Read & Study the Bible Online - Bible Portal
William Barclay

William Barclay's Daily Study Bible - Luke 5:36-39

5:36-39 He spoke a parable to them like this: "Nobody puts a patch from a new garment on an old garment. If he does the new will tear it and the patch from the new will not match the old. No one puts new wine into old skins. If he does the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new skins, and no one who drinks old wine wishes for new for he says, 'The old is good.'" There is in religious people a kind of passion for... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Luke 5:39

No man also having drunk old wine ,.... "Wine", though not in the text, is rightly supplied by our translators, as it is by the Syriac and Persic versions: straightway desireth new ; new wine: for he saith, the old is better ; old wine is more grateful, more generous, and more reviving to the spirits, than new wine is. This is a proverbial expression, and which Luke only records; which may be applied to natural men, who having drunk the old wine of their carnal lusts and pleasures,... read more

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible - Luke 5:39

The old is better - ΧρηϚοτερος - Is more agreeable to the taste or palate. Herodotus, the scholiast on Aristophanes, and Homer, use the word in this sense. See Raphelius. The old wine, among the rabbins, was the wine of three leaves; that is, wine three years old; because, from the time that the vine had produced that wine, it had put forth its leaves three times. See Lightfoot. The miraculous draught of fishes, the cleansing of the leper, the healing of the paralytic person, the calling... read more

John Calvin

John Calvin's Commentary on the Bible - Luke 5:39

Verse 39 Luke 5:39.And no person who has drunk old wine. This statement is given by Luke alone, and is undoubtedly connected with the preceding discourse. Though commentators have tortured it in a variety of ways, I take it simply as a warning to the Pharisees not to attach undue importance to a received custom. For how comes it that wine, the taste of which remains unaltered, is not equally agreeable to every palate, but because custom and habit form the taste? Hence it follows, that Christ’s... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Luke 5:1-39

The association of Jesus and these chosen men seems to have commenced as follows: Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew (sons of Jona), John and James (the sons of Zebedee and Salome), belonged to fisher families dwelling on the banks of the Lake of Gennesaret. They seemed to have been fast friends, at times even partners in their occupation. Sharers with many others of the youth of Israel of their time, in a passionate hope that the hour of the long-promised deliverance from the yoke of... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Luke 5:27-39

The call of Levi, and the subsequent banquet. We noticed how, at the healing of the paralytic, there was a critical assemblage. Secretly did they impugn the absolution pronounced by the Master, and publicly were they refuted. Immediately after, it would seem from all the accounts, Jesus takes the bold step of calling a publican to become his disciple. It was a throwing down of the gauntlet to his enemies. It was taking up a man whom they had excommunicated and despised, and so bringing the... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Luke 5:30-39

The new and the old. Two classes of persons are amazed and offended—those to whom old ways and recognized canons of respectability were of the very essence of the religious life; and those whose minds occupied a sort of intermediate position, who had so far broken from the old, but had not yet received the spirit of the new time which had begun in Galilee. Here is this Rabbi, whose fame has spread far and wide, who is undoubtedly possessed of marvellous powers, associating with persons... read more

Spence, H. D. M., etc.

The Pulpit Commentary - Luke 5:39

No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better . St. Luke alone of the first three evangelists who related in detail this most important reply of Jesus when the disciples of John and the Pharisees came to question him, adds this curious simile. The meaning of the parable-pictures of the new patch being sewn on an old garment, and of new wine being poured into worn-out, decaying wine-skins, was very plain. Pitilessly severe it would ring in the... read more

Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible - Luke 5:33-39

See this passage illustrated in the notes at Matthew 9:14-17.Luke 5:39Having drunk old wine ... - Wine increases its strength and flavor, and its mildness and mellowness, by age, and the old is therefore preferable. They who had tasted such mild and mellow wine would not readily drink the comparatively sour and astringent juice of the grape as it came from the press. The meaning of this proverb in this place seems to be this: You Pharisees wish to draw my disciples to the “austere” and “rigid”... read more

Group of Brands