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“to dream” is used of human dreams. Gen. 28:12, the first occurrence, tells how Jacob
“dreamed” that he beheld a ladder to heaven.
TO DRINK
(
"
, 8354), “to drink.” This verb appears in nearly every Semitic language,
although in biblical Aramaic it is not attested as a verb (the noun form
does
appear). Biblical Hebrew attests
at every period and about 215 times.
This verb primarily means “to drink” or “to consume a liquid,” and is used of
inanimate subjects, as well as of persons or animals. The verb
%
which is closely
related to
in meaning, often appears both with animate and inanimate subjects.
The first occurrence of
reports that Noah “drank of the wine, and was drunken”
(Gen. 9:21). Animals also “drink”: “I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have
done drinking” (Gen. 24:19). God says He does not “drink the blood of goats” (Ps.
50:13).
“To drink a cup” is a metaphor for consuming all that a cup may contain (Isa. 51:17).
Not only liquids may be drunk, since
is used figuratively of “drinking” iniquity:
“How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?”
(Job 15:16). Only infrequently is this verb used of inanimate subjects, as in Deut. 11:11:
“But the land, whither ye go to possess it … drinketh water of the rain of heaven.…”
-
may also be used of the initial act of “taking in” a liquid: “Is not this it in
which my lord drinketh …?” (Gen. 44:5). “To drink” from a cup does not necessarily
involve consuming what is drunk. Therefore, this passage uses
of “drinking in,”
and not of the entire process of consuming a liquid.
This word may be used of a communal activity: “And they went out into … the house
of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech” (Judg. 9:27). The phrase “eat
and drink” may mean “to eat a meal”: “And they did eat and drink, he and the men that
were with him, and tarried all night …” (Gen. 24:54). This verb sometimes means “to
banquet” (which included many activities in addition to just eating and drinking), or
“participating in a feast”: “… Behold, they eat and drink before him, and say, God save
king Adonijah” (1 Kings 1:25). In one case,
by itself means “to participate in a
feast”: “So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared” (Esth.
5:5).
The phrase, “eating and drinking,” may signify a religious meal—i.e., a communion
meal with God. The seventy elders on Mt. Sinai “saw God, and did eat and drink” (Exod.
24:11). By this act, they were sacramentally united with God (cf. 1 Cor. 10:19). In
contrast to this communion with the true God, the people at the foot of the mountain
communed with a false god—they “sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play”
(Exod. 32:6). When Moses stood before God, however, he ate nothing during the entire
forty days and nights (Exod. 34:28). His communion was face-to-face rather than through
a common meal.
Priests were commanded to practice a partial fast when they served before God—they
were not to drink wine or strong drink (Lev. 10:9). They and all Israel were to eat no
unclean thing. These conditions were stricter for Nazirites, who lived constantly before