The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

wineskins

A bag for holding and dispensing wine, made from the skin of a goat or another animal (Job 32:19). In Bible times, wineskins were manufactured from whole animal hides.

Jesus used the analogy of wineskins to show that the Jewish legalism of the Old Testament was inflexible and outdated: "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined" (Mt 9:17; Mk 2:22; Lk 5:37-38).

The "old wineskins" of Judaism and legalism could not contain the dynamic new faith of Christianity and freedom.