expression for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments as a hendiadys, that is, as two related parts connected by the connective “and,” with one part defining or qualifying the other. In this case the frequent ailments of Timothy are directly related to the condition of his stomach, hence “frequent stomach ailments.” What this stomach ailment is cannot be determined; what is certain is that it is related to water consumption, with water either causing the sickness or making it worse. Pure and germ-free drinking water is of course a modern phenomenon and perhaps unknown during the time of the writing of the Pastoral Letters. Since water is related to Timothy’s stomach ailment, he is admonished to no longer drink just water, but water mixed with a little wine, and that he should implement this practice immediately (the Greek can be rendered “from now on”; note that drinking much wine is discouraged in 3.8). The wine of course would be fermented, and the alcohol content would act as a purifying agent. It was in fact recognized at that time that wine was effective as a tonic and as an antidote to the effects of impure water.

Translators need to be careful to translate wine here as fermented wine, not grape juice that would be sweet and would have the effect of aggravating rather than relieving Timothy’s stomach ailment. For comments on the translation of wine, see the discussion on “drunkard” in 3.3.

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to Timothy. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .