Albert Barnes Commentary Matthew 9:17

"Neither do [men] put new wine into old wine-skins: else the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins, and both are preserved." — Matthew 9:17 (ASV)

Neither do men put new wine, etc. The third illustration was taken from wine put into bottles. In eastern nations, bottles were, and still are, made from the skins of beasts. Generally, the skin was taken whole from a sheep or a goat and, when properly prepared, was filled with wine or water.

These bottles are still used because, when crossing sandy deserts, people have no other means of transport than camels or other beasts of burden. It would be difficult for them to carry glass bottles or kegs on these animals. Therefore, they fill two skins, fasten them together, lay them across a camel’s back, and thus carry wine or water a great distance.

They were, of course, of different sizes, as the skins of kids, goats, or oxen might be used. Bruce describes in particular a bottle he saw in Arabia, made in this manner from an ox-skin, which would hold sixty gallons, and two of which were a load for a camel.

Through long use, however, they, of course, became tender and would be easily ruptured. New wine put into them would ferment, swell, and burst them open. New skins or bottles would yield to the fermenting wine and be strong enough to hold it from bursting. So, Christ says, there is a fitness or propriety of things. It is not fit that His doctrine should be attached to, or connected with, the old and corrupt doctrines of the Pharisees. New things should be put together and made to match.

This account of eastern bottles may illustrate the following passages in the Bible. The Gibeonites took wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up, (Joshua 9:4). My belly is ready to burst, like new bottles, (Job 32:19). I am become like a bottle in the smoke, (Psalms 119:83); that is, like a skin bottle hung up in a smoky tent. The preceding illustration is copied from a fragment of the Antiquities of Herculaneum and represents a young woman pouring wine from a bottle into a cup.