Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 5:39

"And no man having drunk old [wine] desireth new; for he saith, The old is good." — Luke 5:39 (ASV)

No man also having drunk old wine.—This addition is peculiar to Luke, and accordingly calls for distinct notice. The interpretation of the imagery is not difficult to find. The old wine is the principle—in spiritual things, the religion—that animated the man’s former life. In relation to those immediately addressed, it represented the motive-power of the Law in its rigid and Pharisaic form. The new wine, as in the Notes on the previous parables, is the freer, nobler, life-power of the gospel. It was not surprising that men accustomed to the older system should be unwilling to embrace the new, thinking it stronger and more potent than they could bear. The words are spoken in a tone of something like a tolerant pity for the prejudices of age and custom.

The old is better.—The better manuscripts simply give “the old is good,” the adjective partly implying the sense of “mild.” It is not the same as the good wine of the miracle at Cana (John 2:10). It is doubtful, indeed, whether the Jews attached the same value that we do to the mellowed flavour given to wine by age. New or sweet wine, drunk within a year or so of fermentation, would seem to have been the favourite delicacy (Nehemiah 10:39; Proverbs 3:10; Hosea 4:11; Haggai 1:11, and others), though men of weak constitutions might shrink from its effects, as the Pharisees were shrinking from the freedom of which our Lord set the example. Not altogether without significance, as bearing on this passage, is the fact recorded by Luke (Acts 2:13), that the first workings of the Pentecostal gift led men to speak of the disciples as full of new wine.