No fewer than thirteen distinct Hebrew and Greek terms are rendered in our common version by the word 'wine.' Besides the pure juice of the grape, frequent mention is made in Scripture of a kind of boiled wine or syrup, the thickness of which rendered it necessary to mingle water with it previously to drinking (; ), and also of a mixed wine, made strong and inebriating by the addition of drugs, such as myrrh, mandragora, and opiates (; ). This custom has prevailed from the earliest ages, and is still extant in the East. We are not, however, to conclude that all mixed wine was pernicious or improper. There were two very opposite purposes sought by the mixture of drinks. While the wicked sought out a drugged mixture, and was 'mighty to mingle strong drink,' Wisdom, on the contrary, mingled her wine with water or with milk (; ) merely to dilute it and make it properly drinkable. Of the latter mixture Wisdom invites the people to drink freely, but on the use of the former an emphatic woe is pronounced. In , mention is made of 'wines on the lees.' The original signifies 'preserves' or 'jellies,' and is supposed to refer to the wine cakes which are esteemed a great delicacy in the East.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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