Jeremiah 31.27-34: There's Nothing Good About Sour Grapes

No longer will one generation suffer for what their ancestors did. In the days that are surely coming, self-responsibility is the name of the game. If your teeth are on edge it's because YOU ate sour grapes (Jeremiah 31:27-34) not because one of your ancestors did. That seems fair.

But another cultural take on sour grapes has to do with not eating the grapes. Aesop's fable about the fox and the grapes gives us the contemporary meaning of "sour grapes." In the fable, the fox sees a bunch of beautiful grapes hanging from a vine that is intertwined with tree branches. The grapes look delicious, so the fox jumps to grab the bunch in his mouth. He wasn't even close. So he stepped back, ran toward the tree and leaped at the last minute. Still nothing. A third attempt. No grapes. So the fox sat and looked again at the bunch. He walked away from the tree and the grapes saying (in paraphrase), "You know, they are probably sour anyway." It's easy to despise what you can't get. That's the moral of the fable.

The Fox and the Grapes. Watercolor. For the artist's Etsy shop, click here.

So is it getting the sour grapes that sets teeth on edge? Or is it not getting the grapes that sets your teeth on edge? Either way, there doesn't seem to be anything good about sour grapes. 

For thoughts on Jeremiah 31:31-34, click here.

For thoughts on Luke 18:1-8, click here.

Psalm 80.1-2, 18-19: Ancient Vines, Ancient Cultures

Psalm 80 (verse 8) speaks of a vine, and Isaiah 5:1-7 uses the image of a vineyard. The Psalm calls upon the shepherd of Israel to remember the vine that was brought out of Egypt. One wonders about the mixed metaphor of God as shepherd and the nation as vine/vineyard, but the juxtaposition made me wonder, could the undifferentiated "vine" in Psalm 80 be a grape vine, which could be brought out of Egypt and beget a vineyard in Israel? Were there grapevines in Egypt?

Spoiler alert: yes. And no.

The cultivation of vines was certainly known in Egypt by the time of an ancient Egyptian official named Nakht. The walls of his tomb in Thebes is covered with paintings, including the one below that shows people tending grapes on the vine, stomping the grapes, performing the ancient equivalent of "bottling" the wine.

Tomb of Nakht. Wall painting. Thebes, Egypt. 

In an interesting twist, though, it may be that the (grape)vine that was brought out of Egypt came from Palestine in the first place. In time, there was a thriving wine business in Egypt, but archaeological finds have led to some questions about the origin of the industry. Clay jars found in the tomb of an early Egyptian king (possibly known as Scorpion I) were analyzed to determine the origin of the clay. The jars matched no identifiable Egyptian clay. It did, however, match clays associated with the southern coastal plain and lowlands of Israel. There is evidence that this region did practice grapevine transplanting.

So the psalmist sang of the vine that God brought out of Egypt and planted in Israel. Getting to the land of promise seems really to be a homecoming.

You can read more about wine, wine jars, and the possibility of an Israel-ancient Egypt wine connection here.

For thoughts on clouds in Luke 12:49-56 and Hebrews 11:29-12:2, click here.
For thoughts on the vineyard of Isaiah 5:1-7, see Art&Faith Matters on Facebook.